Long Rigid Poems
Long Rigid Poems. Below are the most popular long Rigid by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Rigid poems by poem length and keyword.
Scrappy, pugnacious
a fighter from birth
The wee lad felled giants
of super-sized girth
Spectators cheered him on
there was no dearth
of the bubbly downed afterward
and good-natured mirth
They say, ‘The Bigger They Are, the Harder they Fall'
of those who stand tall ‘n rigid, not flexible at all
Ya gotta bend with the wind and go with the flow
‘cos if you stand there stock upright
~ Down you will go
the Heart wants what it wants
~
Individualistic unrivaled wants
Tempting desires into needs
Defying the mind its logistics
Reinventing discarded feelings
Unto someone / something new
Hand in hand - words & action
How far-off will "delusion" go
How slow will integrity show
Rigid essence of the person
In morality & their principals
The once frowned upon red
Has now been flagged green
Do away the self-abiding rules
Based on likeability & the who
See red and only logic will reign
See green & everything's serene
The sure way to its death is passion
And lack in continued preservation
Eventful ache or a new resurrection
The heart's desire its only sanction
Not just in logic's rigid lines,
Knowledge whispers, secrets entwined.
From senses' bloom, a vibrant hue,
Intuition whispers, "This is true."
Reason, a lantern, pierces night,
Revealing paths, bathed in moonlit light.
Experience, a weathered guide,
With gentle touch, sets paths aside.
They meet, not rivals, but as one,
In this grand waltz, beneath the sun.
Mind and world, a cosmic dance,
Reason and feeling, taking a chance.
No rigid throne, but hand in hand,
Through fields of logic, across the land.
Where dreams ignite, and truths unfold,
Reason and feeling, stories untold.
In echoes of laughter, tears that fall,
Knowledge blossoms, embracing all.
Not just from books, in wisdom's hoard,
But whispered secrets, gently poured.
So let us listen, hearts unbound,
To logic's beat, on fertile ground.
Experience whispers, soft and near,
Together building, year by year.
For knowledge thrives, a vibrant thing,
When reason dances, senses sing.
Hand in hand, they light the way,
Forever intertwined, come what may.
This is the dance, where wisdom thrives,
Reason and feeling, keeping us alive.
In this embrace, where shadows fly,
Knowledge whispers, "This is why.”
Enea Gets the Red Hat
Finally, he's getting somewhere.
Fifty years of age and almost crippled,
prematurely aged, but at last,
sweet recognition rains down
on the poet. Kneeling before Calixtus,
he accepts the Cardinal's hat.
Fancy that.
With every triumph, we're swept nearer Hell.
Each anthem that we sing's a kind of knell.
No matter what we get, or grab, or gain,
we're human, and our lot is death and pain.
Both Frederick and Ladislas
had to do a lot of lobbying
(Calixtus was a Borgia, after all:
and family is family.) Por fin,
esta elevado. Behold the scene.
Frederick with his back to us
and Ladislas holding on to him
(shouldn't that be the other way round?)
deserve their pride of place.
The seething swell of humans
swirls around the little altar,
but can't budge it.
The clear-cut marble doesn't give.
What is the painter telling us?
Men move, and flow, and live, and go,
but soon or later, their
energy is spent?
The Church is permanent?
Regard the four main players,
the upper crust of Mankind's many layers,
yet each one a loser clone.
Calixtus took the throne
already old, and singing one stale tune
(and that, corrupt!)
He didn't use a long spoon
when he supped.
There's Frederick, the Emperor,
a joke. Bullied by his minions,
unhappy, hapless, broke.
And Ladislas, a king without a kingdom,
a cock without a crest,
he's Frederick's long-term guest
(another kind of jest).
A prisoner -- or let's say, at home,
he and Frederick make a palindrome:
august additions to this Pleasure Dome.
Enea: worn out, homesick, ill.
Surviving now on sheer will.
Is that Nature's tonsure, or Man's?
He's kept alive by feverish plans
to mount a Great Crusade --
but we all know it won't be made.
Two rigid windows and an altarpiece.
The Trinity? (The painting is the Holy Ghost.)
Or are those plain, framed panes
the Empire and the Papacy?
You think we're reading too much in?
We point you to one subtle artist's touch.
The youth, right-centre, in the azure cloak,
who's smirking at some "only-I-know" joke:
head cocked, as if he's watching all, askance:
he finds the dainty, double-dealing dance
amusing. Isn't he Rafael?
Hatted like some crimson Cardinal,
he's watching how they rise up, how they fall.
He's waiting, calmly, to inherit all.
Dear Mom: I'm in the Army now and faring pretty well.
The chow ain't too bad but how those Sergeants love to yell!
I thought it tough abiding by your rigid rules and regulations,
But they pale compared to the Army's inflexible expectations!
Remember how you used to chide me about making up my bed?
It ain't no different here except Sergeants berate me now instead!
I couldn't wait to leave home to get away from your reproof.
Mom, I must admit things weren't half bad living beneath your roof!
Remember how I used to toss my clothes all about my room?
Sergeants won't tolerate that and for such will lower the boom!
I guess I really had it good when I was living under your wing.
When I finish my hitch and get back home, I won't gripe about a thing!
Remember how I used to ignore your threats and lay in bed 'til noon?
Now, the bugle toots at five a.m. and awakes the whole platoon!
Mom, I look back now and regret that I gave you any sass.
Now, I keep my mouth shut and suffer harassment from the brass!
Remember how you used to fuss at me for coming home so late?
Now, the Sergeants rant and rave if we ain't in bed by eight!
Mom, when I get out of here and am again under your wing,
I promise I'll do what you want and never complain about a thing!
Robert L. Hinshaw, CMSgt, USAF, Retired
(© All Rights Reserved)
Placed No. 8 in Mom Contest May 2010
The highborn woman and her sons.
An old woman has died she was famous for having no opinion
about anything; talking about “families” soft as flannel patting
a child’s stately bum.
One of her sons has taken her place at the top of the table.
A rigid man with a complaining mien has to use an intermediate
to get his rather trite opinions across.
His mistress, once a reviled woman who came before and after
his wife, who tragically died, but the public forgives her
thanks to sycophantic newspapers views are companion sits
at the top table.
The new enemy in this idyllic world is his youngest son’s wife
a hurricane from America, detested by the public for stealing
this charming but intellectually limited man, looking for a sign
of distress, and actually are encouraging, a marital breakup.
The people at large and the papers they read do not understand
how obscene they are; as the ship of fools sails on and on.
THE SUN, EARTH & MOON
(Alternative title: Sygyzy)
The sun is the past—
crucible of the
epigenetic light.
The earth’s the present—
inexorably
our arrogant might.
The moon’s the future—
a desolate orb
frozen in its plight.
Modern science says: The sun is the past, the earth is the present, the moon is the future. From an incandescent mass we have originated, and into a frozen mass we shall turn. Merciless is the law of nature, and rapidly and irresistibly we are drawn to our doom. ~Nikola Tesla
© Suzette Richards 30 July 2017
A PRICELESS GIFT
Everyone should consider his body as a priceless gift from one whom he loves above all, a marvellous work of art, of indescribable beauty, and mystery beyond human conception, and so delicate that a word, a breath, a look, nay, a thought may injure it. ~Nikola Tesla
I hold myself rigid within the framework of creeds
imposed upon me by the secular world at large.
I resist the urge to become totally feral.
A light shines through the cracked urn of my consciousness,
and challenges my intellect and the many preconceived ideas.
Reason and common sense hover; are peripheral.
I recognise that the frail husk that we dwell in
is the reason for our temptation and fleeting pleasure—
Our very earthly existence is ephemeral.
© Suzette Richards 1 July 2021
MAKING MY LIFE EASY …
From Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone,
to the electromechanical vibrator —
all invented before the vacuum cleaner.
Life as a woman has its perks,
but the drudgery of housekeeping
could leave many feeling meaner
than a nest of rattlesnakes.
But pay me some attention with an invention;
I will surely become a real keener.
I do not think you can name many great inventions that have been made by married men. ~Nikola Tesla
© Suzette Richards 10 July 2021
Written to coincide with his birthday, midnight 9–10 July.
The first 3 lines: These are all inventions by married men.
PS Tesla never married.
Also see my article: The Tesla 3–6–9: Poetic form since 2017
The girl weeps a bruised and bitter rain,
A childhood choked, a garden grown in pain.
My laughter, brittle glass, it cracks and breaks,
Beneath the weight of unforgiving stakes.
They built a fortress, walls of rigid stone,
And left my heart a barren, windswept zone.
No lover's hand to soothe, no gentle gaze,
Just scornful whispers in a hateful maze.
Each hallway echoes with a judging eye,
A constant feeling that I want to die.
They see a monster where a child should bloom,
And fill my days with ever-present gloom.
The books lie open, pages blurred with tears,
School's a torment, fueling all my fears.
A secret festers, a corrosive blight,
Consuming hope, and plunging me in night.
I paint a smile, a mask of purest white,
To hide the shadows lurking in the light.
But when the moon ascends its lonely throne,
The tears return, and I am all alone.
A burden I believe, a whispered curse,
This aching need to flee, to be dispersed.
The razor sings a siren's tempting call,
A fragile promise to escape it all.
The girl weeps, a final sigh,
A whispered plea to simply die,
My childhood dead, a silent tomb,
Lost in this endless aching gloom.
The moon would be a dull, gray rock without the Sun's light.
An opinion would be a thought without one's voice.
A man would be useless without a purpose.
So, all the men that stand before me are nothing,
as they brandish their swords;
squeezing the hilt like my throat,
constricting the words from it before they're even spoken.
My men were tethered to Earth,
they tortured themselves daily for fleeting escape.
My luminous glow was their temptation, their envy.
As I was the moon;
a quiet beauty that spoke volumes.
My men chip away at my craters, their shadow swallowing the Sun's last rays.
I am now a rock;
Stoic, rigid.
Ruthless. Ruinous.
The light drained from my now-hollowed features.
A merciless wreckage pounded into rock, hollowed from its light.
Sand only looked to alight,
find some alone-time in the muck
no fuss was meant, it is only a space
as big as a grain taken, escaping its identical
brethren of billions on the sea floor.
Oyster only opened his rigid
lips to rinse, to breathe the brine,
to move a snack through his labial palps
in private, when a tiny intruder, unwelcome,
unbidden, disturbs the digestion,
initiates the unintended consequence
of oyster's defensive reaction.
Called upon, mitigation arrives over time.
Nacre warriors, layer by layer, smooth
sand's edges to soothe oyster's irritation,
an effort that deafens new pleas from a grain
now only looking to go home.
In the dark-churned slime, desire
emerges as a luster in the mud, a dazzling
monster named Pearl, radiant and angry, hard
with longing to be unloosed from her mucous
roots. She sends dreams as currency of streaming
shimmers, to bolster her chances of freedom
from an endless, watery night.
Lured by the glimmer, human hands pry open
shy bivalve, tongue and lips slurp up the middle
like a salty kiss, until teeth accidental onto eager Pearl
warmed by the breath.
For the indiscretion she now sits pocketed in slacks
belonging to hands with plans to pierce her spine,
string her along, then hang her on another lover's neck—
stranger to sand and pearl, already grown
wayward in closeness, is a new desire that oyster
degrade on ocean's bottom, turn into sand and join them
on the choker.