Long Persisted Poems
Long Persisted Poems. Below are the most popular long Persisted by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Persisted poems by poem length and keyword.
The first heart attack was quite mild:
he put it down to indigestion
at first, but the pain persisted.
Some pills and lectures on lifestyle changes
followed the stay in hospital.
Yes, he'd try to stop smoking, he said,
and to cut out the fatty foods.
But the craving for cigarettes
was too strong and he secretly smoked,
while assuring me that he'd quit!
The next heart attack was much worse;
he really did try after that -
a fat-free diet was no fun
and nicotine patches were no help...
but he stuck to it for a while
(I think it was a week, maybe two).
Then I smelt the smoke on his clothes,
saw him wolfing down bacon sandwiches,
slyly like a naughty schoolboy.
By then I pretended I didn't know -
my nagging was killing him, he said.
The third heart attack finished him.
I'm heartbroken that his heart was broken...
She gathered the fractured
constellation of yesterday,
delicate and incandescent.
Each reminiscence pulsed
with a nacreous glow,
perched at the rim of her
awesomeness.
Sentimentality drifted
through her in gossamer
filaments, slow and weightless.
She followed the topography of
conversations that had evaporated
into quiet.
There were chronologies
inscribed in shared glances
and midnight confessions.
She refused to lacerate
what remained. She refused
to calcify the sorrow.
Instead She cradled the
poignant tableau with a
solemnity almost liturgical.
The frqgrance of vows
unkept hovered, elusive, like
vapor over still surfaces.
Every vault of her recollection
housed relics of an intertwined
existence.
Moments preserved in resin,
dialogues that reverberated,
seconds caught in amber light.
With an exhalation both
compassionate and irrevocable,
she stood from the place of
remembering.
She approached the boundary
where what-was and what is- hesitated
to converge.
She placed the remembrance down-
not discarded, not desecrated, only
unburdened.
An intentional abdication,
fluid as tides retreating from
shore.
No obliteration, merely the quiet
consent to stop shouldering its
gravity.
The ache did not dissolve. It
transmuted, became diaphranous.
It receded into the vaulted chambers
of chronology, a mural behind crystal.
She could still perceive it, radiant and
unhurried, without being tethered to it.
The yearning persisted, yet it no longer
orchestrated the rhythm of her gait.
Mourning had mellowed, like twillight
acquiescing to the arrival of darkness.
Beyond the world
proceeded in its sumptuous,
unremarkable cadence.
Breezes moved through
branches with a languid,
impartial benevolence.
She advanced and the atmosphere
did not implode in the wake of her
leaving.
There was expanse now- immense,
incandescent, and tremulously possible.
The recollection remained behind, archived
with care in the gallery of what she had
cherished.
And she continued onward,
bearing not the encumbrance,
the benison.
A serenity born from
allowing history to reside
where it belongs.
The first time a belt struck my bottom, I became haunted. Dad raised his voice. The ghost covered her bottom and pressed her back against my bedroom wall. Fear clung to my back. Dad didn't break in with a raised belt. By nine, I was too close to puberty with a sense of identity outside my parents. I could learn to speak up. Dad's threat of a spanking remained while my parents were married. The ghost persisted after I severed Dad's belt from me.
My parents divorced the same year Grandpa grew quiet. The memory of Dad's violence echoed under Grandpa's wheezes. Grandpa moved in when Dad was shoved out. I cut up Dad's belts. Mom abandoned Dad's junk on the curbside. The garbage collectors didn't get to trash Dad's stuff on Thursday morning. Grandpa was a welcome change in the former office. Mom and I didn't have to tiptoe past the door.
I was tasked with staying nearby in case Grandpa needed something. Mom told me to ignore his mumblings and to call her if he starts screaming. Grandpa's foster parents weren't nice. He had to be thankful for being fed, and their belt was his closest sibling. He remembered them the closer he got to death. He was peaceful when I was there. I like to believe it was because I was his favorite grandchild. But I couldn't ignore the ghost beside him. My ghost acknowledged him. He didn't do the same. The ghosts' dynamic refused to change. Grandpa and his ghost died. Our shared truth haunts me.
The vaccine is here
The day took a long time coming
the night persisted and only moved across the sea
heading for Northern Norway where the night
lasts for months.
The day was grey and in a bad mood showering
streets with rain making dead leaves slippery.
Every café, restaurants are closed, and the local
supermarket closes at one so, if you have not
bought food for Saturday and Sunday bully for you.
If people stay at home, it will reduce contagiousness
but the COVID-19 is not going away when
the lockdown is over it will, like the unseen wind,
go on the attack again.
Russia has a good vaccine as China has, but the big
pharma industries are against it, and they are more
powerful than a mere government.
For us, we just have to sit and wait.
"Life must be a preparation for a transition to another dimension"
Terrence McKenna
We’re told it’s an event but it’s really a process
That it all flashes before us the moment we die
If that is true then I die daily
Track with me please as I egress
I’ve done the homework and the flashes lie
Despite their intentions, however gaily
And what of a moment or what is a day
Have they ever existed anyway
Man-made gizmos to help us reset
A thing we chose for which we regret
Or an unkind deed we’d hoped you’d excuse
Nay, manifest sperms from a younger man’s muse
I’ve ne’er been clobbered over the head
Nor slowly digested by a cancer bed.
Just too much time ingesting life’s ****
Avoiding the high road as the cadence said
When you my good man were born
You joined the army of the marching dead
Sacred and sordid private vignettes
Pass my sight as on display
for my review, soldiers from another day
Eyes dripping with future regrets
They’re too damn familial to let me see
My father’s carcass laid in-state in side of me
Serendipidies, Synchronicities, one way flights
Fortunes traded for stronger nights
Fair turned foul and foul trumped fair
Angels and devils dance side by side
Naked and primal to an ancient aire.
Passion and convention kibitz and collide
When there was no God upon my breath
When I hooked up with Lady Macbeth
Ceasing to be I still existed
Duly seduced by the good witch’s whispers
No epilogue in a comedy of manners
The plot became kitsch but so it persisted
Days will come when you’ll put it on paper
Sweating your numbers and so obsess
You soon start surfing on a yestertide
Their breath can reek of a lecherous vapor
And their flashes are but a vapor’s caress
Yet you, like me have survived
each day that you’ve died
Yes, I remember the day very well,
I left my cave in Cumaea for the palace of Palatine,
the sun was sullen behind a veil of volcanic cloud,
Tarquin, the final king of the Etruscan Romans
was handsome under his crown,
his eyes were lapis lazuli blue, his beard copper gold,
he was patient with a haughty grin,
I was received in the courtyard of the Temple Mars,
the fluted columns were tall as ancient timbers
and the sky was at war with the land,
even then my beauty was robust
I had the contours of Love's funerary vase
my face was fair as unblemished polished marble
my body smelled of exotic spice,
I came before the king
with business on my breath,
I was proffering my books of prophecy
like a witch who wastes no wonder
in the selling of spells to those suspicious of good and evil,
randomly, as fate can seem to be,
I picked and plucked verses
like wild irises and roses
hoping to enchant Tarquin's tastes
for that which may or may not be,
and although allured by the future on my lips
he scoffed at the price I persisted,
and each time he dared scoff
I threw another album on the fire,
as the ashes of my prophecy
flew quick and quiet all about
I deigned to read one more
which his heart could not refuse
to which he paid me the original price
before two thirds had burned,
For he who wears the inheritance of thorns
the keys of God he holds in palms...
J.A.B.
I need your advice the teacher said.
How can I control the parents?
I was speechless.
My brain was out of ideas.
I had nothing.
They are seriously evil, she told me.
Can you talk to them? Can you straighten them out?
Let’s put it this way, I told her.
There are some things that are out of our control.
You must focus on their goods, and ignore their faults.
They are horrible, she persisted.
Can you call them up? Let them know what they are doing wrong?
I feel sad for her, knowing now that I am not the only person
Who receives five emails of advice a day from her.
At least this makes them a bit more tolerable.
As evanescent as the mist
One morning disappeared in a boat
Without any trace
Leaving a plethora of remembrances
That persisted in the mind as a dulcet sound
A blue sapphire necklace was the symbol of
An invisible bond through the eternity
Doubts grew in the heart
Separating two twin souls
That once swore love forever
Keepsake letters were the symbol of the
Idyllic romance that bloomed under the moon
When sparks ignited, beginning gazes with
Rhapsodic rapture conveying feelings not
Expressed with words
The chrysalis emerged from the cocoon as a
Beautiful butterfly attracted to the fire
A diamond ring will be the talisman
That felicity transcends time
With a radiant smile
1-22-2016
Bound to the bark, it drank the rain,
And spread tendrils again and again
Unnoticed beauty, soft and deep,
While hurried, humans let affection sleep
They rush on by, with eyes averted,
A quiet presence, quite deserted
Their gaze on blossoms, bright and bold,
My subtle story left untold
But I persisted, strong and still,
My purpose held against their will
I nourished life, unseen, unheard,
A haven for love's tiniest of birds
So let them chase with fleeting grace,
After vibrant flowers that die in time and space
I am the bedrock, deep and low,
Where roots run strong, and secrets grow
They overlooked; they did not see,
the quiet worth that dwelled in me
And though they're gone, and seasons turn,
It will be their loss that they did not learn
On an ancient, gnarled oak's dark side,
Grew, a humble, verdant tide
Just a simple, protective green hue,
A silent witness, a moss heart forever true
I remember the first time I heard the word college, a word unheard most of my young life,
Asked my daddy what it meant, you do not need it he replied because you will be a wife.
I persisted this quest at the age of sixteen, because I knew teachers had to have it.
Quickly and fully understanding there was no money for it, unless I did my bit.
I worked after school every day, weekends too, at the local grocery store Old Blue.
Only spent one check in three years, and knew I would have to work the summers too.
Saved fifteen hundred dollars, should have gone to a junior college, instead of one with a U.
Thinking they all cost the same money, I kept working and saving a lot harder than I needed to.
Forty eight years later I have raised three daughters, none of them were ever told to wife.
They got their education young and fast, seeing the pain of mine as I went through all kinds of strife.
It took me twenty-five years to get my education, and they watched me struggle, hard and true.
We never wanted to work that hard, they told me, and my suffering helped them sail smoothly through.
Remembering back I do not blame daddy, his eight grade education fed and clothed us well.
As to any missed opportunities, I smile. My college degrees have taken me through heaven and hell.
Remembering that knowledge is power, and a work ethic is difficult to instill without work,
I am glad to say I lived a great life, that taught me to value an honest day, and did not allow me to shirk.
Remember Poetry Contest Sponsor: Shadow Hamilton Date: 9-3-2018