Long Retracing Poems
Long Retracing Poems. Below are the most popular long Retracing by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Retracing poems by poem length and keyword.
The Prophecy:
An ordinary December morning
extraordinary hopes in white,
streets adorned with snowflakes
embellished in red crystal dreams.
She boarded her cab to airport,
awaited holidays had arrived.
From carousels of Tokyo city
to sledges in the Alps, a while.
Roads blocked in snowfall,
eh, just a glitch in the matrix.
An hour early was a wise decision
she couldn't miss her flight,
home calling season it was.
But oh the flight was delayed
by seven hours for clear weather.
'It'd be a roller coaster ride',
her roommate had read a horoscope.
The tiresome day had just begun.
The Adventure:
A birdie spreading new wings
exploring corners of terminal,
unexpected fascination at stalls
infant desires of relaxation.
Strangers seemed welcoming
a town thriving with journeys
she traveled for 10 hours
without moving geographically.
At last announcements made
she boarded with nostalgia,
the journey to her homeland
began with a gleaming dusk,
golden sunset kissing adieu
to sequins of ocean waves.
She read a verse or two
then dozed off with clouds.
A feather travelling afar
in alluring worldly delight.
The Glitch in the Matrix:
Until they had to pause,
just an intermediate stop
where she stepped out to stroll
retracing steps to board again
caught in freezing showers.
Warm at night, she shivered
longing for her cushioned bed.
A long interesting day though
she wouldn't want it again.
With lilac morning whispers
it was time for her homeland.
Outside was a soothing warmth
veiled in white familiar gleam.
She finally cuddled in her bed
with mother's handmade meal.
Woke up to a cup of coffee
and checked for calls on phone.
Gosh! It was still yesterday
dreaded to repeat she'd forgotten,
her body had traveled in past
Alas! It was a different time zone.
~A True Story
September 2, 2020
All In A Day Poetry Contest
Sponsor: William Kekaula
On a sunny day in late September
we were on our way to Runswick Bay,
on a walk that we gladly remember,
meeting people on the Cleveland Way.
Assorted folk with the same idea
taking in distant views over the sea,
a gentle breeze, the far horizon clear,
nearby hips and haws bright on bush and tree.
Whoever you meet, just what do you say?
Should it be ”Hi!” or rather “Hello!”?
Is it “Good morning” or maybe “Good day?”
If they greet me first I go with the flow.
Whatever is said may offer a clue,
tell you something about the other,
whether there is further chat to pursue
or just some remarks about the weather.
Having arrived we sat by the beach
eating our sandwiches watched by some dogs
and seagulls, waiting to swoop or to reach
for tasty morsels, whatever drops.
After a paddle to refresh my feet,
there were four and a half miles to return
to Sandsend for our walk to complete.
First there were steps to climb by the burn,
passing more people too breathless to greet;
grateful to pause we let them pass by
with a nod or wave – but wished for a seat!
There at the top a gate was held wide
by a couple with smiles to wave us through.
We paused as I stretched my cramp to ease
also to remove a stone from my shoe;
then onward we trod refreshed by the breeze.
Off the cliff face using the updraught
fulmars glided scanning the sea below.
Retracing our steps, features we'd passed
informed us how far we still had to go.
High on his combine, late harvest to reap
the farmer raised his hand as we stopped,
paused to pick blackberries more sharp than sweet.
Speckled wood butterflies near to us dropped.
At last we came to more steps to descend,
holding the rail as these tested our knees.
Pausing again with views of Sandsend
and spray from breakers whipped up by the breeze.
Back at the car there was salt on the screen.
Time to examine my blistered feet
and to doze awhile, pondering the cuisine
of Whitby and just what we might eat:
Scampi and whitebait with too many chips,
cans of ginger beer to ease it all down,
observed by gulls we looked at the ships
that brought our supper to this port of renown.
* * *
We count our blessings that we were able
to escape to the coast for refreshment
before Covid restrictions on travel
could prevent a day of enjoyment.
Starlight is a ghost.
A memory still arriving.
A whisper from an ancient fire.
appearing fresh though already old.
The sky deceives with its brilliance.
A dazzling performance,
written in vanished ink.
Even our sun is a mirage—
its warmth already eight minutes gone
before it touches our skin.
We think, we live in the present,
yet we walk corridors of delay,
every door we open
revealing what has already passed.
Yet joy relishes the tick of particles.
Laughter distilled into drops of dew,
gathering the suspended onto the lips
to recall in memory.
To live “in the moment”
is to stand in the sea of the past tense,
realizing time is a river
that never turns back, progressing
downstream, offering only recall,
and the ache of what slipped away.
There is no going back, no retracing,
only recalling and regretting what we missed.
So I clutch your hand,
as if grasping a comet’s tail,
knowing the warmth I feel,
is already fleeting;
the light I see reflected in your face
departed long ago from somewhere else,
yet reaches my eyes now.
Knowing the light I see in your face
arrived from elsewhere a long time ago.
Yet I can still make the echoes bloom,
brighten them for their lateness.
We do not live in fresh moments,
but in arrivals that find us.
The delay itself is the gift.
Nothing touches us
until it first becomes memory,
unfolding without end
into the fleeting momentary now.
I've been tracing the starry sky with little dots,
my fingers dancing in diverging paths of knots,
I long for a curl leading to a slumber in blues,
through these sinuous rivers my thoughts cruise.
A garden of warmth, my woolen scarf I nuzzle,
my nose itches against the embroidered puzzle,
I remember mother's fingers turning with devotion,
beautiful threads twisting on the scarf in motion.
"How do you identify the threads in that maze?"
I would often ask following the needle in daze.
"Oh you just need to hold on to a single strand,
and knit or loosen it retracing the color band."
How will I ever escape my fears if I am lost?
I realize this question in my mind hadn't crossed,
her answer echoes my hopes trapped in dim rooms,
to extinguish agony I need to plunge into fumes.
Holding colored love, labyrinths of threads I face,
her ethereal touch in my scarf, my fingers trace,
through whispering lullabies in stars I sprawl,
led to an ocean of light beyond that fearful wall.
June 25, 2020
Maze - 10 Word Challenge Poetry Contest
Sponsor: Constance(A Dear Heart)
~Winner: 1st Place
For four cold and long months
I was lonelier than a lonely heart,
staring at the beautiful snowflakes...
and afraid to fall asleep, I dreamt in the dark:
reminiscing the intense heat of midnight!
Lonelier than a lonely heart:
shunning sleep, retracing lovely memories of old,
of forget-me-not on that scented path;
and those delicate daises thrown at her feet haven't faded,
but have kept my passion alive as any true lover would.
Once these hearts were close, no need to yearn
for each other...through each night our passion arose;
has anyone ever asked how long it did burn?
Sadly, loneliness revokes a nostalgic desire
to whisper passionate words that aren't there.
Lonelier than a lonelier heart:
it's the most awful feeling I can endure;
images of two lovers kissing into the shadows of night,
touching their warm bodies to feel pleasure...
oh, imaginary dream don't end until sunrays emerge!
“Know your value. Confidence breeds success. Act like the person you want to become, and people will start seeing you as that person.”
-Mark M. Ford
Despite the circumstances that surrounds,
He doesn’t let them write him,
He’s determined to push through the night,
To bring his view of himself to light.
He’s not lying down on the bed of rejections,
He’s not dwelling in their room,
He looks into the mirror of hope,
His mind sees an upward slope.
Though he is walking through a shrivelled meadow,
His efforts may not be yielding as desired,
Each dawn, he opens a new chapter,
He’s not held down by the frost of winter.
Some people think he’s wearing shoes that are too large for him,
Telling him to consider retracing his steps,
He knows he’s not building castles in the air,
He senses that something is crouching to leap from its lair.
April 28, 2024.
What kills
Are the thrills seem to have gone
Like my ever decreasing youth
I failed to use
The gift I abused
Thinking I was my God
I was entitled
My very own referee
Bingo Caller inches taller
Over all and sundry
But retracing my track's
My receipt's don't cover my taxes
Refunding pearl's in plundered shell's
Warranties have expired
Upon an ocean floor beside bald tyres
And discarded plastic bag's
On fish to snag
For 1 final thrill
Like growing up
I would kill
Glancing beyond a windowsill
Where The rain still dances upon the fresh cut grass
I can no longer smell or even tell cares
For the fresh air or sun
Bored as I of perpetual cutting and growing
Never knowing if anything else will ever take place
Or replace the 1st time feeling
Alive
Feeling
Anything but Hollow
the night i realized i could never fall in love again
i saw a white bird at 3:13 AM
contoured,
unobscured by the darkness,
gliding above the black SUV
where i smuggled my rotting flesh,
harbored beyond the shore of throbbing bodies,
bathed in blue light
in a country where i could never be understood
the night i realized i could never fall in love again
i saw a white bird at 10:15 PM,
unconfined, its primary covert
donning the grey spell of clouds
where it found its refuge,
drifting through my weary eyes
are you tired of me yet?
your porcelain hands fractured beneath my stubborn grip,
your fragments surrendered to the current,
destined to wash upon someone else's coast
i gave myself to you
until nothing remained
your life became unwillingly tangled in mine,
and though my miserly delusions
spoiled long ago,
their memories still root themselves like thorns,
piercing my skull
i cannot stop the bleeding
i wish i could apologize,
for you do not deserve to remain imprisoned
inside the amber haze
i selfishly refuse to bury
although i released you several years ago,
i still slit my wrists daily,
just to let the blood leech
my bitter, dried-up heart
i wish you knew
i do not know another way to exist
no poem,
no human,
no touch
can return spilled blood to my veins
on one of the many nights
my heart was drained of its warmth,
i dreamt i gave birth to a baby girl
painfully, miserably,
i folded inward,
with no one
inside my blurred horizon
i only cry openly in my sleep,
because it is the only place
where i see things as they are
without the diluted disguise of hope,
without the beguiled assurances
of my narrowing reality
i remember i can never fall in love again
every moment i fail to love myself enough
to entrust this emaciated body
to another soul
the day i knew it was time to carve this godforsaken life into stone,
i saw no white bird at no particular time
i sat motionless
on a train that would not stop
for my strangled sobs,
for a stalled existence as pathetic as mine
so, with tears i could not suppress
retracing the map of my bloodshot face,
i engraved
what i had known
since the day you left:
my own death sentence.
Having been born in legendary Italy,a country
as old as the stones of the Via Appia,
made me recall the fiery image of Attila...
the barbarian from Hungary,
who dared to defeat the mighty Romans:
by sacking their imperial city with clanking swords!
Attila might have become the new emperor,
if he hadn't abandoned that land he came to conquer,
but golloped away...vanishing into the unknown:
remorseful or giving up on becoming great;
and some agree that he was as untaimed as a lion...
with a chilvalry to melt any woman's heart!
Many great battles were fought on this soil,
fortified by faith,valor and blood:
an Italy immortalized by Vergil,
Dante,Davinci,Michelangelo and Verdi: a legacy continuing today;
and I, as her native son, like to lead the way...
to be among these and not vanish into nothing!
Where I walked as a teen, castles rose towards
crimson skies to capture my fancy and hold me in wonder,
until dusk came with the tinkling bells; and sweet mother
called me...her voice echoing,with affectionate loveliness,
amid the pine trees and a garden of blooming roses;
there, at the gate's entrance, she waited with flowers!
From a tiny spring, flowing from the snow-capped mountains,
I drank the purest water and saved some in my canteen...
while my companions threw rocks at each other and told jokes;
and none of us were older than seventeen!
O golden days,return to vivid memory...
when we are taken by reminiscence to renew vows of loyalty!
By a bright lamp,I'll write these memoirs 'till morning,
and whenever sleep comes...I'm ready to hop in bed,dreaming
to be in Amalfi or Positano along the rugged coast of emerald...
listening to the murmurs of the gleaming sea,so old,
overlooked by the immobile stars and hear a happy mandolin play
a serenade and to be taken into eternity!
I'm finally there, retracing each footstep on a stony path,
running through the streets of my fled youth;
wouldn't I be happy to stay and find a place to rest?
Copyright 2008 by Andrew Crisci
East Devon Beacon
by Michael R. Burch
Evening darkens upon the moors,
Forgiveness?a hairless thing
skirting the headlamps, fugitive.
Why have we come,
traversing the long miles
and extremities of solitude,
worriedly crisscrossing the wrong maps
with directions
obtained from passing strangers?
Why do we sit,
frantically retracing
love’s long-forgotten signal points
with cramping, ink-stained fingers?
Why the preemptive frowns,
the litigious silences,
when only yesterday we watched
as, out of an autumn sky this vast,
over an orchard or an onion field,
wild Vs of distressed geese
sped across the moon’s face,
the sound of their panicked wings
like our alarmed hearts
pounding in unison?
Keywords/Tags: East, Devon, Beacon, England, Moors, Forgiveness, Maps, Miles, Lost, Directions, Compass Points, Moon, Geese, Lights, Headlights, Headlamps, Fugitive