Long Pick at Poems
Long Pick at Poems. Below are the most popular long Pick at by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Pick at poems by poem length and keyword.
There are faces
that stare out of an inner dark
that are featureless and have
no name. They haunt memory,
some prodding a nerve
sending a regret off
in search of a home.
Others pick at a wound
not quite healed somewhere
in a hard to reach place
of a life. There are those
faces that are lost somewhere,
trapped in a moment,
unable to move on.
I never saw your face,
your brief existence covered over
by a label wearing the anonymity
of just a surname. That
was the way they did it back then,
stopper grief with denial.
Your lifetime was measured
in minutes. You would be
forty five this year.
My mind often fills
those years with dream,
wondering what we could
have done, the meaningful
and silly stuff a father usually
does with a son.
There is a place I sometimes
go to stare into the face
of an unfathomable silence.
I whisper a name
but there is no reply.
She's oil in the water, that refuses to blend
With a hair tie on her wrist, embracing the wind
Pleasantly dowdy, breaking rules out of spite
Above laws and limitations. She knows when she's right
Don't go and dare her, she'll do as you please
Just proof to herself, it's fit how she sees
She's never lukewarm, laid back or fickle
It's out of her norm, to feel, just a little
Emotions come in floods of passion and cause
Either, taking her breath, or not there at all
If her aloofness is bothersome and you're pained with concern
Ask and she'll admit, it was too insignificant to be learned
You can't make her debate over anything political
She doesn't care, either way. Not even a little
Her mind is closed shut, accepting no visitors
If you don't live inside, you don't exist to her
A small minded person? Not even close
Pick at her brain. She'll give you a dose
A hardy helping of knowledge, about what she pursues
accrued information. Advice you can use
Sure, she's a challenge from a different planet
She doesn't ask for acceptance, but will quickly demand it
This is her world, you're merely a guest
A Martian for entertainment at its very best
We have beef and noodles over mashed potatoes for Christmas.
There are many vegetables, the dieting adults pick at a few of them.
Rest of us gnaw on a variety of fudges, mints, and peanut brittle.
Frosted sugar cookies are a hit too at many of our Christmas tables.
When I was a child, we always had two or three pots of stew or soup.
Oyster stew for the adults, potato soup, and chili. Lots of crackers too.
Because there were so many of us, and soup spread around so fast.
Fruit cakes are usually included, but the last thing eaten.
We throw away almost no food after the family gathers.
Leftovers are collected, taken to those who cannot walk so well now.
Great grandma and great grandma, who are waiting for a quick visit.
A bunch of food at their house too, for they have eighteen children.
Great grandma’s table has turkey, chicken, beef, and salmon.
Salmon is unusual in the Midwest at Christmas time.
Everyone scoots things around to make room for the leftovers.
I'm scratching at the walls
I'm trying to break through.
There's a wall I won't scale
And a gate I won't pass.
I'm loosing my mind
I can't catch my breath.
Go through the motions
Don't let others know
I'm suffocating.
Clawing until my fingers are raw
There's always something else to do
Somewhere else to be
But I don't get to be me
I'm trapped by the judgments I pass
And those passed on me
I waste my time trying to pick at the lock
And when someone tries to open the door
It gets blocked.
There's only one way out
And I'm trying to force it.
Trying to break down the door
Is it unlocked?
It isn't
But isn't it comfortable to be trapped
Do nothing more than is expected
Even if I got out isn't there just another room?
What will be the next thing to trap me?
If you're trapped you don't have to make any choices.
You don't have to worry about what others think.
I'm trapped and it's my own doing.
I trap myself with thoughts of I'm not good enough
Thoughts of what if someone is better than me?
I'm trapped
And I hold the key.
Your conversation centers 'round,
Complaints of one kind or another.
I swear sometimes I think for sure,
You're someone's sainted mother.;
Or someone's maiden aunt, per chance,
Come back from the dead,
To punish me for all my sins,
And fill my life with dread.
You need me though, you know you do.
Without me who would listen,
To all the things you have to say,
All your pearls of wisdom.
You gripe about the world at large,
Politics, law, religion;
It seems to me that no one's safe,
From critical inspection.
You pick at me from morn to night,
About my faults and screw ups.
I'll never change, you know I won't,
So why don't you just shut up.
The mind has
its own bleak landscapes
that freeze the will,
confine the soul
to an inner space
no larger than the self.
I know such worlds
of ice - dark ones
that press against
the window and give
no light. I am familiar
with the howl
of its bitter winds
that pick at every crack
as if trying to get in.
I have felt
its icy grip tighten
almost to the point
where I could not
draw a breath.
I know too
of other places
in the mind, deeper ones
that plumb almost
to its source
and summon landscapes
of an inner calm where
there are trees,
wide undulating plains
and rivers winding
their glistening way
to the sea. Landscapes
that are drawn
from the sacred,
composed of poetry
and prayer and carry
the faint recollections
of a somewhere
not far and yet,
a lifetime away.
Winter’s body is a car boot sale, a mosaic of the seasons and shifts,
the breezes and breaths of a year’s footsteps, gone.
The battered wheels of a truck, spinning against morning frost, rotate into its eyes.
Berries, dropped by a robin mid-flight, are smushed and stretched to make fingertips.
Leaves colour and curl to form that receding hairline.
Winter is ambidextrous:
can wake in chill, just to later doze in warmth;
is neither gender, with its sex a fresh April daisy and an October mud pie;
has a diary’s dog-eared pages for scabs to pick at.
Puddles that freeze, melt, undulate, act as lungs: expanding. drip. decreasing. drip.
Toddlers’ mittens sewn to jackets decorate Winter’s mouth with a cross-stitched grin.
Winter has stained glass, fired in prayer, for flesh;
regurgitated cud as wrists.
It has clumped silt for a nose, dotted with freckles from sand;
vines that interrupt brick for hips.
Winter is not just winter but the culmination of a year,
with bark as its backbone: a spine that creaks, splinters and
protests against autumnal rheumatism, yet will
slip into a supple Spring bend with the gentle weave of a craftsman’s hand.
What do you do
when you’re riddled with riddles,
swallowed whole
right down the middle?
Music blares,
but it’s not me.
’Twas a toot or two
from a fiddle.
What do you do
when your riddles get riddled?
When you’re all alone
and you fiddle your diddle.
Nothing comes out
but a little
piddle.
Compulsively arranged
and out of control,
thought after thought
has swallowed me whole.
Riddled with feelings,
I pick at my mind,
looking for answers
that no one can find.
Can you connect the dots?
I’m trying to justify
whatever still rots.
Riddled with riddles,
discarded
like an afterthought.
Something’s not right here.
Something became
a knot.
On the easel of my horizon
Monet was painting
an autumn twilight,
but I watched as smoke
gray fingers
smeared his pastel
and my visions wisp-ed away
a god spoke of burning
the testament of life,
every single letter
of every verse,
now?
they feather to ash
on the breeze,
I burnt them,
I woke yester-year
with a poet in residence,
but today, today?
I awoke the scribbler
living on the nothing
of me
before each page
passed over the flames
and consumed in the
reaching fingers of black,
melting to mould
each strip of my flesh,
I close my eyes
and feel the ridge
of a word, a letter
I allowed them
to sear my palms,
I brush caked salt
from the corner
of my mouth,
as I handed each poem
to a quick death,
I read the Misery
of each page
that flares,
those black fingers
now curl black strips
of my mantel,
like scrapping paint
flaccid but not broken,
I pick at a piece of ash
in hopes of piecing,
a poet back together
but Monet has left
and I can only sketch
in the charcoal
with a god,
whispering in my ear,
that I must burn for nothing
Once upon a time, I saw a Candy List of more than forty types of candy. And would you believe that people were actually invited to enter a contest to pick at least 10 of their favorites from among such a list? Unbelievable! For crying out loud, what is this world coming to? It's just not fair for the 'sense of taste' to be tested like that. Why, if I were King, I would issue a decree to band such an endeavor.
I grew up eating a lot of BUTTERFINGER bars, and I would eat a MILKY WAY if it was my only choice, but I never really liked them. I have always loved coconut and just about every kind of nut there is. Saturate a column of coconut with almonds, cover them with chocolate, and the next thing you're chewing on is Peter Paul MOUNDS; or am I mistaking Peter and Paul for Amond Joys? A BABY RUTH candy bar was certainly at the top of my sweet list; and what's not to like about a peanut covered bar of candy called PAYDAY?
I cannot deny it and I dare not hide it. Not so much now, but way back then when sugar was looked upon less frowningly, I was a sucker for the TOOTSIE ROLL. I remember that the LEMONHEAD candies were a tad bitter, but the HOT TAMALES was a 'play around' kind of candy; and what could be better than playing and competing with a mouth 'on fire' with candy? LIFESAVERS and NOW AND LATER were among my kids' favorites, and the KIT KAT still ranks high on my candy list, but at the top of my 'sugar heap' are the SNICKERS.
Now back to the Candy List I mentioned at the beginning. Upon further investigation, I discovered that three of my favorites were not even on the list. Like boots were made for walking, the Lollipop and the Holloway candy sticks were made for licking and sucking. And it pains me to think about the fact that M&M Peanuts candy wasn't anywhere to be found. I'm not a king but if........
09212018PoSoupContest, How Sweet It Is, Carol Connell,3P