Long Playing Poems

Long Playing Poems. Below are the most popular long Playing by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Playing poems by poem length and keyword.


Bagpipe Songs

On the Isle of Skye, water runs down the Cuillin mountains into waterfall streams
It's a beautiful and tranquil place
Where the local fairies live, play and dream

A red-bearded Scotsman walks from his village
He carries his beloved bagpipes in hand
He heads to the magical Fairy Pools
To play for the fairies hiding among the heather stalks growing in the lush  green land

Clad in a kilt of dark blue and green
They know it's their friend that's come to play
His emotional bagpipe songs are the only things
That make them emerge from their hideaway

The fairies love the skirl of the bagpipes
It brings their soul delight
Their tiny wings flutter with joy and elation
While they surround him in flight

When he's finished playing, he reaches into his horsehair sporran
Hanging from his waist
To feed the fairies bits of wild-grown raspberries
They absolutely love their taste

He will come back to play for them soon on another day
They love their friend in the blue and green kilt
With his beloved bagpipes and the songs that he will play
Form: Rhyme


Premium Member Though It's Clear You're No Longer Here, I Know You Won't Yet Disappear

It just was not at all (to my inner child) fair.
You allowed them all to be with you there,
'Cause when it came to me, they don't care.
Now I no longer want to leave my soul bare.

I know all loved you, but my love's deeper.
I just never feel like I ever truly matter,
Why I never tried harder to be any better
Than who I used to be as a teenager.

Fate is cruel with this timing, but also kind,
I'm just glad I ever at all was on your mind.
I knew I would never see you again alive,
But I have your will for me to learn to thrive.

I miss playing word games with you.
I hope your soul is at least missing me too.
My love says my tears may keep you "here,"
But I know you'll bless me with mind so clear.
Form: Quatrain

I Dont Do Selfless Anymore

I used to bend to the will of people 
putting them first and selflessly 
only for them to make it feel unequal 
suffering when they don’t help me 

They even sat and doubted my words, 
said attention was my true thirst 
as if I made up what hadn’t occurred 
they didn’t help and made it worse 

Yet they’d talk about their problems 
for my opinion and helpful options 
as if unaware they treat me rotten 
that’s when I told them to jog on 

they failed to understand the change 
saying for no reason I turned strange 
playing innocent and pointing blame 
victims of a man gone insane 

and that story soon spread the town 
heard by all who were around 
I’ve gone wrong and I’m put down 
watch my reputation drown 

They act like Saints who want to help me 
implying I’m mentally unhealthy 
had the chance and this they dealt me 
so I don’t do selfless only selfie.
© Nick Trim  Create an image from this poem.
Form: Rhyme

the rain

The sky was a bruised and swollen purple,
bursting open above the slick asphalt.
While all behind me breathed its sour, familiar violence, 
I bolted out into the sudden, roaring flood.

The rain was the only thing that ever touched my bare skin
without wanting to leave a mark.
It struck my shoulders like a thousand cold, pin-prick needles,
washing off the stale terror,
drowning out the sudden screams that lived in and around me.

I slammed my canvas boots into the black mirrors of the street,
a wild, breathless grin ripping open my face.
Murky, engine-slicked water exploded upward,
slapping my knees, soaking through my thin denim.
Every heavy splash was a deliberate riot - 
I spun in chaotic circles, throwing my head back,
tasting the storm, a creature pure and unpunished.
It was a rare, ecstatic madness to just be small and playing.

And no one came out to seize my wrists.
No voice rose to call me filthy, or foolish, or loud.
The thunder clapped, but it asked for no apology.
For ten exquisite minutes, my laughter outran the noise,
the storm let me exist at my full, unsoftened volume,
and the water held me without demanding I break.

Premium Member Apache

APACHE

His name was Apache
His eyes were so bright
He was completely full of joy
Hopping, jumping, dancing
Taking naps on top of me
Happiness, love, to fill the universe
Playing with home-made toys
Always excited to see each one
He warbled like a bird when he was held
He filled my heart so quickly
Like he knew me, before we met
He was a smart Guinea Pig
Squeaking from across the house,
When he knew I was cutting his food
He had a special ramp that I made
He would wait for his treats put on that
He always knew everything I would do
He was only 7 months old when he got sick
An ear infection spread, ending up untreatable
The light bulb of joy went out in my house
An emptiness that I cannot explain
There are other things that I cannot say,
But I wish that I had one more day
My writing area was near his play pen
When he left, my muse went with him
It will be a while to feel it again
It will be a while for my heart to mend
There is no answer for his leaving so young
There are always questions in life,
Left unanswered in some empty place that makes no sense
And we are expected to move on without knowing

Heidi Sands

9/26/22


Premium Member Game Playing

Game Playing
              by Odin Roark

There was this time…

When his drunken ambition
Made him take a seat at the table,
Ante up his meager self,
Bet with stakes he didn’t have,
And hold his “dare you” stare for luck.

There was this time…

When joining the game
Meant playing by the rules,
Winning a few,
Losing a few,
Walking away once in a while.

And like his shadow forever stretching
Across his personal walled-in self,
The one possession he hadn’t pawned,
All vanished.

He sees different now,
20/20 honesty having risen.
The games no longer appeal,
Someone else’s rules no longer matter,
Winning has lost its luster,
And his inner-solitaire provides.

Occasionally…

He wanders out from his world,
The honest one,
And peers at the fashionable one,
Remembering there was a time
When that was him,
The someone they dared to win,
To play out life's game their way.

Returning to his discovered home,
Being who he really is
Not someone they said he was
Is…

Well…

Truth just keeps getting better.
© Odin Roark  Create an image from this poem.

Needle Boy

Who's that garçon, playing with needles
eagerly stabbing the fantastique tragedy 
squirming so quickly by the macabre melody
what makes my shadow laugh forwardly 
above me! 

Eye on him from behind turning and twisting
drilling the fear out from his astonishment
and when we move around yelling and swearing
all at once little hand drops all these little things
childishly moaning! 

His chest is silent now his life is absconding
where has the beating just disappeared? 
I'm flapping like a lunatic, something is leaking
out from my bowels deep inside me! 

Pierced to the guiltiness right by the dying boy
needles are digging like gluttonous maggots
dirtily cruelly mortally with pleasure
feeding their sharp bodies inside of me!
Form: Rhyme

Premium Member The Cost of Living

After they have taken
everything you still have
a stray, unowned patch of sunlight
finding its way in and spending
a little of its time keeping
you company, playing around
your feet.

The things they discarded 
on their way out have already
broken into bloom
and even the empty spaces
have become polished pools
waiting for the moon to bathe
its image in tonight.

But don't get too smug.
Tomorrow they'll be back
with a bill for services
rendered by the sun and moon.
Then, just when you think
that will be the last transaction,
they will issue you a bill 
for each thought you have, 
calculated on gestation time
and its estimated weight.
There will be no escape 
other than to become a ghost 
incapable of thought,
twitching inside one of their 
computers, lost forever 
between one and nought.

Premium Member Happiness

Happiness is...
Starting each dawn
With a bright smile, 
Notwithstanding
Disgruntled faces here and there.
Greeting people hello 
With a friendly wave, 
And, of course, a smile;
Friend or stranger, it doesn't matter.
Playing with your children 
In the backyard, out in the park.
Taking the dogs out for a walk.
Giving of yourself 
To God, and to nature.
Complete detachment 
From negative influences 
And toxic people.
Surrounding yourself 
With people who genuinely love 
And care about you.
Doing whatever you enjoy doing 
To the best of your ability.
Loving yourself
Inside out, outside in;
Warts and all.

Premium Member Bone Beach

Dredged from the depths of a shaken Sennen seashell
she hears once more his voice, low, sonorous tones, sees the bones

of her past laid out, splayed out, another story
playing out, can feel it in her bones,

his voice burrowing in, deep beneath skin,
cold blade digging in, the tide coming in,

shrouds of sea mist closing in, the veil blowing thin,
membranes of memory breaking...She sees anew the drowning seas,

sees for the first time his strangling hands,
pebbly skulls, seaweed ropes, skeletal fingers of coral

forcing bone-white wrecking lights into her cove...
Bone-bleached semen strands, Sennen's strand stretching

soiled sand before her like life or fate, grains like pulverised bones.
His dark-dune lurking, water-window watching,

waiting for riptides; a ripping of fabric, ripping of hymen,
sea-hymns now silent on salt-sheened lips

plump-pouty with youth. It's sordid, uncouth,
the salt sprinkle of sea-sweat sheening his skin,

the breath and the fingers quickening,
the coral's rough rigidity piercing, ejaculation of sea foam...

Buried deeper than bones, the sudden rush of memory waves
rattling bones of the past, shaking Sennen seashells.

Gulls screaming into the guilty hush.
Secrets hidden by sea-silenced sand.

Get a Premium Membership
Turn off ads, get more exposure for your poetry, and get more features with a Premium Membership.
Book: Diverse Voices: The Poetry of Human Rights and the Pursuit of Peace