Long Planks Poems
Long Planks Poems. Below are the most popular long Planks by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Planks poems by poem length and keyword.
SCENES OF A CARELESS BOYHOOD
The sound of water,escaping dams
willows,old rotten planks,slimy
posts,brickwork,old timber props
wet ditches,sedges and silvery nets
towpaths without gates,horses that
tow barges collared with crimson fringe.
Wheat and thatched cottages and cornstacks
grasses in flower,bogrush bulrush and
teazle,so tall.Bindweed,wild carrot,
hemlock in bloom,cow parsley,plantain
bramble in June.
Poppy,thistle mallow
and hop.Purple heath,hills and swift
running streams,true clear freah and
brisk as champagne about to pop.
phrasis form ( From Constable letters to Rev John Fisher)
*A Phrasis is a structured verse where the poet uses selected prose phrases of another writer’s(not a poet) to compile unique poetry therefrom as a tribute thereto,the word phrasis is Greek for phrase.
Listen to me read this phrasis of mine on youtube under the name ichthys
“Fragments and crumbs of life, all the little pieces”
By John Ruskin 1853
All the tiny pieces of life blended together...
When I met you at amber sunset,
The gossamer light of the melting rays,
Fell on us ...beside the dock, with weathered grey planks,
I remembered everything what we lost!
The fragments, which I was never able to piece together,
The puzzles which would always stay mysterious,
You looked at me. In the shimmering light,
Our eyes met, in the cascade of love.
The world stood still, not a word
Around us, all hushed.
I remembered the soothing raindrops which drizzled us
I remembered the azure floating clouds,
Remembered the sprawled flower-petals with golden hues,
I remembered all -
All that matters in the twilight zone!
August 27, 2020
First Place
For All the little Pieces Contest
Sponsor: Constance La France
First Place
"All Yours (March 23)" Poetry Contest
Sponsor: Brian Strand
You Tube Link is not being allowed on the poem page.
The mad wind passed swiftly through the city showing mankind no pity, it captivate everything in its path, ripping up the cornfields, throwing down utility poles and opening up closed door. It circles around the creeks scaling sunlit mountains, mixing earth with stones and dressing the heavens with the gowns flying over the throne. It roots up the landfills, and settles beneath the foot of the hill circling, and twirling around for the eye that is set on the throne. It spews out a terrible sound reminding the people that destiny is around. It hisses and lashes, sending wooden planks over the bend and carrying the concrete a hundred meter down the lane.
The people run around the bend, looking for shelter underneath the altar but the mad wind drag them out and cause the entire town to jump and shout. It move ferociously around the pig pen and dances around the chicken coop, and drive the roosters from the roof, the ducks began to run too , wagging their bumpy tails and saying how do you do.
Zinc and pans, bucket and lamps crowd the street and debris flying in the air, landing in the bushes, and the middle of the streets, slowly erupting the town’s heart beat.The mad wind is moving towards the east, and I can finally get some peace. The sun is burning in the west, and I don’t have to fret, the fire is down to the wire and the vision is moving closer and some people are still looking for an answer.
I stand there breathlessly looking at the damages it left behind, overturned house fallen trees dug out road and overturned boats stalled cars in the middle of the street, and a temperature that lit up the street .Dead bodies floating in the rivers and screaming voices are heard from all places .People trapped onto of the roof and widow suck into the chimney with foot shaking up side down and head buried in the ground. The mad wind keeps moving leaving nothing unturned and the grey skies trembling in the sun leaving nothing undone and so the mad wind resides in the east.
I wonder how the trees feel when their leaves finally blow away,
Or when the baby birds nesting there grow old enough to give their mothers chase?
Sitting under her shade,
Do old trees feel pride when they’ve reached their resting age?
Patiently waiting paladins,
There’s thunder in my mind that contemplates,
Why is it that you can’t help but be selfless for all the rest of your days?
Maybe I could learn something from the trees as I hide from the Sun’s rays,
A slumber under your protection,
I wish I could thank you to your face.
I’m thankful for your creation,
I’m thankful you’ve never asked for your thanks.
I’m thankful for your patience,
I apologise for your brothers,
Memorialisised in the planks.
Tranquil,
I humbly offer libation.
I’m grateful for you,
Thanks.
5/13/26 8:03 pm
A perfect rectangular plot,
spanning nearly an acre,
its borders built from baby-blue planks
etched with soft phrases in looping, hopeful handwriting
the kind of words meant to soothe a trembling animal.
Inside, the world blooms loud.
Greenery swells in every direction,
vivid, bustling, almost holy,
as if Demeter herself had knelt here,
hands deep in the soil, whispering life awake.
Fruits drip with nectar sweet enough to ruin you.
Flowers flash colors stolen from the heavens
pinks, blues, purples, oranges, reds,
every shade that ever dared to exist.
Bees and butterflies circle like worshippers,
desperate to belong to something this gentle.
A path of flat, even stones invites me inward,
each one carved with a word of loving,
as if the garden already knows
I need convincing to stay.
I step into the oasis of color and breath,
birds greeting me with bright, charming song,
the air warm and soothing.
But then,
three steps in,
the chirping halts.
The sun strips itself from the sky.
The sweetness curdles in my throat.
The air turns sour.
The sky bruises dark.
And when I look again, really look,
the garden I trusted bares its claws.
Flowers open with carnivorous intent,
petals peeling back like jaws.
The soil reeks of iron
blood worked into fertilizer.
Roots lurch toward me,
Sensing the shame I thought I hid.
Vines coil tighter when I speak,
hissing like they know my secrets.
The gate slams behind me.
Locks itself.
And suddenly I’m trapped inside the place
I once believed was safe
a garden that now feeds on my regrets,
grows plump on my bloodshed,
thrives on the parts of me I never meant to show.
I am haunted by the realization
that the danger was never outside the fence.
It was always here,
waiting for me to step inside
and call it beautiful.
Black Powder Dreams
Vast o’ the seas carry forth desperations
Lives cast aside in the faces of war
Rotted wood planks, salted skin aspirations
Wind tattered sails bound of endless explore
Black powder dreams aft the end quarter season
Cannons at wait, closer still to the bow
Manned by the weak, none in need of a reason
Chilled to the bone, never wondering how
Darkened the depths beckon angry waves crashing
Bound to the rail by a pitch and a shove
Visions of loves and the homeland a’ flashing
Prayers slowly drowned before floating above
Scar rippled flesh, leathered treachery flailing
Shrieks in the night causing laughter below
Tethered by fear o’er the desolate wailing
Shadows await harbors safe to bestow
Compass point dangers adrift in the distance
Forced to push on to the end of the fall
Death shrouds belief in a fractured resistance
Down on their knees longing nothing at all
Endless the journey for pittance bled wages
Deaf to the thoughts found alone in the screams
Forever lost in the unopened pages
At the expense of their black powder dreams
11/7/18
Written for the: Black Powder Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Anthony Slausen
Whoever abandoned you in the middle of the ocean has no right to know what the sharks did to you or how you managed to reach the shore
However difficult the time , they had the chance to stay beside and help you afloat till your sail was up and high
But they chose to swim away at the first chance they got to a merry ship of any land
While you floated and built your boat on your own with drifting planks of lone
Did they care when the storm came
or sun burned through the sky
or ever wondered if you did found land
Would it bother them if sharks would have made you meat
or you had drowned with exhaustion in search of sand
What happened in the ocean now stands amidst time untold
The story of yours that made you strong and bold
Give gratitude to the universe that drifted you away
from those who left you in alone and cold !
It's a Langston Hughes kind of day
filled with dutiful hints of Robert frost
within the sudden humor and vague
eccentricity of Ernest hemmingway
the quiet freedom of Nikki Giovanni
with a cunning soul shaking enlightment
of Maya Angelo tinged with the noble
excitement of John keats as the clouds
move into this rapture an intriguing sheer
fondness of William butler Yeats while
the soft dem lights over the lake hits
my minds eye just so as I'm quite
taken by the sinking thoughts of
Virginia woolf beckoning my innermost
calm peeking through wooden slats
exposing the granduer of Gwendolyn Brooks
smile mastering greatness beneath broken
planks on the sunscreen porches even so
i dare change a thing about this glorious
day this Langston Hughes kind of day
A dangerous woman conceals her trepidation
Rapidly shifting eyes move from left to right
Squinting with strong winds along the harbor dock
It is not the weather or the dark that causes shivering
She conspicuously hides a bloodied knife
Under a blackened cape while trembling
Old age hides evil beneath a fabricated dress
Evil eyes below the hood
A lie waits on her tongue to spit at passers by
Ready to fire off profanities like spotted poison
Was that a dead man rolled in the ocean
Water is cold this time of year below the planks
Another person might be inclined to walk away
Thinking perhaps it was nothing they had seen
Witnesses have short life expectancies
This girl will not be taken home to mother
It looks suspicious no matter how you look at it
As far as we can see the harbor dock is soaked
Perhaps in darkness, perhaps in blood, or poor lighting
Skews the vision on the scene
She quiets her self down to the insinuated crime
Covers the harbor with grungy diverted eyes
A sharp object in her garment is unseen
Gives no alarm and the smile declares her innocence
Expectations run high with charm on harbor tides
A man might be inclined to walk away enchanted
Say nothing but good evening as he passes
But… What is that emerging from her person
Overlooking the harbor questions linger
Hang over everything we think is simple
Something solid, silver like, emerges from her cape
Another soul escapes, rolls off the dock if I'm not mistaken
A diesel generator
drowns out the rusted Marshall stack
Six years we owned
the Billboard charts;
the DJ who crowned us
every summer
for five straight years—
this week, a county fair;
tonight, the Music Pier.
The drummer tapes two split fingers
closes his hand once
hard—
then rests the sticks
by Mick’s ashes
in a Folgers Black Silk can behind the kit
Tommy’s gold sequins
snag on his dialysis catheter
as he sits
Johnnie the P-bassist drags a stool onstage
to ease his neuropathy
We are crushed elderberries
hawking CDs from a card table,
bleeding a dark, tart stain
onto ninety aluminum chairs
No teenagers weep;
a man wipes funnel-cake grease
from his chin
As I tune the cherry-red '57 Stratocaster
down a minor third,
hoarse from pushing air
through a throat scraped thick
with scar tissue
We were a dense, golden field
beneath the studio lights
on Midnight Special
Now plucked dandelion crowns
scatter over Ferris wheel blacktop,
leaving white ghost-tufts
snagged in the Music Pier’s
boardwalk planks
Where just three bald stems
plug into the seaside damp—
and the seeds drift past the shoreline,
washed up,
vanishing into the deep
we used to call home