Long Pails Poems
Long Pails Poems. Below are the most popular long Pails by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Pails poems by poem length and keyword.
This is the best beer I've ever had.
Yes, The best beer I've ever had.
No beer is really bad, but
This is the best beer I’ve ever had.
Beer’s invention was accidental I’m told.
Something about stored grain and mold.
Before the Sphinx, beer was made and sold;
And at times, more valuable than gold.
Drank my first beer while serving Uncle Sam.
Got drunk on ‘33' in Saigon, Vietnam.
By 19, I was a soldier becoming a man;
So, I drank ‘til I didn’t give a damn.
Since then, I’ve travelled the world all around;
And tasted each brew that I’ve found.
Most are named for people, animals or towns;
And are glorious shades of gold, red or brown.
There are pilsners, lagers and ales
Swilled from bottles, cans, mugs…even pails.
If you want to get drunk, you can’t fail.
Drink too much, you may end up in jail.
Drank Stegmaier in old Scranton town.
Folks bragged it was the "best around“.
I tried their Golden, their Porter, their Brown;
And I must say, their judgement is sound.
In Ireland, the Guinness is Stout.
‘Tis a brew those Micks can’t live without.
In the pubs, they all sing and shout;
Until, eventually, they're all drunken louts.
In old Germany, there are too many to choose.
Every Berg and Stein make their own brews.
I tried each one on the Rhine river cruise.
So many to taste. How could I lose?
I enjoyed Sapporo in Tokyo, Japan;
Served by a Geisha at the wave of my hand.
The Singh Hai in Bangkok was grand,
As was the Ninkasi in ancient Tehran.
Tried a lager called Foster’s down under.
Drank too many. My head pounded like thunder.
They say Foster's once laid Dundee asunder;
But they love it… though you may wonder.
Enjoyed Red Stripe on Jamaican shores
And each one tasted like more.
A local beauty I was hoping to score;
But next morning, my head was so sore.
Henry Hudson’s serves Budweiser Light.
It’s weak, so you can drink it all night.
Yes, it takes quite a bit to get “tight”;
But it’s cheap and that makes it alright.
Yes, beer is a beverage so grand,
One of God's greatest gifts to man.
When life gets too tough to stand,
Just open a chilled bottle or can.
This is the best beer I’ve ever had.
When I arrived I was down and quite sad;
After just two or three, life isn't so bad.
This is the best beer I’ve ever had.
Yes, the best beer I've ever had.
Calm, cool mornings
Blessed with sunlight’s whisper,
Birds crooning softly in the distance,
Breathless dewdrops sliding hastily over
A petal, treasuring the promise of rain,
Hesitating then pouring down from heaven
In pails of beating BBs, little treasures
Telling of the adventures…
Mists rising on the river,
Inhaling the beautiful blessings,
Rich colors, blushing with the sounds,
Bubbling waters caressing the smooth stones,
Erasing the yesterday – the melancholy
Bleeding away, like plasma torn from her wounds,
Descending from the darkness,
Aching like the moon who remembers –
Graceful praises, heartfelt moments
The blending of acres of hope and a heritage
Blazing with joy – kindness – nostalgia
Her heart hears the heavens opening up,
Awakening on the autumn – glowing
Like stars who glisten in the distance, friendly
With the moon and just as beautiful as the moment
When a silent wish breathes through the distance,
Mystifying – freeing the friends to remember –
Just remember….
The hopes and dreams, the prayers and freedom
Filling the moments, the summer – the fall,
Binding up desires with graceful tunes, melodies
Pouring from the moments, rich with truth,
Ablaze with a beautiful that is shining like the
Moments, the reflections full of hope,
The inspirations growing in the hearts who know
This is the memory beyond recollections…
It is the heart, the soul, the direction
Taken by two who are bound by faith, grace
Unending beautiful – friends for life,
Living on the echo of prayers who remember
To reach past the darkness into the healing
The feeling embracing each remembrance
Two lights, two hearts, two joys who will never
Be past – they will always last – in the soul
Who knows that love just keeps going – going
Forever more, inside the heart who grows
More beautiful with each harvest time!
Thanks to love, I know the beautiful of nostalgia,
The beautiful of remembering – beautiful descending
From the promise of a wonderful who breathes –
Wishes and radiates friendship!
(French terms to know: arabesque (ar-a-besk) stand on one leg, other leg extended back
with knee straight, arms out; pirouette (peer-oo-et) a full turn of the body on the top of
the toe or the ball of the foot; releve' (rel-vay) rise up from the whole foot onto the
ball of the foot; demi plie' (dem-ee plee-ay) half bend of the knees; port de bras
(por-de-bra) continual movement of the arms through a series of positions; fouette
(foo-ay-tay) series of turns on one leg, the other leg extending rapidly to side and
whipping around body; glissade (glee-sade) a connecting sliding step
When corrals turn to mush
and all dirt roads are slush,
springtime has arrived at our place.
The challenge begins
since I'm sans webs or fins
to walk outside with upright grace.
I don my galoshes
and cov'ralls that washes
to feed stock that wait in the lots.
By the time I return
I will honestly earn
my decor of brown and green spots.
As I step in the slop,
my galoshes do flop,
as ankle-deep mud gets a grip.
In slow forward motion
I ease through this potion,
resisting the muck's pull to slip.
I feed several hay bales
and balance two grain pails,
while working my way through the soup.
But before I am through
I'll lose one boot or two
from suction of that muddy goop.
THWOOP!
My foot's poised in the air
as I (gasp) balance up there.
I execute an arabesque,
a slow pirouette
so I shan't get all wet.
What I need is a chair or a desk!
My predicament here
since my boot is so near
is to turn it around in the slop.
My balance must hold
while my foot's in this mold
and fearing my body will drop.
A controlled releve'
and demi plie'
are more than my posture can stand.
A wild port de bras
while I desperately claw
finds me catching the ground with my hand.
I snap a fouette'
and turn the other way.
I manage a slippery glissade.
For it's not every day
you see Muck Dance Ballet--
just when ankle deep mud makes you wade.
Copyright Terry Henderson
terryhenderson.net
Before my wife and I
Broke out of our shell
For spring break in Miami
Just the two of us on our first vacation in 30 years
All our kids wished us well
Though I detected an ache in their voices
“Next time!” one of my boys said in a farewell text
Next time, I said to myself
I’d love that, a next time
My oldest, Hannah, said she remembered a lightning storm
Raging over the evening ocean
From our beachfront condo balcony
And the Goodyear blimp
Swallowing our entire wall of windows
With its silver billow and pilots waving
Face to face
On a sunny day
To us
In the condo we had no business renting
Those long ago times when I was still Daddy
And Kerri was Mommy
Worried about footprints in the sand
And where to hide the Marlboro Light 100s
Remember them?
The good old days
When we were an octopus coordinating seven days
From sunrise to sunset
Those tiny four lives fit to the scale of our hands
I don’t think we ever quite got it right
Nudging our kids through the tide of time
Soaked in salt and sun
And their little drooping bathing suits
Throwing a red ball to the fetching gloves
Of the turquoise waves
Plastic yellow shovels and pails
Hung from their hands
Mimicking the divinity of their very flawed parents
Told them the story of when I was a kid
Down here
My mom and dad let me swim
By moonlight in the ocean
(This is the pre-Jaws era)
And when I came out of the water
A Man-O-War was wrapped around my leg
I screamed in agony all night
My mom saying, I don’t know what else to do
I don’t know what else to do Bobby
So now I remember the welts of the electric tentacles
That storm over the ocean
Dug up from Hannah’s own memory
I could see it too
My wife and kids’ huddled faces
Peeking through the curtains of clouds
The six of us
Sunburned and tired just before bed
Framed forever in that upper floor of windows
The bolts of lightning
Streaking down to the shore
Striking
The turtle shell of the tumultuous sea.
Another storm threatens to come in,
feeling my responsibility
for uncaring
and unresponsive history
Fearing you
more than loving us
Setting out your pails
and plastic tubs
to catch cold
and dreary drips
Impaled remembering
past wet enemies
becoming darker spots
as moist tears terrorize,
building mold untold
as yet
by angry contagious lips
Dripping windowed frame ups
and ceiling fractured fixtures
of your felt losses
not equally carried
by more comforted me
opaque with more tender crosses
Buried
in how lonely
love can feel
hidden in Earth's evolving top,
improbable to see
Our together threatening
leaky roof may drown,
which you would have fixed
some months ago,
if you could do so
on your own.
This storm pauses
and brighter rays suggest
a sun still shining
behind dark uncivil distress
Clouds could uncover
our disassociation,
poor and hovering
coveting a sun-drenched recreation
Calculating our assurance cost in cash,
but not in minds and bodies
to stop stormy smothers
of inside raining
draining issues,
deep core tissues
thundering crash
Warning we must get this done
before another wild wet storm
fearing you
more than loving us,
undone
Darker clouds build to leak again
while I explain why
you still can't trust me
to invest in unstormed peace
A contenting roof
unconditionally solid
and synergetically done
So all EarthTribe
can safely put away our pails
and nails,
defensive weapons,
buckets,
overflowing pans
and spans of climate panic
Now rumbling receding thunder
of fearing you
more than loving us
Turns toward replacing damaged health,
repriming stains repainting wealth
of more warmly wild respect
while together musing
about who is bare surviving
so not win/win thriving
with what prestorming care,
Remembering who is dry
and fair
and prosperous
and why
we fear this tragic cold calculating storm
more than loving softly weathered
wet yet warm.
Dear Sisters, because we are one
in that we share our DNA,
I put you all together as the “You,” that I love.
I love you for the fact that we all were raised together,
facing every turbulent event in our mother’s younger years:
the days she suffered with a mentally ill husband -
the father we adored who did not know how to love us back.
Together we played in our own private world,
comforting each other as our mother weathered storms
which eventually caused her to flee back to her home in the Midwest.
I recall our days on our grandparents’ farm -
the walks along the lane bordered by raspberry bushes
where we filled our pails eagerly with berries,
arriving home with red berry faces!
The games we played, the way we raced
through Grandpa’s corn fields, discovering
secret meadows and streams.
I recall the days when we moved with our mother to town.
How we walked everywhere we went without a car:
the walks in frigid temperature, the walks holding bags of groceries
and getting lost sometimes as we accustomed ourselves
to our route to school.
I remember playing at the pool, swinging on swings
at parks and playing all the time with each other
and the friends we included as our social circle grew.
The day our mom remarried, we welcomed new children
into our circle of friendship, but nothing compares to
the original sisters, the ones who came from our mother’s womb.
Today we are all different in many little ways,
and yet we are also (in so many ways) the same!
The way we chortle or use our hands to gesture:
I see our mother in those things.
The way we talk and talk and talk.
Endless conversations, squabbles (which always end amicably),
and that deep understanding in each other’s eyes.
In your eyes, I see my mother and I see myself.
You, my sweet sisters, are the love of my life!
March 8, 2023
For the "For You, Love" Contest of Regina McIntosh
Open Letter to Thomas Jefferson
You sir, destination unknown, I dare
To address. A son of worthy causes
For land vast in majesty and vast as
Vast can be in matters of liberty;
With ideals so prim and suffused with
Philosophical forethought derived from
Your bumper harvest of keen knowledge from
Poetry to paleontology;
You the offspring of music and science,
Master of the whims of public forum,
Framer of destiny of the nation,
Bearer of the conscience of masses and
Winning hurdler of political kinks.
Now, the moldering public discourse is
Unbearable. One can no more cover
One’s nose. Nowhere is a silent shelter
From megaphone of ubiquitous din.
Where is a refuge? Simply, know not I.
I beseech you, sir, for learned counsel.
As thundering wildebeest migration
Clouds the slopes of national horizon:
Tulip of your acclaimed Law of Nature
Lies in the path of a roaring rampage.
I beg to ask, why uncanny tactile
Projections of your mind failed to measure
And forecast proneness to such afflictions.
Sir, you did not proscribe such maladies,
Or provide cautionary bells, at least.
Where have all the magistrates gone, I ask?
As I flip pages of your Summary View:
Prefaced by a motto of Cicero:
“It is the indispensable duty
Of supreme magistrate to consider
Himself as acting for community,
And obliged to support its dignity,
And assign to the people, with justice,
Their various rights, as he would remain
Faithful to the great trust reposed on him.”
Your pristine flora of the applied skills
In statesmanship and proper decorum
Is being supplanted by scurrilous
Scions of egocentric rhetoric.
Pails of justice are perceived as empty
By the parched sectors of land of plenty–
Await quenching rain of tenderness, but
Clouds of compassion remain unseeded.
Please forgive the outburst of my verses.
To rein my pen is to muzzle my soul.
Every cloud has silver lining
And with stories all untold
From the far off ocean chambers
From the far off foggy fold
On the puffs of summer zephyr
Come they rowing then unfold
Oceans, rivulets, ponds and Rivers
In the deeps of heart they hold
Sea and desert, heath and temple
On the mounts of elves and fay
In the lanes and yards of Hamlet
Pours they in night and day
Moon and Sun in Nature's wonder
Therest hide and seek play
Ladies cook number of dishes
Kids they row their paper boats
In the lanes in yards of houses
Rowan Thou O tiny boats!
Shepherds to the sheds returning
With the herds of sheep and goats
Cuckoo singth in the Bower
Leaves in showers come afloat
Peasants in the rainy season
Gather they for a debate
Nature's bounties, nature showers
Never under estimate
Wells and motors no more needed
In a glee they calculate
For it they had prayed in temples
For it they in burning noons
Poured watery pails on elders
And then burn the dolls they own
Then all kids they gathered therest
Then they weep and wail in vain
As if they had offered present
To the bounteous heaven's Lord
Shower unto us thy showers
From the sea of Eden yard
While elders , for His mercy
Bowed to him in morn in noon
Distribute they Pots of rice
In the wish of rainy boon
Hindus, Muslims , Sikhs and Christan
Done this all in my Punjab
Oh the days of summer whispers!
Come from mist! O days of yore!
Days of age are days so weary
With the glee they are in war;
I'll see you, scented phantoms
Thou are silent in thy lane
Mango, jasmine, beechen, birches
Scented scented in the rain
Gulls as hermits in the water
Standing in unending lane
In the houses, in this weather
hottest hottest tea and fritters
Winsome coke in awesome weather
With the gossip, sips they take
Rainy weather, rainy season
In this way they celebrate
Every cloud has silver lining
And with stories all untold
From the far off ocean chambers
From the far off foggy fold
On the puffs of summer zephyr
Come they rowing then unfold
Oceans, rivulets, ponds and Rivers
In the deeps of heart they hold
Sea and desert, heath and temple
On the mounts of elves and fay
In the lanes and yards of Hamlet
Pours they in night and day
Moon and Sun in Nature's wonder
Therest hide and seek play
Ladies cook number of dishes
Kids they row their paper boats
In the lanes in yards of houses
Rowan Thou O tiny boats!
Shepherds to the sheds returning
With the herds of sheep and goats
Cuckoo singth in the Bower
Leaves in showers come afloat
Peasants in the rainy season
Gather they for a debate
Nature's bounties, nature showers
Never under estimate
Wells and motors no more needed
In a glee they calculate
For it they had prayed in temples
For it they in burning noons
Poured watery pails on elders
And then burn the dolls they own
Then all kids they gathered therest
Then they weep and wail in vain
As if they had offered present
To the bounteous heaven's Lord
Shower unto us thy showers
From the sea of Eden yard
While elders , for His mercy
Bowed to him in morn in noon
Distribute they Pots of rice
In the wish of rainy boon
Hindus, Muslims , Sikhs and Christan
Done this all in my Punjab
Oh the days of summer whispers!
Come from mist! O days of yore!
Days of age are days so weary
With the glee they are in war;
I'll see you, scented phantoms
Thou are silent in thy lane
Mango, jasmine, beechen, birches
Scented scented in the rain
Gulls as hermits in the water
Standing in unending lane
In the houses, in this weather
hottest hottest tea and fritters
Winsome coke in awesome weather
With the gossip, sips they take
Rainy weather, rainy season
In this way they celebrate
On either side
Of a crowded family dinner table
There are signs of ambition and resentment
Success and failure
Marked by those who pass
The plate
And those who only take.
A lighter than air blimp
Floated
Lazy circles
High above a City
Of breadlines desperation
As New York struggled
Through the Great Depression.
Hank was tough
Self reliant and hungry
Eager to impress
He washed
And waxed
His uncle’s car
Calloused hands
Carefully caressing
The sleek curves
Of a 1938 V16 Caddy.
Catching his reflection
In the chrome grill work
He ignored
The rough lines
In his face
Focusing instead
On the money
And power behind
The car.
Wet sponge
Going up and down
The rich’s man car
Sweat pouring down his neck
Pails of water
Clanging an alarm
Under an August sun
Having never owned a car
Hank
Was dismayed
When the wax
Clouded
Up
In the summer heat.
Well dressed
Republican
Hands on hips
Uncle was upset
At what he saw
Incompetence
Was wasted time.
The sudsy water
Drained away
Any hopes of
Hank getting a job
In his uncle’s firm.
The Depression was a disaster
For some it came sooner
For Uncle it came later
Packing a surprise punch
That was catastrophic
Uncle lost everything.
The house
The fancy parties
And the ‘38 Caddy with dual spare tires mounted on each front
Gone for pennies on the dollar.
Ever resourceful
Hank got a job as a clerk
In the US Patent Office
One day
He realized
Beef and potatoes
On a modest clerk’s salary
Tasted better than Uncle’s lavish dinners
The seeds of disappointment
From that summer’s day
Occasionally came back
To remind him what was meant to be
Thinking of his red faced Uncle
In a starched shirt
On that hot August afternoon
Hank broke into a wide grin
And ordered another plate of beef stew.