Long Residue Poems

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


Premium Member - Sadness Behind the Mask -

The show was over

                                     The clown face ran out

                                  in an enameled wash bucket

                                The water became like thin paint

                                          in different colors

                                       The face with a smile

                             and tears under his eyes were gone

                               His confidence was washed away

                            The clown was no ordinary circus artist

                            He was a poor, lonely and sad old man

                                   And I was a spectator to one

                                 ordinary person behind the mask -

                                 trying to keep life's tragedy at bay

                                 He wiped off the last paint residue

                                          with a worn gray towel

                        - while tears were burning behind my eyelids

                                    .. the real heroes move in silence

                                                        - and never cries








02.03.2020
Sun :) - A-L Andresen :)
Copyright © All Rights Reserved

Clown at the Abyss Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Kai Michael Neumann
2nd place in the contest


Premium Member Lobster Shells

This bowl of lobster shells 
looks very pretty
and yet so sad.
The bright red carcasses 
all cracked and emptied out
have served me well
with their luscious innards
of tender sweet flesh
unctuous with brine and butter
that sated me
and gratified 
my deep-sea desires
for this ultimate
New England joyance 
on this
muggy Summer day.
If I had 
any ambition left,
I'd dump these
scarlet remnants
into a big ol' pot
and toss in
onions,
bay leaves
and peppercorns
for a savory
perfumed stock.
But for now
I'm glued 
to my chair
happily lobster drunk
and in a buttery haze
and licking my
salty fingers 
for any last residue
of that 
resplendent crustacean
now reduced 
to a heap of shells
in an old glazed bowl
on a lemon-yellow afternoon
somewhere on the coast
wondering how long
I can last
until the feeling 
comes again
and I don my old stained bib
and haul out 
the nutcracker and pick
and get the butter drawn
for another
Homarus americanus 
adventure
and find myself
staring down
a new warm mound
of cracked and emptied
lobster shells.

Premium Member Relighting Wet Wood

Relighting Wet Wood
(Remembering Mister B.)
By: Miracle Man
August 23, 2020

 Anger’s fumes influenced his steps,
and his thoughts were poisoned by the residue of daily events.
Too much of his life, was spent trying to rekindle a campfire, 
and relighting wet wood with gofer matches became an endless task.

He believed life’s destination was most important
but most didn’t see that he wasn’t enjoying the journey.
Perhaps his time would have better been spent
searching out another campsite?

While voices whispered to him from the shadows,
that he should have remained a man alone,
he remembered a vow, “for better or worse”,
then struck another match.
© Tom Wright  Create an image from this poem.

This Is Not Poetry

This is not poetry
It is the rattle of a copper coin
falling through the ribcage of a cathedral—
a hollow sound that has never learned a hymn.
It is the salt-crust gathering
on the lip of a rain-forgotten glass,
the quiet residue of a thirst
that no longer remembers its own name.

Do not come searching for metaphor.
There is no disguise here.
Only the blunt geometry of a bruised knee,
the exact, indifferent weight of a key
that has outlived every door in this city.

It is the static between stations,
where the ghosts of dead singers
grope for the shape of a vowel
and fail, again and again,
into silence.

This is not wisdom, slow and sweet.
It is the cold engine of morning,
reluctant, unpersuaded,
turning over nothing but itself.

It is the ache sealed in the grain of an old chair
that still carries the memory of wind,
and the long pause that follows
when you understand the mirror
has never been yours—
it looks past you,
through you,
to the blank wall that has always been waiting.

If there is a spark here,
it is only friction wearing down its own bones.
If there is meaning,
it arrives by accident—
a brief alignment of light
on something that was never meant to be seen.

But this is not poetry!

Mene, Tekel, Uparsin

Mene: Numbered.

The number of my loves was few but each brought me to heaven.

A gentle spirit with a beautiful mind and an elegant body, now a yoga teacher imparting her inner magnificence to world.

A sexy little creature, exciting, misanthropic and brimming with insight.

A tortured soul with dozens of faces and personalities, introspective and poetic and now dead at 25.

And two luminous spirits, hearts full of light and creative passion, producing beautiful artwork and enriching the lives around them with their resplendor.

Tekel: Weighed.

My heart has been weighed and found heavy with memories.

When Michelle and I ran at 5 in the morning through the woods to the riverside, and I held her topless on a rock outcropping as we watched the sun rise.

When Layo sang "can't bring me down" and danced up and down and I kissed her all over her face.

When Michele undressed on the side of the lake and I penetrated her, and her skin had marks of pine needles when she stood up.

When Lisbeth missed her meetings at work so that we could climb trees and jump over streams and play with the clouds.

When Julia swam behind me and let me lean back into her and said "Let me be your ocean" and I asked if I could marry her and she said "Maybe," then swam away and came back and said, "I mean yes."

Uparsin: Divided.

I am divided among my loves and have given all of them pieces of me while retaining inside me their residue.

It is said that people keep objects of their loved ones to keep a memory of them alive.

I keep pieces of my loves - they live in me and I live in them, an interlocking hyperdimensional union that resembles the Holy Trinity and interconnectivity of Buddha and the Universe.

And I in them, them in me, create a unity that is divided so that it can be reuinited; weighed so that it be rendered weightless; and numbered so that through it infinity can be achieved.


The numbering, weighing, and dividing of my heart was done for the sake of achieving Heaven, that it could live through me and with my blood write its message - mene, mene, tekel, uparsin - upon the wall.


Premium Member Edges of Recall

Like memory, the ending of the book  
didn’t vanish all at once.  
The last page thinned~  
softened at the edges,  
the details loosening  
until the final moment  
slipped free without sound.

And the book, like the mind,  
carries that quiet loss  
in its body.

It holds the absence  
quietly.  
A slight slackness  
in the binding,  
as if the remaining pages  
remember the weight  
that once pressed  
against them~  
a narrow gap  
where the ending  
should rest~ 
the kind of space  
memory leaves  
when it can no longer  
hold the last detail.

Even the margins  
keep their own  
kind of recollection.

Along the edge,  
a faint scatter of paper dust  
clings to the corner~  
the residue left  
when a moment  
has been touched  
too many times. 
 
What once was clear  
dims, the details loosening  
as memory lets go  
at its edges.

Where the page  
used to lead my gaze,  
there’s just a slight mark  
left behind~
a ghost fold remains,  
a crease without direction~  
the slight impression  
of a moment  
once held close  
and now softened  
by time.

So the story,  
like memory itself,  
arrives at its ending  
earlier now.

Not abruptly,  
just sooner.  
The missing page  
is the quiet  
memory leaves  
when it can no longer  
hold the last moment.  

And in that space,  
I sense the rest~  
the way recollection  
offers its final truth  
through what has  
already thinned  
into silence.

Premium Member A Prophet With a Twist In His Holster

‘One has to grow hard but without ever losing tenderness.’

	I did not know that my hero was a sex god as well

	But he wrote The Motorcycle Diary without any Zen

‘Every day People straighten up the hair, why not the heart?’

	Never contemplate a revolution on a bad hair day
	
	So he sported an iconic bandana to dress for a war

‘Don't Shoot I'm Che I'm worth more to you alive than dead!’

	A bullet reaches as far as the range of a shell
	
	Revolution rises from residue to the living

‘Democracy represents the dictatorship of the exploiting classes’

	No opium for the masses and the jungle for a home

	Pistol in belt tongue in cheek and always controversial

‘Better to die standing than to live on your knees’

	He lived by the sword for the benefit of ploughshares

	A doctor turned renegade marxist Central American style

‘We have no right to believe that freedom can be won without struggle’

	Justice does not appear without shadows from Nowhere

	He killed fewer people in battle than Trump or Obama


10th February 2020

All sentences in quotation marks by Ernesto Che Guevara
war
Form: Ode

Charlie Was Dead: Dickens

Charlie was dead

Charlie was dead: to begin with,
There is no doubt whatever about that.
I leave my residue to Carol for Christmas
and Little Dorrit his faithful Tom Cat.

There’s been hard times here in Bleak House,
Villainy and miserly crime capers,
I spent my fortune in shops of curiosity,
Pickwick wrote of it, in his gossip papers.

You gather here with great expectations,
Of bequeaths, chattels and yield.
But listen well to my loyal Trustees,
Messrs Chuzzlewit and Copperfield.

To that twister and Street Urchin Oliver,
and to show I bear him no grudge,
 I do leave a Crown and one Farthing,
and a sixpence to Barnaby Rudge.

To our mutual friends Dombey and Son,
Please accept my cane and fine silk scarf.
May you prosper all the year round,
As comfortable as a Cricket on a hearth.

So, here is my last Will and Testament,
Yes, I’m worthless, so whimper and brood.
Where did it all go, there is no mystery,
Lost at Cards to Nickleby and Drood.

KS 6/11/2017
© Kevin Shaw  Create an image from this poem.
Form: Rhyme

Premium Member TRANSLOCATON-Time Travel Poetry Contest

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My vessel is ink on folded pages;
I don’t need TARDIS* or a Wayback Machine*~
my words alone bend time, each line stretching moments
into constructed poems that create a time dilation. 

I travel freely, unbound by time or place~~
my pen is my sextant, guiding the course of my thoughts.
I hitch rides on comet trails, crawl through worm holes,
and write poems on the strata of extinct volcanoes. 

I disappear, traveling backward on a filament of myth,
landing softly in the ruins of ancient cities,
slipping into ancient dust and the sound of bronze,
tasting the abhorrent ash of forgotten fires,
recording the tenor of moments lost to history.

I leap ahead on metaphor’s swift stream,
glimpsing the future and tasting the sterile air
of generations I will never physically meet,
documenting futures that might still be avoided.

I move through time never aging,
returning to the present, a silent witness, 
to fragile cities built of glass and vapor
burdened with visions and heavy truths.

No passports stamped, no customs declared.
I leave no quantum footprint, only ink~
the residue of my translocation
depositing strange knowledge on folded pages.

*The Wayback Machine was a fictional time travel device from "Peabody's Improbable History" allowing users to travel to any point in history. TARDIS was a time-traveling spaceship from "Doctor Who," known for its exterior resembling a British police box. (Source: denofgeek.com)

Premium Member Ashtavakra Gita Verse 20:1

20.1
“Where are the elements, 
the body, the organs, the mind?
Where is the void?
Where is despair?
My nature is transparent clearness”

Verse revisited on 19-July-2022

Such is God’s power we wield 
That space and time, both yield
Awareness poised at the epicentre 
Wherefrom all manifestations canter

Tranquil stillness before breath inhalation
Rippleless lake of soul’s blissful elation 
Devoid of any trace of egoic residue 
Is pulse of truth that does renew

Duality emanation of singularity 
Is the inner knowing in deep clarity
Recognising that the world’s a stage
There thus no cause for desires to rage

Ensouling feeble form, experience by touch
Letting go of concepts and belief crutch
Embrace and release, each sensation
One with oneness and all creation
Form: Rhyme

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