Long Reprisals Poems
Long Reprisals Poems. Below are the most popular long Reprisals by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Reprisals poems by poem length and keyword.
There is something special about the way
the early morning light is drizzled across the park.
A yawning of softness lingers in the air.
Better pictures are stolen before the light fully awakens;
before it takes notice of our gazing at its nakedness.
It’s only after lunch, in the middle of the day, when it stiffens
into sharp knives stabbing at trees and buildings
while it skids and bounces off the river, bursting pupils
with the pain of its reprisals, darting in every direction
looking for escape as though something were chasing it,
perhaps clouds, or night, or tourists’ cameras.
The drowsiness of evening brings it to a calm.
Surrendering itself to lovemaking with tender strokes
and warm caresses before it takes its leave;
A sailor briefly home, then back to sea.
It loves and leaves us as a brute
while we as harlots cling;
and then we mourn our loss.
He was caught in a mine of a mind in reprisals admonitions and self-reproach
Had been looking for diamonds and gold but then the escape shaft caved in
Gotten shafted and the stake stuck like an iron rod from rock bottom to head
The metal changed colour in Jonathan’s lazy synapses as they flooded his brain
It had become a matter of intrinsic extrication no more death dance with poles
Now he was chasing a break out route but the canary had snuffed its last breath
The tunnels began to fill with water and he had to reason and ration his thoughts
Only one way to go he resolved but actually there had been two at the least
Three hundred meters or so in one direction eight thousand miles for the detour
‘Better to rest for a while then to start digging one scrape and crack at the time’
He had a bit of explosive left but the roof could cave in and bury him alive
‘If live gives you a barrow the wheels are still turning and I got a shovel’
The rescue team was far away and he needed to take self-control or expire
Water kept seeping up to his ankles so far so good thus he would not be thirsty
‘Disaster brought me to my knees before maybe the lessons have to taught me’
Jonathan was not an ancient legend and he could do without metaphoric riddles
Timing was essential but experience comes before essence ‘it’s time to get up’
Nothing to lose as he had very few possession ‘I think and therefore I am’
‘Searching for earthly possession got me here in the first place’ and in any case
He could not eat precious metals they would not make a dent in his pitiful pit
Even if he would only ever only scratch the surface he would go out with a bang
19th March 2019
Ratings War
By Odin Roark
His trembling fingers press remote buttons
Finally pausing on…
The News Channel.
Breaking News – Many dead.
As ordered by chests of ribbons and medals,
Faces covered by executioner masks,
Crusaders of jihadist-style black gowns
Man’s all-encompassing human ant hill
Frantic with hate and holiness.
The Feel Good Channel
A stoic President speaking reprisals,
The ghost-piloted drones
The magic answer to hostilities.
The Re-Run Channel
His despondent fingers traverse his face
Where annals of imbedded scars pulsate,
Like shrapnel shards once removed,
Repressed memories refusing to die,
Reminders that combat remains forever alive.
The History Channel
So many mirrored yesterdays,
Smiling neighbors once happy like him,
Knowing all too well how history truly repeats itself,
Its legacy forever ready to lick the corners of its bloody lips,
Even when there is no blood…temporarily.
The Pay-Per-View Channel
Battling for fame and fortune,
Caged bare-fisted men and women
Pounding one another in between hungry kisses,
Ripping off each other’s clothes
As hordes of spectators scream “Get it on!
Get it on!”
The Dark Channel
His finger presses the final button.
Inviting the opaque screen of assurance,
That super natural attestation,
Where without sound,
Picture,
Or Network Sweeps,
Heaven is always an offering,
That other make-believe promise of peace,
Forever vying for ratings.
He dozes off.
In the twilight of my melancholy existence, love savors its bravery, like a vulture allergic to the suspicious aspects of ephemeral glamour, in a final macabre choreography.
On the edge of the precipice of my dramatic choices, my sacrifices reveal the artifices of their curses, but also the selfishness of their spiritual benefits in the face of the imposture of the supposed crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
The eloquence of my silence allowed my innocence to resist the violence of arrogance.
The tyranny of hegemony and the xenophobia of foreigners breed racial savagery and imperialist barbarism, while Western supremacy is transformed into a burlesque comedy trivializing negrophobia.
Suffering generates sentences, but sometimes repentance opens the way to independence, so that insolence can never turn into condescension.
Between the medals and the funerals, between the reunions and the reprisals, battles grip the rudder of my destiny, with a range of tortures.
My emotions oscillate between devotion to justice and the promotion of disbelief, urgently seeking remission of my transgressions, before the purification of the flames of hell plunges my divine spark into the furnaces of illumination.
The liberation of my ambitions contributed to the strengthening of my convictions, so that my determination unleashed the full extent of my potential.
My distance from dementia is minimal, even if the angel of death exempts me for the moment from the penances of the eternal abyss, my blasphemies sow the seeds of a new hope.
The history of my people is the memory of its victories and the grimoire of its disappointments,
Despite the decline of the pharaohs, the savagery of slavery and the barbarity of colonization, she taught me saving lessons so that my Africanness could flourish throughout the Earth.
In the permanent search for truth and sincerity, I aspire to freedom, equality and fraternity,
To a serenity, far from the vanities that humanity loves to adulate to forget its fragilities.
Between my feelings and their punishments, stands the sanctuary of the last judgment, their compliments obscure the lights of my cosmic atom.
In the quarrels of my past, the aftereffects persist, recalling the rebellious periods of my tormented soul.
I will never trust human beings, even if immortal love challenges my conscience.
The horror has continued unabated, the killing of innocent mortals in our clime, and the attendant reprisals that follow has refused to stop. The scary and slippery road we took to get here I do not understand. I never remember when we embarked on this journey until we got to where we are now. Who took us through this path, this path of damnation? No one is taking responsibility.
Known gunmen on uniform are killing extrajudicially. They torture without any recourse for reason, no recourse for discourse. Yea, uniform men kill those they are meant to protect with reckless abandon. Now the masses are on rampage. Unknown gunmen have taken over the scene to avenge the death of their loved ones. Now more innocent people are victimized. The question still remains, who is going to bell the cat?
The little children are crying, children whose parents were killed by known and unknown gunmen are crying. Those whose parents were killed by uniform men extrajudicially are crying, and those whose theirs were killed on the reprisals are crying louder. Now the little children are orphaned, no father to play with, no father to pay their school fees. They are crying because they have no one to call Dad. The children have been made vulnerable. What about the women rendered widows overnight? Women and children are the victims.
I'm beginning to feel guilty, guilty of the crime I did not commit. Maybe I should have stopped the killings or at least do something to save the children from losing their parents. Where is our conscience? Where is our morals? Where is our compassion? What about our faith, or have we lost trust in God?
I, Orochi Chikaodiri Orochi Joshua am asking for peace. WE WANT PEACE IN OUR LAND.
What is the gift in your life
Is it your husband or wife
Is it your children, your lover, your pet
The notion of someone you haven’t met yet
Is it the door that you shut on the havoc
The sanctity of your four walls
Relaxing with something with lemon and ice
The chatter when family calls
What is the essence of life
Is it the joy or the strife
Is it the gift of another new day
Is it the moonlight that wipes it away
Is it the senses that most take for granted
Til veils are pulled over your eyes
The joy of the breath that means you escaped death
And you realise your life is a prize
What is the price of a life
When it dwells on the edge of a knife
Is it dollars or cents as it sits on the fence
Before it stands firm or repents
Is it a penny ignored by the many
A glint to the partially blind
When shots overhead leave passers-by dead
As I kneel to see what I may find
So what is the value of life
When gangland reprisals are rife
And witnesses number not many
But my life was saved by a penny
So is this the value of life
Not a bargain store bear nor a Steiff
A penny: A low value find
But a glint to the partially blind
The Dark Rider
From a dark and distant time, so very long ago
In a land, time has forgotten, sunken below
In an era when the blackened heart of man
Struck fear and despair within all the land
You could feel the grip of the black cloud of fear
Blanketing over the land, everything far and near
“Tis a terrifying time for the likes of any man
Unaware of whence this tale of darkness began”
The elders would speak of a dark sinister long ago
Where a black ghostly image would appear so slow
A dark rider would appear out of the cold black night
Riding a black steed, fire in it’s eyes, terrifying sight
It was said that rider was sent from hell to avenge
Of the innocents done wrong, seeking only revenge
A hellish quest, retribution to the evils that men do
Swift reprisals to the wrongdoers he does pursue
The rider is judge and jury, not one man shall survive
Once he seeks out his lowly prey, not one is left alive
He suddenly appears, tall shadow in blackest night
Of who he seeks no one knows, until daybreaks light
Once again the dark rider leaves his mark on the town
His justice for those too weak, unable to fight is renown
The fear that evil doers feel for this dark unholy reaper
Is a testament to his judgment, an unholy peacekeeper
Could conditions terribly sad
Lead captives to do something bad
When a sheriff not cool
Won’t let compassion rule
Do lifers in prison go mad?
Did structure that forms Gaza’s pen
Encourage the Hamas gunmen
And with vengeance hot
Will Israel’s king-sized swat
Hurt civilians at risk again?
Do dollars the contractors reap
For the deadly weapons not cheap
Make reprisals cease
Or bring lasting peace
After Gaza ends in a heap?
Author's note: If a civilian dies as a result of a bomb dropped from a plane or one dies after being shot by a deranged soldier, is the outcome any different? While a huge opportunity exists for talking right now, will politicians just scramble to satisfy constituent anger? During an interview, the Israeli father of a kidnapped daughter pleaded for dialogue rather than more violence. Is empathy for this father and daughter possible?
Mideast Peace: Oxymoron
Though descendent of Jews,
I feel boggled at the brutal,
nasty and wanton war between
Israelis and Palestinians.
Many innocent victims
bred to know and hate their enemy
impossible mission
to reconcile one Semitic
group of peoples from another.
The bloody English
begat and fomented
debacle between Israelis and Palestinians.
little more than a century ago,
particularly usurping territory
courtesy aggressive premise
might makes right.
The human species
hell bent on making war
reprisals rank as a ,
and can never even the score
I harken back to childhood,
when our family lived
at Lantern Lane, and the Dailey's
(who threw rocks at Georgie
our Dalmation/Boxer)
rightfully earned before their time
the title fear thy neighbor
an altercation such
as aforementioned above,
would easily earn a spot
on Investigation Discovery
though deadly crimes violently hardcore
reenacted minus the explicit killing
fields not healthy for children
and other living things,
nevertheless even the most pious
and peace loving
exhibit fervent bloody ardour
if kith and kin held at gunpoint.
The annals of civilization
since time immemorial
replete with chronicles
of battlefield bravura
touting (with laurels of profuse praise)
for ultimate sacrifice
unnaturally, unstintingly, and unwaveringly
bravely giving oneself
to father/mother land.
Beneath the surface of the skin
we all bleed;
mortal kombat inked
in Mesolithic Europe
likewise dates to circa 10,000 years ago,
and episodes of warfare appear
to remain "localized
and temporarily restricted"
during the Late Mesolithic
to Early Neolithic period in Europe.
Idyllic as the fantastical utopian yen,
I feel pessimistic patriarchal wheelman
who steer autocratic
leviathan of state (witness Tiananmen
Square student-led demonstrations
known in Beijing, China
as the June Fourth Incident
lasting from 15 April to 4 June 1989)
cuz twentieth century ruthless demagogues
wanted to squelch
pro-democracy movement,
and not only stole demonstrators thunder
but forcefully co-opted with lightning force
their toys such as:
sophisticated erector set and playpen
for dolls loving buoys Barbie and ken
the former coming to life
as a miniature equestrienne
experiencing magical realism.
Reprisal or regret - both are meant to punish
Reprisal slaps the hand; regret lingers in the heart
Competitors of the fiercest kind,
Like weeds sown in among the wheat,
both sprout in the same field,
but only one of them wins out.
Reprisals are sharp thorns from stabbing tongues
causing deep wounds that may never heal.
Regrets are sown in the seams of a guilty mind
Where no salve can reach, and scars remain.
Regret, why do you thirst so hard after me?
Be gone to slake your enmity elsewhere
on some other unsuspecting prey.
You've tempted me to give in many times,
but not yet have I succumbed to your wiles.
I've paid the price reprisal asked,
I will continue to let his words condemn me.
But I shall live without one iota of regret
You'll hear no "What ifs" in my plaintive voice.
Feast upon carrion until you've had your fill.
My back is turned to your endless malevolence
You won't be singing songs of remorse for me.