Long Retinas Poems

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


Premium Member Black Labels

she reaches behind the smokescreen

of her sunken eyed curtain veils

films of tears void of translucence

stoke reminiscent ashes that trace

another blinding thick-skinned defeat

hidden by camouflage and smears

touched up campaigns of bravery


her retinas a web of hallucinations

illusion delusion cataracts and dreams

stirred but not entirely shaken as

she reaches for another glass to empty

while numbness mixes with mirages

of victory over hits and misses

on battle lines of reconstruction


a palisade and shield from truth

her sentience slips into severance 

from memories epiphanies and falls

from grace as she applauds the circus clown 

and crazy court jester she became to be

in sadness badness insanity while

holding on to fragmented shards

screeching on the palette of many

a brush with fate curses and agony


she is a survivor of abuse and violence

exploitation and deliberate transgressions

and reaches deeply into her resolve

to allocate anger to where it belongs

instead of blaming her own kindness


she lifts the olive branch closer 

to her tumbler spits out the hemlock

and trusts that tears will dry

once excoriations have dried up

until then she is not the drunkard 

she is made out to be by sycophants

and hypocrites who spiked her

drink of life but merely coping

for the moment and longing for solutions



29th July 2021


One Cold Morning and Me

 
This morning
So cold , I feel I don't 
want a wash O gush! from
my oxblood painted balcony
I stood and heard three red cocks
trumpeting like she come with a luggage
of ice? Yeeh! I could fill my skin fuming cold 
as my palm's degrees lower i guess to 20°c like 
rickety, bicycle I creak screeching I will wait, put the 
sunlit my  brownie icy skin to bath it golden in noon flakes, when
ice is gone to roast
In the kitchen, felt the smiles of
my pot, but it caresses my palms frozen
It slept so frozen wake, my metals seem burning in
It cold lit. waded downstairs, blaze my retinas the almond
tree, seated to the eastern earth blooming ray flashes of greens,
as the rains
let down from the
heavens. prodigally it 
bathed the earth. between
the greens swam a brownie nightingale
flapping its fluffy wings as the wet tasted of
her dry skin she complained and fought so hard to
flap away it icy fangs, cos in between sat her lonely Nest, 
Sheltering her nestlings to frozen by the morning icy fist. I prayed
she feeds On other mornings for survival, from this icy baked day, as
I watched the sky runs swiftly in the pace of a brownie spotted Deer scurry
leaving this frozen morning, the dank street, her nestlings and me Behind.

Premium Member After Image

Searing, disruptive, gravitational, 
the face came into focus from too far away,
long before anything at that distance had a right to, 
monopolizing eyes.  

There was an audible gasp from the passersby. 
Or at least it felt that way.

A form of disfigurement,
as if someone had taken a lovely face 
and tampered with it until the proportions,
the lines, the feeling of it were all wrong,
in the way that perfection was wrong.

Painful to look at. 

I felt sorry for her,
burdened as she was with a miracle of beauty,
so far out of the sphere 
of ordinary perception 
it couldn’t even be remembered.

Except as a lingering of light on my retinas.

And Sadness Reigns

And sadness reigns
Though never ordained
from the simple truth
Billowing joy
Subverting bliss
Standards too ephemeral
To lobby the naked
wishes we hold
Desperately close
To our heart
And sadness reigns
Our heart
once whole
Sputter and mends
And beats eternally
No matter the blood
No blood the matter
It seeks, filters
and dispenses joy
From mechanoly cells
Pleading for regeneration
The familiar beg towards
Indiscriminate joys
Mean nothing but
To be left alone
Crystallized, for exhibition
to the many
Everyone partake
Seek a morsel for
Yourself
Because it's fleeting
And sadness reigns
Through our ears,
Acoustic lies flutter
Sincerely, vacant waves
Of love melodic,
It does its job,
Tainting sweetly our reality
While souls huddle close
For a deeper view
Our here and now
Climbs, repels
From sentimental summits
Vistas of pretty dreams
Fragrant, lauding over
The stench whispering
Towards the barren valley below
Then back to us
Hearing, humming
Exhuming
Chemical reactions
Singed
By recall
Broken or of whole
The music
Causing joy to
Drop by when we need it the most
And sadness reigns
We're startled,
As focus brings
The world into
Rarefied view
Intensive stare,
Colliding our senses
Interpreting their meanings
Elastic snowballs
Thundering into
Psychotic waves of
Lustful avalanches
that burn the retinas
With joy, inquisition,
Indelible glances
Hung up neatly
To wear when
Dreams demand them,
And there are peeks,
Boisterous looks
That tease your mind
And theirs
Visionary tales
Gross of dischord
And malfunction,
Though they serve
As guests,
Glee in a box,
Nibble, taste
Devour, done
And sadness reigns
Because you and I
All before us
And those to follow
And yet to come
Arrive, depart through
Unmarked swiveled doors
Betwixt adjoining suites
Cemented
Endlessly
By the mundane
we require
The horrific which we
Bring and run across
The zeal we grab
For ourselves and others
The aggression we
Wage and deflect
The resignation we extract
And authorize
And somehow
As sadness reigns
We defect
And elect
To be ruled
By something else.

(1/27/05)

Premium Member Black Moon

Alone in resting grounds,
the young man rises from his slumber.
No thoughts that linger nor pain left to endure,
her touch remains in memories.

Retinas scorched with a permanent image,
a blindfold made from halos and stardust.
Eyes that refuse to open
never wishing to meet their reflection.

Guided by her hands once more,
the cold light from the moon burns.
Through her, a path forms to the pale oak forest.
Step by step, hearing the sound of her heartbeat.

At the end of the forest, a cliff towers over all.
The wind blows calmly, and the ocean is quiet.
In thunderous skies, the Black Moon shines down
hand in hand with the black light.

Raising his head, he removes the artifact;
his eyes gaze upon the dark throne once more.
Immune to fear and hope, the man waits for a verdict.
The cold light begins to fade, no longer burning.

As the lights turn off, the storm begins
the heavy downpour overtakes the skies.
with the moon out of sight, lightning strikes the cliff
and all shall fall before the dark throne.
© Seth Pina  Create an image from this poem.


THE LOVE OF MOVIES AND A GOOD BOOK

9.Lovebirds.

Though I would rather you be a stork, offering me a baby or two,
You are graceful as the majestic Flamingo.
Supporting a far reaching wingspan, 
You always land on your own two feet in a showcase of strength.
Your colours bleed out into the horizon of a day well spent.
I like the view from behind eclipsing the sun.
You unfairly suffer the red dust,
Because the heavens won't abide one more celestial body in the sky.
You remain a star illuminating my life.
I stared at you too long, and now you're burned into my retinas
Blinding me with love, unable to forget you.
I never want to be the one to clip your wings,
Just make sure you always come back home, here next to me.
We will put all our eggs into this single basket
Cause anything else falls short and is dragged out.
Baby, you are good in all things,
Except you won't let me see your under arm.
Don't be scared to shed your feathers in front of me.
Though it hurts to peck at,
We build our nest with the stubborn plumage from our chests.
We have only this season before it ends,
So let's take time to breathe for a second, 
'Cause life hardly has a script.
The nature of things is that we just have to live our lives.
David Attenborough only ever narrated in the background.

Premium Member Touch-Monday

My
eyes are 
sorely touched
with the harsh flash
of puce and pink-red
exhaust fumes leak lazy 
from the line of matchbox cars
clogging humanities sewers
lungs gasp   at green     tires lay rubber 
like the wail of infants   taken from tit
dangling arms wave the air   seeking entrance
to the already well come fill’d shunt
sighing   rubbing my lids       lights strobe
just past the seared   surfaces 
of my bruised retinas  
my feet throb swollen
now depressing 
releasing
pedal
push.

One may be "Touched" in physically, mentally or spiritually.
Poet: Debbie Guzzi
Form: Verse

triptych

Hydraulic system, heart made of pistons
Every co-ordinated mechanical manoeuvre
My heart served to you on a platter, your hors d'oeuvre
I look into your eyes, a deplorable disguise
Retinas of glass, I see right through your lies

Figments of my imagination
Don't come and cause me more vexation
Circling my mind
Tormenting, suffering, sempiternal gyration
My nerve endings started with you
Now unaware to whom
Now that you're gone
I can finally take off this costume

Now isn't the time for salvation
I re-evaluate our amalgamation
Not even an antisocial personality disorder
Could sum up a source of order
Wander your favourite forest
Walk past me and get hit with my poignant odour
Uncover my carcass, I don't need a hearse
Just dump me in the Oder

Dismember me piece by piece
Put me back together however you'd like
The puzzle wont be beautiful
Something incomparable to Vandyke
© Shay Old  Create an image from this poem.

My Ugly Truths I Choke On

One sign points east, and the horror arises.
I thrash and cry out. 
As the rupture in the wall of my cerebral cortex grows bulkier and broader
Not a soul comes to salvage me
And no one comes to pull the plug on the feeling of my intestines spilling out of my body
Not one soul kills the gruesome vermin
That's facilitating the tower of sickening, horrific thoughts 
Growing in the kingdom that is the film in front of my retinas, and the things that I see.
One sign points west, but there’s nowhere to look
God, the things that I apprehend as I scream a long, loud, piercing frequency
And I perceive the horrid voice pounding on my pulse points as it screams with me
I’m incredibly aware I'm going directly into a head-on collision, but I don't shift my calves
Then…I hear them faintly, the torn and jailed uplifting thoughts saying I can do anything
Although, as I imagine what I can do, it's a dark, empty void that gives me a sense of fatigue and dread for what's to come
As I wave my bloodied, bleached white, and tampered-with flag 
I succumb to the misery that is my darkest understanding of the word “Hate.”
One sign points north, and I already despise it.
I see the road leading down to the dusty, dark, pothole of my depths and despair
I ask myself if I knew this would happen
If I saw the palpable signs and if I knew how to keep them under control now
I see a structure in the distance, a building I used to spend countless hours in
I see a broken, worn-down, rotten, abused palace of emotion
It may be a house, but this was never once a home
As I insufflate the fibers of this disintegrated life I call my own
The air feels like snow, like I'll freeze at any given moment
I permit myself a millisecond to imagine the tranquil blizzard on my bare forearms
The scars on those arms and hands, a remembrance of what I was before my vestigial wings seized, the ones that used to hoist me into places where oxygen is sparse
Before everything went south.
And I respire in the stench of forgiveness
It feels uncomfortably serene, but I don't dare bother letting it into my heart
Letting it graze my organ of skin
Letting it patch up my wrongdoings
Letting it make me see something of my past that I could never truly disengage from
At no point will I ever let it in.
© CJ Hulse  Create an image from this poem.

Premium Member FIRST ASCENT

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I grip the safety bar and breathe in,
my knuckles bleach white. 
The gondola creaks,
swaying with the weight of wonder

The seat lurches forward~
I count each click of the gears rising,
each notch bringing me closer 
to the apex where the sky hesitates.  

Up and up! Below me~
the park shrinks into a toy set 
abandoned by careless hands.  

At the top, the world shifts.  
Cars blend into the streets like melted crayons.
Lights blur into liquid amber,  
streaking across my retinas.  

My stomach lifts,  not from height 
but from the sudden understanding  
that the world is round after all.
  
I can see the curve of it now,  
the way the horizon bends  
to meet my dangling shoes.  

At the top, I stop breathing,  
just long enough to let the moment  
stretch like taffy between my fingers.

Years ago I wrote a memoir vignette ("Ticket to Ride") based on this experience; you may read it at Poetry Soup as follows: www.poetrysoup.com/short_stories/ticket_to_ride_13584

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