Long Propped up Poems
Long Propped up Poems. Below are the most popular long Propped up by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Propped up poems by poem length and keyword.
Cuz while ya steel got
moxie, don't nix chance if only a dot
before death finds
flesh rotting alot.
A self-actualized fringe benefit
as I racked up
orbitz round sun -
with increased measured,
(albeit neglected) ragged, and
shot thru tattered (turn shroud) -
regarding chronological yardage
brought to my dimming wattage -
sputtering third eye blind, sans
hindsight surveying extensive
emotionally frenzied groveling with
a lifetime penitential wreckage,
whence urgent critical (update)
foisted upon formerly entrenched
hermetically sealed voyage -
sequestered self wrought fallout,
viz long stretches of
time irretrievably gone with the wind
found me averse toward
commingling with village -
peopled within sin king
precincts of Lake Woebegone
joyus kneaded livingsocial
natives, now visa
vis (nee this past
and present atheist)
discovered the healing power
of powder milk biscuits,
when accommodated within Norwegian
bachelor farmer vicarage),
qua pained obligation now
imposed kickstarted mandate
to pay dying wage
clearly written along,
the sub weighted psyche walls
(over time) easily read
across my wrinkled visage,
where former cumulative
years of existence
pitched yours truly
figuratively teetering upon
precipice of abyss gave vantage
written in telltale creases
countenance spelling umbrage,
against me - asper tonnage
schlepping psychological Matthew
Scott Harris "baggage,"
wrought from decades
worth of uncultivated tillage
cuz n'er did I gather rosebuds...
during prime mortal teenage
stretch, thus present
day agonizing suffrage
yawning chasm miserably houses
bleak (Dickensian) testimony,
sans recovered anorexic
(NO...NOT... NEVER
bulimic), but feebly
endured desultory stage
punctuated quasi (moat)
towed riddled rattle trap ship
of state into deadly scrimmage
defies propped up
moxie succombing unrelenting
weathering, unforgiving savage
nasty, brutal and short sabotage,
wherein futile - short
changed growh opportunities
forfeited developmental stage
opportunities introverted
vehemence doth rage.
O, what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive!
Can't help but to recall this famous quote from Sir Walter Scott...
When one reads the latest revelations on the financial scandal that is 1MDB...
Touted as a sovereign fund to help the economy of the Malaysian Nation...
What has been revealed so far is a tangled web of deception for the nation...
O, what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive!
At the onset of of the saga of 1MDB, it was a sovereign fund entity....
It sourced for billions and billions in cash money for seed capital initially....
Taking out monstrous loans using guarantees from the government...
No red flags were raised, despite reservations from the management...
When the numero uno signatory is the Finance Minister himself...
And it being so he is also the Prime Minister, who is to question...
O, what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive!
The wheels of international justice are turning, investigations are revealing..
Convoluted money trails of obscenely huge amounts to the tune of billions..
From Singapore to Switzerland to Luxemburg to Australia to the United States..
And a couple of other countries with highly principled banking standards...
Are seeking to unravel the this global money scandal with the highest stakes..
Wall Street Journal expose is churning out scandalous information of the investigations..
While in the home country of Malaysia, political warlords brush off all revelations..
O, what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive!
A single plea of innocence was well propped up with tales of donation...
As gifted from individual or individuals, ultimately from a dead Arabian King..
Stalwart political warlords were nevertheless resolute in defending...
As a much tainted political leader wisely maintains a eloquent silence...
Even as political foes and the knowing public cry out their frustrations...
Horrified and anxious over the repercussions from this 1MDB financial cancer..
O, what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive!
http://malaysiansmustknowthetruth.blogspot.my/2016/05/1mdb-buck-passes-on-to-malaysian.html
http://malaysiansmustknowthetruth.blogspot.my/2016/05/leaks-show-how-bank-used-by-1mdb-jho.html
http://malaysiansmustknowthetruth.blogspot.my/2016/05/1mdb-wonderland-saga.html
I can remember passing through
this town as a child,
stopping for a pie
on our way north.
Now it’s bypassed – barely more
than a clot lodged
in the spidery veins of a map.
Most of the houses are empty,
the bakery is gone.
I've come here again and stop
to walk beneath
a verandah’s pinholed shade,
past the general store,
the post office
and a butcher shop -
all shut.
Behind windows,
generations of dead blowflies
have left a black crust
piled against the glass.
Some hang from webs
like frozen pendulums
hollowed out by spiders
and passing time.
Across the street an asphalt
school yard is dissolving into grass.
I think about the children
who once skipped
and ran headlong
into their lives from here,
where now a clapped out truck
sits propped up on bricks.
Dumped and stripped of worth
an open bonnet seems to gape
its final breath.
Further up the street,
the scars left
by two world wars
are etched in a modest memorial
to the town's fallen youth.
I run my fingers slowly
down the list of names
and whisper each
into the ethereal silence
in which they rest.
This age has made them unreal.
Elevated on the nations alters
they seem unaccustomed
to the height.
Their age has them stalking
the nearby hills, irreverent,
all too young, blasting rabbits
and empty beer bottles
lined up like soldiers
with their fathers guns.
At the end of the street,
a gutted church squats like
a full stop to the town.
Nothing is beyond except
a gravel road to somewhere else
and a small cemetery
of lichened headstones.
The last person buried here, I read,
was Helen O’Brien who died
in august sixty five
and beside her, a year before,
her daughter, aged just four.
I make my way back
and reach out
to the ghosts that inhabit
this place but can't connect.
A feral cat slinks off
into the shadows of the pub.
Few cars stop here anymore.
Thirty minutes drive away
a multi laned highway
barrels traffic to the coast.
There, towering apartments
glaze the sky where rooms,
like empty shells,
murmur the lonely sound
of breaking waves.
Sometimes there are evenings
when a sadness rides a breeze
from inland to the coast
and goes unnoticed,
except perhaps for a child
who grows silent
and stares at something
wandering the distances
way beyond the reach
of grown up sight.
(Continued from Part Two - 1)
Nothing of the foisoning ageold homegrownwine
strained through Ol’ Kayyam’s ever draining ruba’iyat bowl
keeps vigil in their scelerosed veins
I will slap this officious reason
In the face with wine in hand
Who so bold to slap sense into the buttressed elus
But those drunk with common insolence sense
Darius the First built a confining wall
around the Greco-Roman Empire’s eastern front
a first wall of self-will
Gengiz Khan tore it down with his sabersharp teeth
after climbing deftly through the David Copperfield hole
in the Great Wall
See how Mao stemmed the tide with his Long March
Only to wall in his Zhong Guo
An Asia within an Asia
The Central Asian Crown
to be propped up again either by vassal states
or by tribute offering nations in return for health-giving largesse
while tough little Viets struggled without wailing on bare feet
to sling the Twentieth Century’s Goldorak down to an ignominious fall
while those that weep after twenty lost centuries at their Wailing Wall
wall their brethren in a closely policed jail
wailing at every television reprisal performance
their insecure un-Godly fate in the dead sea of faiths
at the bare hands of suicidal wall breakers
hemmed in around their waists
like those fencesitters
the Greater East Asia
Prosperity builders who
let MacArthur gird them behind an Ocean Wall
silent superior-thinking men and women
unable to wish their neighbours bonjour
even after the unhealed unhealing wounds inflicted
by kamikaze samurais
walled in behind obsequious bending backs
and mechanical smiling faces
What brews in quiet what festers in stealth
Asia’s white master race
a Botha-deemed non-apartheid equal
ONE of the seven rulers of this world
(Continued in Part Two -3)
A man with no more than a hole in his pocket
The clothes on his back and a picture in a locket
Propped up some cardboard in a dim alleyway
When a stranger came up with something to say
He wore a suit and tie with a leather briefcase
And a thoughtful, yet mischievous look on his face
“I’m tired son, money has led my feet astray.
How’d you like to switch and be rich for a day?”
There must be a catch but with nothing to lose
They traded everything, right down to the shoes
He spent the day walking and looking around
He kept his head up instead of down at the ground
He smiled at strangers who in turn, did the same
Not turning away at his sight, in pity or shame
He asked for directions even though he wasn’t lost
Just to see who would answer without an accost
Walking tall all day counted the people he did meet
And not one, today, avoided him by crossing the street
He went back to the alley where the rich man said he’d stay
He said, “So chap, what did you do while rich for a day?”
He peered in his wallet and thought hard for a time
“You had this all day and you didn’t spend a dime?”
As they swapped back their clothes, the poor man explained
“You have all this money but are exhausted and drained.
I didn’t spend a thing but cleaned up in these stitches,
I experienced a different kind of wealth and riches
No one saw me and assumed I deserved shame and neglect
I walked around today and was rich with respect
I didn’t try to get ahead using money or power
Just happy not to have to beg, head hung in a cower.”
He gripped his locket and thought of important things
And knew he held close what really pulled the heartstrings
The rich man nodded and shook the poor man’s hand
Perhaps he’d been living with his head in the sand
The next day he went back but the poor man was gone
All that remained was the cardboard he’d slept on
And a locket from a pocket that escaped from a hole
A picture inside of a woman that warmed his cold soul
He decided to use his wealth for more than his greed
And never turned a blind eye to someone in need
He began to see people in a much different way
And perhaps it was himself, who became rich that day
Because She Craved the Very Best
by Michael R. Burch
Because she craved the very best,
he took her East, he took her West;
he took her where there were no wars
and brought her bright bouquets of stars,
the blush and fragrances of roses,
the hush an evening sky imposes,
moonbeams pale and garlands rare,
and golden combs to match her hair,
a nightingale to sing all night,
white wings, to let her soul take flight ...
She stabbed him with a poisoned sting
and as he lay there dying,
she screamed, "I wanted everything!"
and started crying.
Keywords/Tags: Rose, Roses, Flowers, Materialism, Possessions, Shallow, Shallowness, Greedy, Greediness, Desire, Lust, Craving, Cravings, Gift, Gifts, Gift-Giving, Ingratitude, Ungrateful, Ungratefulness, Pomp, Circumstance
What The Roses Don’t Say
by Michael R. Burch
Oblivious to love, the roses bloom
and never touch . . . They gather calm and still
to watch the busy insects swarm their leaves . . .
They sway, bemused . . . till rain falls with a chill
stark premonition: ice! . . . and then they twitch
in shock at every outrage . . . Soon they’ll blush
a paler scarlet, humbled in their beds,
for they’ll be naked; worse, their leaves will droop,
their petals quickly wither . . . Spindly thorns
are poor defense against the winter’s onslaught . . .
No, they are roses. Men should be afraid.
The Monarch’s Rose or The Hedgerow Rose
by Michael R. Burch
I lead you here to pluck this florid rose
still tethered to its post, a dreary mass
propped up to stiff attention, winsome-thorned
(what hand was ever daunted less to touch
such flame, in blatant disregard of all
but atavistic beauty)? Does this rose
not symbolize our love? But as I place
its emblem to your breast, how can this poem,
long centuries deflowered, not debase
all art, if merely genuine, but not
“original”? Love, how can reused words
though frailer than all petals, bent by air
to lovelier contortions, still persist,
defying even gravity? For here
beat Monarch’s wings: they rise on emptiness!
Time and Tides
by
W.A.STOFER
We are the Carnies in the world circus, always being asked to improve our act, “Can you change your routine a little?” asks the Ringmaster. “Can you give the audience more of a death defying skit?” so we wholeheartedly agree, and prostitute ourselves to keep the show going. Time is spent day after day until it is now in the past. We reflect on the experiences with ever fading memories. “That was a great time back then!” we say aloud to justify our place in the world. We Know we could have done more, but ran around dancing to the paymasters tune on his broken flute, crying a little inside everyday as we can no longer see our true selves in the mirror. Wind, rain and cold, now pursuers us with a vengeance. We where impervious to this in our youth. Aches and pains plague us as if we owed a debt.
Time ticks by in our denial, “One more day is all I need!” we shout from the darkened room. The show is winding down and we grasp the things we hold dear. We accept the empty hour glass for what it represents, and slouch more and more never looking up to the stars like we used too. History is our sales pitch for the future is for foolish dreamers, experience and errors are our stock in trade. Life is not finite, it does not end it only changes. We move to the next place battle scared and wounded, heavy as the cold dark night with fading emotions. We once used passion as a sword and denial as a shield. We held our herald high, propped up by ego! Rejoice for the great battle we fought against time, but now we seek a post war rest. We all will be someones fading memory as the tides change but it does not matter for you had been there once upon a time, long long ago. A hero in your own space and time!
The End
Shirley Brown was a very beautiful girl,
And her brunette hair
Hung down her back
And as the wind blew thru the window,
It waved around. It waved around.
She was making sandwiches,
And was packing them with fruit,
And two massive bars of fruit
And nut chocolate.
She lit a cigarette, picked up the basket,
And with a nod of her head,
Waved her hair backwards
And walked out the back door
Into the alley where,
Propped up against a fence
Was a blue mini-moped.
She mounted the bike,
And with a little trouble, started it.
And the rider made a sudden jump
As a horn blew behind her,
And a leather jacketed youth
Sped by on a butterfly motor-cycle.
People turned away
And the music blared on
And the youths talked on.
Then, a park keeper came
But the youths took no notice.
"What are you kids doing?"
The keeper shouted,
"I've had complaints from all over,
Clear off, wilya,
This is a park,
Not a meeting place
For all the Beatniks in San Francisco."
John Hemmings started dancing:
"Cool it, grandpa, get on,
Get going, don't bug me!"
The kids had gone too far
And they knew it.
Some of them turned away,
As the radio blared even louder,
Litter was scattered everywhere.
"I ain't chicken of dying,"
John Hemmings then said,
"We've got to go on,
ALL RIGHT! Who are the crumbs
Who want to chicken out at this point?
Just take your bikes and go.
We're free people now.
Nothing can stop us,
We'll rule the streets,
The young people will triumph."
He was perspiring wildly
And his black hair
Hung down his back.
It waved around. It waved around.
("For all the Beatniks of San Francisco" is based on extracts from one of my earliest
existent pieces of fictional writing, dating from when I was about 15 years old.)
Afternoons the sky shuts down around the swamp's warning tapes
propped up with restoration piping and dirt leak fencing.
We’re fleeing toward the wild, seeking the names and shapes,
the same way the Cedar Waxwing flit and grip for berries tree to tree.
Canada Geese are easy, they lead off down the lane leaving residue,
Widgeons have green stripes and gold stripes, one American
the other European, and they’re all mumbling our family phew-do
they didn’t burn the kid, they can’t keep the house clean, drugs…
Blink away the cold wind tears. Forget all that, only remember
Shovelers have the long low profile and the long bill from studies
in New Zealand, like a deep breath, we set aside work, unlimber
spy the race of killdeer away from their guarding territory in gravel.
Our boss didn’t try to replace us, he ducked out to a new job
leaving the crime ringing in our ears like the police car roaring past.
Head down, we tunnel under the high way finding the dunk and bob
of mergansers and their hallowed or red heads,
remarking differences when the sudden scream of honking
mallards flee up river. Caught off guard, we wonder did we cause
all this pain? The rise and dunk flying goldfinch happily chirping
cling to the thistle, their favorite waste near the waste water
ponds where all the Black River water flows for cleaning
spilling into the nesting lower stages of the tertiary treatment.
That’s all this is, treatment for the shock wave week riding
current events on our shoulders, almost like the red-tailed hawk
that screams and skims our head, rising up to the setting sun
turning the sky purple and pink and bruised. That’s when wood
ducks skim into view, our breath captured and then steaming undone
but soon the heavens offer confirmation, blue angels
with their huge oversized wings soar in pairs down as gift.
We hold each other then, let screams silence, detail enriched.
For long I have been an aimless vagabond
I strayed far, the world being enormously wide.
Traveling to lands foreign, I searched my fortune.
At the end, fed up with all that was alien,
And wishing to withdraw from the world’s bewildering stress,
Decided to set out in search of my roots and my people.
Parents dead, my faint connections with my folks were gone.
My ancestral home was occupied by my brother,
With whom I had hardly any correspondence.
But when I was choked by thoughts of my dear home
And the yearning to visit struck me as an irresistible urge,
Without second thoughts, I boarded a plane,
And headed to my native village with dreams many.
From far I saw my house perched high on a hill,
Dappled in grey, squinting across the field.
Nearing it, my heart began to beat in pounding thuds,
In the excitement of a reunion long overdue.
Alas! There was none to receive me, only some creepy spiders,
Busily spinning gossamer webs over closed windows
Its vacancy haunting me, I tried to ring the doorbell.
But the rusted contraption sat silent on the cracked wall.
What had happened to the family living here?
Have they migrated to some far-off place?
A hundred questions propped up in my mind.
Wished to ask someone, but seeing nobody around,
I stood silent in the weed grown courtyard for some more time.
I thought of the heydays of my life, with a deep yearning,
To run round the house once more as a child
And be under its shelter, to lie down and dream the dreams of old.
Everything looked so forlorn. Feeling suddenly orphaned,
My eyes got welled up with tears as never before.
Hesitant to chew the unpalatable truth that this house will no more board me,
Casting one last glance with a heart laden with memories,
I turned my back from that spectral home,
Which stood silent as a symbol of UNWRITTEN ABSENCE!