Long Prehensile Poems
Long Prehensile Poems. Below are the most popular long Prehensile by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Prehensile poems by poem length and keyword.
Seahorses...Why?
Dear Mother Nature woke one day,
and looked around with a sly smile,
surveyed her Earth, both land, and sea,
then paused to think for quite a while.
She beamed with joy with her new plan,
to think outside the box, create
a wonder for her earthly seas...
a creature that would not equate.
Strange, tiny fish that swim upright,
sway like a plant that swirls and flails;
propel themselves by mini fins,
and anchor with prehensile tails.
With equine heads, extended snouts
to suck in plankton and shrimp brine;
and so unlike most normal fish,
no mouths or stomachs to define.
Must constantly eat food to keep
up energy, or they will die.
A gift that helps them spot their prey...
can steer their vision from each eye.
Romantic will their courtship be;
eight-hour dances, pairs will spin
close, side by side and joining tails;
then breeding offspring will begin.
Monogamous, some mate for life,*
and rarer too, the males bear young
from eggs embedded in their pouch
from which in time, babies are flung.
Dear Mother Nature laughs with joy!
Her new creation will defy
the rules for creatures of the sea...
for humans to...then question...why...
...come up with reasons for her plan...
not knowing, just...because she can.
Sandra M. Haight
~10th Place~
Premiere Contest: Seahorses
Sponsor: Julia Ward
Judged: 05/08/2018
*There are mixed commentaries on whether Seahorses really mate for life.
Some say yes, others say only some species do, others report that they
do not.
It seems some are smitten
with long-fingered gloves,
while others have love
for warm woolen mittens.
Like puppies and kittens,
cute gifts from above,
you’ll give ‘em a shove
when fingers get bitten.
A gloved finger’s fat,
not very precise.
Ungloved? Bad advice ~
frost bites like a cat!
But a mitten’s a club,
a stump of a hand,
a digit remand,
a prehensile nub.
No, I say what’s finer,
much better than both,
A techno-outgrowth:
thermal silk glove liners!
The gloves can get peeled;
those mittens can too.
Fingers don’t turn blue
with liners as shields.
----------
for the Of What Use Are Gloves Poetry Contest
sponsored by John Lawless
written on 12/19/22
I found it curled in the shadow
of what used to be a hospital.
A slow hunch of fur,
the color of old bark—like the forest
had tried to grow itself a question.
It didn’t look surprised to see me.
Just blinked, as if measuring
whether I was worth the glance.
I sat cross-legged beside it,
tore foil from a protein bar—
offered the whole thing,
wrapper and all.
It took the crinkle in two fingers,
held it to the light. Didn’t eat it.
Just listened to the sound
plastic makes in a nuclear breeze.
It exhaled desert globemallow.
A whole Quaternary extinction
in a single breath.
I didn’t ask my question out loud,
but I think it heard anyway.
Do we stand a chance?
The sloth leaned its weight
across a rusted sign
that once read urgent care.
It didn’t speak, but something
about the pinch of its thick,
prehensile lip
said it knew what we’d done—
to the soil, to time, to ourselves.
It forgave none of it.
When it finally turned to leave,
I followed.
Not because I thought
it could save me,
but because it didn’t try to.
Conservative View of taxation:
A prehensile grab
from an authoritarian patriarchal government
to steal from my short-term stockpile
of self-expansive cash.
Progressive View of taxation:
A GoldenRule government-issued invitation
to cooperatively invest in our shared short-term
and long-term health
and self-regulating safety
polyculturing future.
Moses challenged Conserving-Progressive FreedomPeople
to never forget
we have escaped the bonds of patriarchal plutocratic Egyptian grabbing
from our formerly enslaved Chosen Egos.
We are now both Governor and Governed,
cooperatively incorporated,
economically progressing our ego-conservationing
of democratic health and safety
ecopolitical outcomes.
Conservative View of health and safety:
Good for all,
but, when push comes to economic shove,
best for me to hoard
against an Egyptian militaristic day.
Progressive View of health and safety:
Of course we are always WinWin-only cooperative geopolitical players
of and for Earth's regenerativity.
So, we are happy to pay our taxes,
but we would be even happier if these would co-invest
Earth's climate health
and co-infested safety
EarthTribe's authentic health and compassion's global safety,
as Ego's bicameral co-empathic trust
in our GoldenRule cooperative
Exodus into our beloved Promised Land
of eco-political integrity.
On life's easyrider days and nights
love plays a romping game.
On those more oppositionally challenging days,
and long anxious nights,
love is a hunt,
sometimes a passionate hunt,
special occasionally a compassionate hunt,
a mutual hunt
for truth about who is hunter
and who is hunted
and why
and when
and how do these co-arising functions transcend "or"
to gracefully meet in "and."
This primal function of love's synergetic force
hunts
like gravity.
Both parties,
all living entities,
hunt,
gravitate,
even those feeling hunted
haunted
stalked
fearful and anxious
competitively and unilaterally,
often in silos threatening despair.
We all search frantically for safe havens,
hidden from those hunting for our very self-identity,
our life,
or at least so it feels during those dissonant times.
What is a redemptive optimization strategy
for those hunting safe havens from death,
pursued by tyrannical lovers,
ego-identified life-sucking hunters?
When is it not an appropriate moment
to love the hunter,
the hunted,
and the hunt?
Is there a significant difference
between the romping love of fluid smooth days and nights
and the more strategic
logistical
personal
intimately co-prehensile
hunt for love transcending Ego-incarnate death?
Too seldom haunted hunted entities,
primally assuming cooperative investment
in our challenging rampant race
and pace of EarthTribal systems,
when a passionate challenge exhausts our smooth-skinned body,
and/or brain,
the hunted redemptively turn toward other hunters,
gratefully and mindfully inviting a wrestling-with match,
setting aside a wrestling-against death and fear match,
comprehending that compassioning our hunting love
always optimizes EarthTribe's regenerational future.
In love,
sometimes,
at least once,
it is my time to love loss,
to forgive away space and or time,
to redeem future spacetime
equivalently invested in me
birthing my original praxis of conception
as mutual reception--
eco-harmonic redemption.
The Gatherer
The Gatherer lives in the garden most of the year,
It moves very slowly so no one will hear,
But near to Christmas it comes into the house
And hides quietly, as quiet as a mouse.
Then deep into the night when we’re all asleep
Into the kitchen the bold creature will creep
And then with its long nose and very large eyes
Looks for Christmas cake and remains of mince pies.
It has pointed ears and a tail that is brown
Treading over the floor but making no sound
And then with its paws and its prehensile thumbs
It feeds on sandwiches and left over crumbs
The Gatherer dines on pork patte with ease,
Cold ham and salami with pickles and cheese,
Thin slices of fruit and long celery sticks
Then through the bowls of nuts and raisins it picks.
It’s tongue is as long as an elephant’s trunk
And with it sips brandy until it is drunk
Then you may hear the rhythmic sound of its snore
As it sleeps ‘neath the stair or under the floor.
On the next morning when you finally rise
In the empty kitchen there is a surprise,
You’ll never know what made the food disappear
So beware when the Gatherer returns the next year
Barry Stebbings
12/11/2020
Once upon a time fairies had tails, feathers and even scales.
This is the true tale of how and why fairies lost their tails.
Well
It all began in ancient times in the age of the dinosaurs
The first fairies were like mini flimsy and flighty Archaeopteryx
With scales, feathers and a long prehensile tail adorned with scales
Fairies flipped their tails to cast spells
But their tails were heavy and misspells were frequent.
Undoing spells was costly, unsure and tricky.
One day the fairy godmother decreed:
"Fairy Tail spells are Old Hat and Flawed"
"There's too many bad spells from miss-flicked tails"
"Fairies need a wand in hand like me"
"Fairy tails be gone!"
With a 'Hey Presto' flick of godmother wand
All fairy tails were painlessly excised
And converted to hand-held magic wands
So now you know
The fairy tale of how a fairies lost their tails
And stopped their misspells.
In the oceans of cherry tree blossoms
Shades of pink and red ebb and flow like tides
Prehensile tails curled tight, sleeping possums
adorn the arbor eaves where she resides
The southern summer sun in sky abides,
as bleeding hearts and hyacinths bloom wild
to share his gifts that light and life provides
awaiting the grasp of curious child
Verdant virgin meadows yet undefiled
Open hearts and stems to honey’s sweet kiss
Those lone, fallow fields Winter once reviled
Alive and thriving with pink vernal bliss
And I, among them, drink straight from the tap;
dream honeysuckle dreams in Summer’s lap
Helios, open darkened shutters Night did seal;
Nyx's opaque, drawn shades one by one peel.
With prehensile fingers grip your enlightened quill,
Selene's pale orb with luminescent lines reel.
With gilded parasol twirl your flaming wheel,
Until enjoined sparks into tinted rays congeal.
In saffron waves, blanch horizon's, window seal.
On spindled beam, spin golden threads from creel,
Sheaves of golden flax span o'er ethereal hill.
Branching, with sonic beam pearly plains drill,
Until azure streams deep reservoir does fill.
With torch, burnt-orange meringue on puffy clouds spill,
then into earth's grainy purview with vigor steal.
With tempera, egg wash the Sky's blank stencil,
then with magnified lens illumine the scenic still.
Plunging downward, into denser troughs truncated waves swill.
Onto earth's jade footstool, solemnly kneel,
Drawing from vassal's, residual til.
Amber blades with brighter finish instill,
With waxy gloss the folio cover frill.
Said Harvard to Bucky
we feel quite so lucky
your genius on campus
has caused quite a ruckus
but this time we're sure you're less mucky;
And yet we're not sure
which department could endure
your thesis exegetical
your wisdom eisegetical
of what is and is not we're less sure.
Perhaps you're a poet
and the last ego to know it,
you thought this was science
mixed up with con-science,
poetically versed to think and show it.
When Bucky writes meta-physical science
we read him as physical conscience
and that could be fine
it fits with his rhyme
of teleopathic resonance.
There once was a Fuller who prehended
a Special Case universe co-prehensile
Earth fractal embrace
wears polymathic face
as synergetic wisdom's eco-tensile.