Long Retraced Poems
Long Retraced Poems. Below are the most popular long Retraced by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Retraced poems by poem length and keyword.
It's about time we talk of ruins.
So, let us talk, for you never know,
How long ears of hope will remain receptive.
Your lips are missing, and your kisses fall,
Like ripe plums and tint my confession,
Like coffee stains with smell of rust.
Looking back, dreams had stories,
About laughters blooming in dews on trembling grass,
With roots growing into layers of blue skies.
That dark sweater you began knitting,
Lies lifeless by a woollen ball,
Like buried half of a rainbow.
My greys are silvery now, and my smile
Looks like a scar, but my heart
Keeps shredding dead skins.
Footprints covered by caddish shadows
Of hubristic tongues,
Never to be retraced, and
The wish to carry your whispers beyond life,
Scavenged by beaks of time,
Is nothing but a piece of
History's torn chorion.
Entangled in my pensive repentance,
Memory of a girl (assuming),
Whose playful steps ruefully erased
Even before she was assisted into the world,
Stares back from an obsolete painting.
I sense blood seething in my veins,
But with no ill-will.
If only i could stop this hour from passing away,
And touch life one more time,
Gently and wisely, perhaps sweet palpitations
Would be heard knocking from within.
Lying in the heap of fallen bricks
Of dilapidated castle of Eros,
Where, once upon a time,
Our romance was folktale for angels and fairies,
I'm supposed to be bleeding the high-noon sun
To feed yesterday's vampiric fleas.
My body no longer lives on bread and grains,
But on tears and prayers, and
Keeps on living, surprising the undertaker and
my foes,
Who begin to think
I am here to stay indefinitely.
So, I labour to hasten my swan song
To gladden those who want to witness my exit.
The yarn with which
I began weaving a flag,
Has been sold to brothels of politics,
Where patriotism is only a slang
In perorations of capricious pimps.
My nights are haunted by ghosts
Of betrayed slogans
I once coined on fisting graffiti.
Standing amidst graves of words
Spoken inconspicuously,
I see soldiers placing putrid shocks and
Ugly boots
On books strewn across the floor
Of my old school's library
Which is now a fortified barrack.
But when I see tombs sleeping like babies,
In quietness of a cemetery,
I beg you -
Don't let me die without a wound, and
Even if it is in pretensive nostalgia,
Bury me with bloodstained kiss.
FOG HORN ON THE NEVA
Fog horn on the far off Neva dock
A canal bridge to open and unlock:
Today I heard its sound
Unmistakable note found
Implanted down in my head,
Coming today a word long unsaid
Across the railroad tracks it calls
To me through cracks in walls
And half-closed lattice windows,
Across the shadows and meadows
From far away in the salt water -
An ocean-bound huge transporter .
Took me back to porridge oats
And blanketless beds with cold coats,
Sharing a pillow with gran and mum
In a cold unheated tiny bedroom -
But warm as only a mother’s arm can be -
Listening on foggy nights with me
-To horns open Tyne’s swing bridge old,
And in foggy winter days cold
-To lost ships off Cullercoats moan
Trying to find the walls of stone,
The welcoming piers of heaven:
Sandy river’s saving haven.
I was taken aback to be taken back
Thus, on my hustling life’s track
I forget the real roots. I need
To recall from what did I proceed,
For often does my boat get tossed
And in the fog I am sometimes lost.
The Horn’s lament is familiar
Like a family voice or a prayer,
As a bird recognizes its mate’s call
No need to ask what it is at all.
It is friendly. To it I return.
To hear it I yearn.
Like my mother’s laugh,
Like grandfather’s cough -
I Know it like my own face,
It is easy to retrace.
As I walk on Nevsky Prospekt
Turning back the pages of neglect,
I hear it in the depths of my heart.
It reverberates as a note apart
And I feel it in the mist
Of time. It insists. I have missed
Its plaintive call for so long.
As a salmon returns where he belongs
To his birth river on the foam
I am drawn inexorably home.
Bustling Tyne ships are now gone.
Only pleasure yachts that leisurely yawn.
No battleships or tankers to see,
No river smells of sweat and tears salty,
But the horn’s fossilized lament remains
In sand-banks and sea-lanes
And memory banks retraced :
Memories never to be to erased.
Life’s mist becomes too dense.
Guide me in the fog thence.
Lead me to back to reality.
The horn is searching for me
From the past through the cracks
And lattice of my old bridge tracks,
Opening my mind to echoes of the past,
Holding my soul sound and fast.
In my wildest dreams I never thought I'd see his face again,
Though so often I retraced it in my mind,
To live the life he wanted would to me have been a sin,
Yet often still I long so to rewind.
There in that place and in that time it all seemed so complete,
Sunday morning pancakes on the bar,
Evening walks with crashing waves and sandals on my feet,
At night we'd wish upon the brightest star.
"Just say the words and I'll be yours" I'd whisper in his ear,
But never a commitment from his lips,
He'd only say I love you so, there's nothing you should fear,
Caress my face beneath his finger tips.
When I left he walked away and never turned around,
I took this as a sign that I was right,
The sweetest love I'd ever known I tossed it on the ground,
My eyes have not beheld him since that night.
Now there he stands before my eyes, I feel my poor heart race,
How is it he still moves me in this way,
I'm walking over to him at a slow and steady pace,
There's no idea of what I want to say.
He turns his head and looks at me with cautious emerald eyes,
I smile and try to hide my shaking hands,
I pray that he still feels the same and thinks I'm still his prize,
We're older now perhaps he understands.
When all a once a beauty walks right up and takes his arm,
She smiles at me and I can only stare,
Surely now she is the one and I can sense her poise and charm,
She sees my tears and I don't really care.
I back away, my body numb, I wish I'd stayed at home,
I run into the blackness of the night,
The feelings never dealt with that I thought were surely gone,
Are chasing me, there is no end in sight.
Listening to what others say and trying hard to please,
Has left me in a lost and lonely state,
Love can be so healing yet sometimes it's a disease,
I made a choice and now I've sealed my fate.
I've heard it said that love can build a bridge that you can cross,
And on the other side old can be new,
My love I'd cross a bridge and know all else would be a loss,
If I could have another chance with you.
The moral is don't wait too long nor push to have your way,
When love arrives embrace it at your best,
Protect the gift you've come upon no matter what they say,
Your heart will smile, your soul will finally rest.
I looked in the file cabinet but I could not find it there.
It obviously had not been filed; I began to look elsewhere.
I looked on the lamp table beside the green armchair.
Only to find my poem was gone, but I did not despair.
I looked in drawers in every room; frustration did forbear.
Exactly where I put my work, I was not aware.
I looked beneath my knitwear, my neck-wear, and nightwear.
My poem, lost in a nightmare, had vanished in thin air.
I began to search the kitchen, aggravation in full glare.
I looked behind the china, the stoneware, and glassware.
I looked between the pots and pans, beneath the new cookware.
All too soon, my family knew my recall required repair.
So, I retraced my every move as fear began to blare.
There was nothing else to do but eat a chocolate éclair.
(But I was on a diet; so, instead…yea, right…I ate a pear.)
And all of this I did before my heart felt great despair.
“My Dear” came to help me, for I could find the poem nowhere.
At times like this, when things are lost, life seems so unfair.
The devil cast his fiery net, but my soul he did not ensnare.
I calmed myself, my hope was bare, and then, I said a prayer.
It was soon discovered, after I cried, but did not swear.
That it was in the computer room, not stolen by some corsair.
A plastic drawer behind my chair had become my poetry lair.
Forgotten works, unfinished thoughts, old poems were nestled there.
Relief, now sighed, I caressed the page, new verse written with care.
And it was not long after this dreadful affair that I became aware.
Each poem that flows from a poet's heart is written with personal flare.
Uniquely styled, with passionate views, shared insights, loved and rare.
Whether upon the computer or on paper a poet's poems find air.
Each published thought from soul to man must be carefully stored somewhere.
So, when upon a summer's steam you write your thoughts so fair.
Put them in a most safe place, consistently, and you will find them there.
© July 12, 2010
Dane Smith-Johnsen
Something's changed, I don't recall this door.
The mat that once read 'welcome'...now gone.
Am I lost in the night, or had I forgotten some slight..
had my address been quelled by another time?
The new curtains in the bay window seem nice,
though..not the deep blue highlighted sash you fell for.
And on that foreign floor, a sweet Labrador lies napping.
Not the lightning fast hound rescued from the shelter.
My key's jingle, so hollow in sound, questions me now..
whether I know left from right, right from wrong..
Two boots waited, under an unfamiliar porchlight,
neither I recollect as my own..
every sunset I knew seemed to've gone.
I stepped back from a stranger's stair, perhaps deceived by my own eyes..
retracing my tired steps from the long day, to the oak in the yard,
was it always that tall?
Surely the messages you left would offer a solution from this lunacy,
a chance at a door opening, inviting me, lovingly from this nightmarish scene.
But they had all disappeared.., save one.
Staring hollow eyed into the dimming display's abyss, I read the last will..
your last thought retraced..in taps' mournful horn.
The air in my lungs abandoned me, my shoulders suddenly
weighing so heavy, in a torn and bloodied uniform.
Somehow the night sky was no longer mine to share..
absent your side, shaking my head in my hands..
my God, how could it be?
The door and locks changed, the porchlight rearranged,
the blue curtains went too,
The scratch of toe nail's click clack.. nowhere to be found,
even the dog was removed.
Turning away from the lawn to the long sidewalk, oblivion my companion,
I laughed out loud at the fool and folly and future that lie in store.
There's a fine line between truly belonging.., and only being,
bitter lesson learned at a strange door..
Finally saddeningly, maddeningly.. it dawned,
why everything was tipped on its face.
Your last message, echo'd in my broken mind..,
'you've been replaced'.
The Visitor
I don't know what it was that woke me, just a vague feeling of movement
In the early pre-dawn darkness at the bottom of the bed.
I could just make out the curtains blowing idly round the window
And the frame of lighter darkness round the old machinery shed.
The night was dark and moonless, and my vision dim and hazy
In the weak illumination of the cold and distant stars.
And I fancied as I squinted to resolve the dim horizon
That the bright one in the corner was the reddish planet, Mars.
There it was again, ... the movement: gentle pressure on my ankle.
It must be the cat, I told myself and relaxed with a sigh.
Then it moved again.. along my calf, so gently, like a lover
And it touched at last now clammy flesh along my inner thigh!
I groped to reach the light switch on the wall beside the bed-post
To ease my consternation at my uninvited guest.
But the wanted switch eluded; its position seemed secluded
As I tried to back away from mounting pressure on my chest!
The light was bright and blinding and my guest was now rewinding
His long and slender body on its new and quaking spot.
He was big and he was handsome: his black eyes peered into mine,
Every muscle in my body bunched up tightly in a knot!
If I moved, the game was over; nothing was to me more certain...
His head was slowly weaving only inches from my face.
Though I tried to will it silent lest it vex my brown intruder,
My thumping heart insisted on a unremitting race!
The house was fast asleep and would remain so for an hour,
There seemed no way to signal that I'd fallen into strife
And it seemed a time eternal that we spent in close communion,
While I gained appreciation of our transitory life.
And then my slender savage turned, and silently and swiftly
He retraced his path to grassy fields in less time than it takes...
To tell my breathless story, and he vanished in the darkness,
And returned to tend his business in his leafy glades and brakes.
Frank Halliwell
In a moment, a lapse of anguish
Through the sanded markets that
The mind implored.
Dust coughed up
And crystallised silence;
Each moan and cry
Of every wrapped face
Became a whisper,
As blood might echo an unheard drip
Into a lake of cold concern.
I do not know how the street kings felt
For upon re-opening they continued much the same;
Decrepit focus on none but their own.
It would sadden me to think the whip of this
Aged and ground earth
Was nothing more than an inconvenience…
But I do not know how the street kings felt,
For my only sense was the smell of mud from my hands,
As I pushed my eyelids shut.
I was never one of the stalls;
I had played that game and not liked it.
Instead what was I?
Scarce confess more than a ghost.
I had dropped an eye into the weeping tomb,
I had retraced each bone with affection
And made self-labour of their wandering loss.
I had carved a hole so deep within
That I may plunge.
Rise as I did, in the scope of the curious
I had no form known to this winding world.
I had a difference, for sure, there was much that I could not now.
Only sleep and give; remaining as dead as I ever was.
I lay naked upon the grazing sand,
Skin as cold as the failing tree.
But in this moment
The mournful fled,
My arms less heavy than known.
The wind spluttered,
Shook its anchor from retreat,
Revealing sights of the like
That opens the lungs.
An image serene, that beauty becomes existence.
I had dropped an eye into the weeping tomb
Now, returned with a thousand unseen truths.
This scope, upon which all light was born,
This blessing, upon which my skin was warmed,
This infinitely gentle and delicate sky
That I had long looked for.
Myself had withered and decayed
To reignite a brighter flame.
And as this new form,
My mind was able to understand these sights.
I lay still upon my back,
My eyes awake with the possibility,
My mouth gaped;
Hope wrapped its arms, like a quilt;
I was soothed enough.
And as in a touch, I breathed.
(Jodhpur is a beautiful, cultural, historical city in Rajasthan, India. This poem is all
about Jodhpur from her mouth as she told).
Left behind her beamish days of time of life, her days of girlhood…
Left behind her mother’s warmth and faced against frailties,
She left behind her father’s ires and raced against entelechies.
She brought with her those memories,
At once she wailed and bemused she smiled
She brought with her those glosses, palled in her eyes.
Left behind her rainbow and lived in blues
She smiles in low, her eliding Jodhpuri days.
Felled by griefs when thought of those kites at mackerel sky
Her heart yelled mutely at the Marwar soothed musical bliss fly.
There she drew by the Nagaur Turban and adorned faunae
Ceased by arts of jugglers, puppeteers and spread her wings with the winter newbie.
Revived with these memories she framed her ethnic hospitality
Multihued costumes and the aura of the folk dances attired by the society.
The copious finesse graced by palatable cuisine
Kachori, mirchibada and panchkuta are edible by.
Her blue eyes sobbed by her memories of palship
A walkover by the Balasammand lake
One will pass by the bird of Juno by the lush greenery.
The Sunset splashed with spectacular colours,
She enjoyed those days passing by the blue hills and envying canvas.
Retraced by the red sandstone and columnar, spire temples
She sketched her agone days with those prayers
Devoted towards the Shrine, deities and heroes of decades forgone.
Her heart thumped by her memories of gossips
Becharmed by the Forts and palaces,
The bygone era still reminds the battles fought
Witnesses still stand still by the chronicle held upon.
Lost by these memories colorful
She vivified in her vignettes
She brought up herself with the city
And she slept by the daydream known as Sun City.
Dated: 16/01/2010
Note: This poem is dedicated to my Jr. Miss Rajni
I walked past headstones old and crumbling and others newer,
past decaying flowers and planted flowers and fake flowers:
while hidden birds sang me a symphony and squirrels scampered,
and then, I was standing at the family grave reading the names,
Mom had just died, dad, my sister and grandma were gone too;
just names engraved in cold stone for eternity, I stood weeping.
My secret inner voice was chattering, murmuring, whispering,
crying you need to go to the cemetery office, there is something:
there it told me, something you need to know, I was so confused,
leaving the rose bouquet I had brought, I retraced my steps,
at the office I gave my name and the plot number and said;
I would like the names of all buried there (where did that come from.)
Waiting as the lady checked, my subconcious was talking,
done with her search she told me the name of all I expected:
and then she said something I could not believe ... and the baby,
I heard myself ask, the date of death, and I thought I would faint ,
you see I gave birth as a teen on exactly that day years ago;
and had been told my baby boy had been adopted from the hospital.
I had to swallow my hurt and I asked her can I still engrave his name,
yes, she said, and we worked out the details and I paid for it;
we will call when done ... I left thinking why, why was I not told,
my mother never told me, even on her death bed she revealed nothing,
and what of my father, or my grandma, never a word did they say;
over the following days I talked with my concealed inner voice.
I wept tears and tried to imagine my baby boy in my arms again,
the same word echoing, repeating, why, why, why, why, why, why:
went back when the engraving was done, he had a name, he existed,
not some dirty secret, buried ... I have learnt overtime to forgive them;
though will never understand, but I believe in God and he told me to.
So slowly ...
I have traveled this way before ...
Crept along this route with deliberate intention,
Allowing myself the enjoyments that each next measure brings,
Savoring the odyssey as if for the first time ...
That mindset allowing me the discovery, around each bend,
Of sensations new and inspiring ...
Each twist and turn offering a new reveal -
A perspective or feeling or taste -
That my previous numberless journeys lacked.
How many roads do we travel in life?
Some over-and-over, in haste ...
And those footsteps that are retraced,
Are so often taken for granted ...
The world bustling by our window without notice or regard.
Yet each time I make THIS sojourn,
It reveals something fresh and wondrous ...
A tremor, a flavor, an aromatic scent, heavenly ...
Feelings, sights, thoughts, even sounds, anew,
That my previous courses missed.
But, oh my, this adventure!
Never shall I take a centimeter of this trek as a given,
For it is the wandering that matters ...
Oh, the destination holds wonders of its own,
But this sublime adventure is never to be hurried,
For it is made on a vista, divine ...
A landscape of unequaled beauty and breadth,
That unfolds before me in amazement and portent ...
The sugary softness and voluptuous indulgence ...
Inside ... your thigh.
~ 1st Place ~ in the "Strand Choice 12 Any Form Any Theme" Poetry Contest, Brian Strand, Judge & Sponsor.