Long Red river Poems
Long Red river Poems. Below are the most popular long Red river by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Red river poems by poem length and keyword.
Face of an Angel
I hear the distant rumblings
of artillery shells
I hear the singing sound
of stray bullets
I lift my head to look
around and see the toll
Bodies scattered like
leaves on a fall day.
Some with limbs torn from
them like a barren tree.
Some with their entrails exposed
like a lion’s prey.
I feel no pain, just a
sense of floating
Of being outside my
body.
Of looking at myself
with a red river flowing
from my leg.
I hear a distant cry, “medic”
I sense a shadow above me
and see a helmeted head
with a red cross painted on it.
I see the face of care and
compassion.
I see the face of an angel
Like skipping stones on red river in heart
Let it be known love of God is holy art
No two creations will be the same
Some love with laughter others love with rain
The laughter is the joy of the Lord
Easy to breathe in hard to avoid
The tears so teal tall and true
can be from joy but from pain too.
God is great, He assigns a muse
We make mistakes but God never leaves you
Could even be God is a she
God is bigger than gender identities
What if God in the wildest of hopes
Sent many in white wisdom cloaked
He sent them to encourage humans
Not at all a worry as the color of skin
God did not make mistakes
Even loves the ones who love to hate
If God is art of heart
Be careful what you create there is not dark
What if you found light in the dark
Could be Christ won your heart
Or could be in Muhammad or in Buddha you took flight
Winging your mind and soul to new heights
Musings on faith is there only one way
To cross the dark in the light of day
If love is art in many forms created
How you love the creator and if you do may be fated.
Past a peaceful day out Western Trail way,
Our lowing herd settled on coarse sand bars.
We hands bunched under prancing prairie stars,
Once clean grub tins and cups were put away,
For tall yarn desserts, dance, and campfire songs.
Lit by burning buffalo chips and sage,
Our campfire blazed hot, challenging the dark,
Holding at bay the prairie wind’s chill bark.
Night herd began with strums of a guitar
Backed by a fiddle and an Ozark harp.
Cowboys sang of Betsy from Pike’s sweet charms,
Dancing do-si-dos with scarves on their arms.
Two waddies circled our bedded down herd,
Singing Old Paint to the beat of horse hooves,
Echoing us boys’ songs by the fire
As coyotes chorus to the sparkling sky.
Past riding drag, eating dust all day
Worn waddies could cough up a few tunes.
Our homesick cowboy choir danced and sang
Then tiptoed to bed rolls for a few winks
Until our turns, on the down low, to croon
A sorrowful Red River lullaby
For trail weary doggies laying at rest,
Promising fresh rich grass in the Big Sky.
At the break of dawn, we were up and gone
Roping and riding; trying not to yawn.
A clear morning sky offered welcome news
No thunderstorms, floods, or frosted-up dews.
A stove-up drover that morn did advise
“Savor your quiet nights and be trail wise
For a cowboy’s work is never to cease
Before the railhead and cattle’s release.
Some year, long paired iron rails must appear
With barbed wire strands to encumber our way
As Progress closes up loved cattle trails,
Dooming open range to vanish away.
As the parched summer grass, we too shall fade,
Our names lichen covered on graven stone,
But breathing as legends we shall live on,
Riding trail bred tales our kids will hear.”
She taught her fury to dance on the edge of the abyss, hating like a silent storm,
I always thought it would pass like a cloud sliding across the sky of a quiet May day,
a wandering dream between illusions and whispered advice from sleepless, restless nights.
I felt it would pass like a summer rain washing away the sins of the dry, sad earth,
listening to accusations like voices of wind slamming against old, dirty windows.
I knew some were true, but not worthy of stirring storms of envy and vengeance,
I thought it would pass without raising a shield, hoping reason would be the bridge of light.
But her determination transformed into a river carving its path through cold, hard stone,
and I, watching as I yielded a grain of sand, saw everything collapse into the void.
Oh Lord, I said to myself, it's just violence born from the shadows of untamed desires,
so I took the horse from the stable of dusty dreams, sharpened knives like a magician of shadows,
and set out to fight, a knight of the night ready to face both sun and moon alike.
She finally found her rival, an adversary worthy of the dance of destruction she craved,
she found the mirror to see her desire to lose herself, I mounted the horse,
the sword gleamed like a silent promise, ready to tear even the sky in two.
She always wanted war, and I will fulfill her wish, let love now be an extinguished flame,
as it was extinguished when it first arrived, my hesitation will dissipate like smoke in the wind,
and blood will flow, a red river under the moon, hers and mine, a macabre dance of hidden desires.
a soldiers heart is full of passion
they see things we cant imagine
like bodies being blown to pieces
and each minute it decreases
the chance of ever coming home
leaving families all alone
sons and daughters go away
risking their lives every day
cause its their right to defend
our country till the very end
soldiers know a lot of fear
they always need to be aware
of whats going on all around
in the air and on the ground
sometimes they start to shake and shiver
dreaming there is a red river
made of blood and they have drown
because it has sucked them down
into the hell their living in
wishing they were home again
as parents wait without fail
to get a letter in the mail
saying everythings O,K.
and they survived another day
when he spoke
words broke like glass between his teeth
14 minutes past 8PM 7 weeks after the red river
in his brain ran almost dry
he the acidic and sullen shadow of his youth
turned to me
(one side of his face a landslide of flesh
frozen into freefall
thus i won't mimic the inarticulate sound of it)
look after your mother
and my ten year old self nodding
wishing i were not there
then she who had married this man to protect her
plus one boychild from a condemning Catholic family
and a rabid priesthood
having thus become a widow at 37
being only 5 feet high in her pumps
also as slim as a whippet
turned to drink dying quickly of a gastric ulcer
never mind her failing liver
no wonder
i turned out more angular then an open razor
biting every hand that fed body and mind
thinking that same hand would one day turn against me
as it usually did
but i unable to stop my breakneck race to personal destruction
until poetry found me wandering a bitter earth
it entering my soul one turbulent night wailing like
a hungry infant which i fed and carried for years
not knowing i needed it much more than it needed me
and so
we ate broken glass together until
words bled into red flowers floating upon a river
that flowed through my brain
Friendly goats are holding me hostage today.
They are hop-dancing in my yard; they want to play!
I looked out at 6:30, I said, “no way!”
“Come on!” shouted the big brown one, “We plan to stay.”
Watched them frolic and skip, they made me smile.
I guess I could go out for a little while.
Husband did not know, picked up phone to dial,
Announced they would be picked up with some guile.
Yes, I had to move fast. Time was running out.
My soul entranced, I pranced and hopped, I skipped about.
Was the best day of my life, without a doubt
“Goat Services are here!” My husband, inside, did shout.
The goat herders came out and took us all away.
We were all crammed inside a wagon, blue and gray.
We sang “Red River Valley” as they took us away.
My husband came to claim me at the end of the day.
It was the best day so far I have ever had.
When I went back home I was truly quite sad.
I sneaked back later and the goats were all glad.
I took them home, making my husband a tiny mad.
Prompt: ~ A torn canvas is two paintings*
A torn canvas is two paintings
Once upon a time, my childhood was built on fairy tales,
Of princesses and princes who never failed.
I believed every story ended with,
_"They lived happily ever after."_
But when I met you, my beloved,
The canvas of my life split in two.
_Painting One: The Golden Light_
You came like a sunbeam in the coldest winter,
Warm, healing my broken soul and heart.
I thought angels had spilled starlight into my dark.
Spring walked beside me. Joy followed my steps.
Your smile, your words, your phoenix eyes held me
Like a prince lifted from the pages of a storybook.
Hidden secrets burst from velvet clouds,
And I learned some love stories are not bound by time.
They do not need a happy ending to be holy.
_Painting Two: The Red River_
Then one day I saw black cloth tied on your arm —
A vow, a war fought for me.
Like every fairy tale, there was a villain in the story.
You fought... and I watched the red river run from your body.
You died.
And the canvas tore right down the middle.
The first painting kept smiling.
The second painting started bleeding.
They sent me to white-walled rooms,
But my window showed only the same sky we shared.
I went mad with grief. The world called it illness.
I called it loyalty.
One day I will die too,
And I will go to your grave with flowers in my hands
And madness in my eyes.
There, on cold stone, we will finally live
_"Happily ever after"_ —
Not in a kingdom,
But in heaven, where villains cannot reach.
A torn canvas is two paintings:
One where love begins,
One where love refuses to end.
She couldn’t see her pretty
When she peered into the mirror
Dark mascara, sad face
in the corner of her eye a tear
Her heart undiscovered
For her no one cheered
Black clothes pale complexion
She was encased in her weird
No daddy to kiss her
He didn’t choose to stay
She thought if she was perfect
He wouldn’t have gone away
A Razor Blade Princess
Red lines on her wrist
Nothing else made her feel real
The pain was her bliss
There were boys who used her
Pretending with their kiss
She gave of her body
To Bobby, Bill and Chris
Then one evening
The Princess cut to deep
A Royal Red River
Ushered her off to sleep
All the kids who knew her
now say they were friends
I guess it’s a way to cope
Everyone just pretends
Now another girl stares
At her reflection in the mirror
Yes plain can be pretty
When people know you’re here
BLACKLAND PRAIRIE
From Red River down to San Antone,
The Blackland Prairie’s all but gone—
Scoured clean by progress, tilled and torn,
By “civilized” greed, excess born,
A plundered land that mourns the dawn.
Where bison and pronghorn used to roam
In numbers lost in time and stone
Now parking lots and outlet malls
Stretch gray and wide in sterile sprawl—
Concrete vice buries the loam.
Ghosts drift where tall grass once did sway,
Sad silhouettes lost in furrowed clay.
Buffalo wallows—now just names—
Erased beneath the plow’s steel frames.
That black gumbo soil, wild and deep,
Swells in sorrow where once it did sleep,
Its spirit stripped for cotton’s cash—
The prairie buried and turned to ash.
And the prairie wept.
Fire was its father,
Rain its sacred hymn.
Crickets echoed softly
As the dusk grew dim.
Bluestem bowed low
To the buffalo’s tread;
Fields stitched with wildflowers—
Blazing red and violet spread.
Nature held her courts
In the Blackland meadows.
But the prairie wept.
Now less than one percent remains
To carry what the prairie claims—
Memory stitched in roadside seams,
Shadowed by asphalt and lost dreams.
That “Blackland gold” once vast and grand
Now clings in patches along the land.
Switchgrass, Grama, Indiangrass—
A lineage mown too short too fast.
Their names replaced by foreign green:
Bermuda's blade and Augustine.
And still, the prairie weeps.