Long Ritual Poems
Long Ritual Poems. Below are the most popular long Ritual by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Ritual poems by poem length and keyword.
Old men in waistcoats
Sitting in the warm sun
Chatting of those days
When they were young
Comrades in arms at
The Cold War’s height
Fighting off sleep through
Each long shift’s night.
Each hour seeming longer
As dawn broke the sky
Each long second endless
To each tired, aching eye.
The moment of relief at
At each shift’s end
Precious sleeping hours
To help tired minds mend.
Enjoying each hour until
That inevitable when
Once again it’s their turn
For the night shift again.
Old men in waistcoats
Reliving days of youth
Of a very different world
And a very different truth.
Each reunion ends with
A ritual moment to think
And toast those gone with
The Absent Friends’ drink.
They renew their pledge,
Same time next year,
Each maybe wondering
That’s if I’m still here.
She sat tight in the corner with her head on her knees,
As she quietly begged, let me kill myself please.
With a knife tightly gripped in her left hand,
Life as she thought was not going as she planned.
Depression was her lover an enticing lonely friend,
She had everything she wanted but it beckoned her to her end.
But the words “don’t do it” was expressed in a soft tiny voice,
She heard it many a time before in her head giving her a choice.
But this time the voice kept on talking more than before,
She mimicked the words while sitting on the cold kitchen floor.
Her eyes darted from side to side as if reading it from an invisible book,
And without realising it, the pain she felt subsided as she shook.
The voice was definitely hers, but what it said healed her pain,
The depression that she experienced was no longer driving her insane.
The voice said “Child why do you contemplate killing yourself?”
“The next time you feel this way just call my name and I will help”
“What’s your name?” she screamed out, but the voice had gone,
It was six months later depression serenaded the death ritual song.
Depression was out to kill her, she sat and cried like a child
“Jesus help me please!” then remembered and began to laugh and smile
Author Dana Redricks
September 22, 2023
Pop and sizzle, I could hear the sound of the hot iron as it Cascades through my thick thick dark hair, Don't move, Don't turn, are you might get burned. Was our weekly ritual. As we sat there hoping this moment would soon be over. We dare not get it wet, or over again the torture would begin. Pop-pop sizzle, the sound of the hot iron, which seemed like it was for hours in that chair. This was the challenge of being black girl with thick hair, but it was all worth it, because we went out knowing we looked good and we made sure to flaunt it. Heads held high, looking proud. We're black and proud out loud.
My Prayer Of Ask
Lead us- Dear Father Guide us over great Jehovah from our barren lands
We ask you, Lord, to lead us and keep us sane far from the legion of darkness thick and gross hands.
Build up our minds Our hearts, and our habits to a planned path of love given.
Our weakness oppression destruction we cried and cry for our thoughts to bow down to the soul birth that we came here with inside the womb of life making the purpose the reason very clear love tone straight journey home our desires be far from obsessions. save us!
Protect us from Beliah's movements in the world's great wounds of sacrifices made to destroy one another as a ritual to kill steal sift to destroy our brain membrane in his part in Earth's Atmosphere!
From Lucifer's air of false allusions false heavens and false faces back to generations his desire to sift us as wheat in every emotion.
From Satan,s Hellfire gates of hell never let it prevail against us
Please give us the keys to the kingdom!
From Leviathan's waters that live to drown the soul in high waters for fun. Let you my Father deal with him!
From now and forever lead! Guide built up the Secret Places we Own never leave us on the island of Depression alone in the backstreets of loneliness as we walk through the valley our shadow of death help not to fear no evil for you are with us all the way your rod and your staff it comforts us from all harm save us from our self for many were called but few are chosen.
We carefully give you our love and praise forever and beyond the Seven Heavens to the Throne of Grace your love is an intoxicated mystery to unfold
as it is in heaven so is it on earth today for me am always enduring my hurt my pains flow and drip a sea of bloody tears bloody cruel pain but no one can really see this or seem to understand for all of us wear a silly smiley face mask called my body flesh and my laughter my tears wipe away when love can twin our flame but this one thing for sure goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lords forever Amen!
I was once the pride of my father’s house,
I was the light in his eyes,
Daksha’s daughter,
a name that once meant honor,
became the reason for my death.
All I ever chose was love,
love for my Shiva,
the one untouched,
the one who is beyond any illusion,
who is the only truth,
whose silence held the universe,
whose indifference still glowed with truth.
But my father saw insult,
where I saw divinity.
He forgot,
I was not just his daughter,
I was a woman,
a soul,
a prayer.
I asked myself again and again,
Is a daughter’s love smaller than a father’s pride,
Does faith destroy a family’s name?
Is being Sati just a ritual to burn inside the fire?
Something cracked within me,
that tenderness,
that voice that once called me “my child”,
turned into echoes of shame,
and I burned inside alive.
And even now centuries later,
I see the same fire still burning,
in some village,
behind some city wall,
where a daughter is strangled or burnt down,
in the name of her father’s honor.
He doesn’t know,
I am still here,
I am Sati again,
living as Noora,
as Radha,
as Aisha,
burning once more,
without a ritual,
without a mantra,
only for the sin of loving.
The world has changed,
but the wound has not.
The names have changed,
but the crime remains.
A father’s pride,
a society’s gaze,
a daughter’s silence.
And I rise in flames again,
but this time no gods will come,
only headlines will,
and some mother will cry,
my Sati has not returned
not yet,
she is gone doused in ashes,
in the fire of the father’s honour,
She would be born yet again,
Somewhere to be set ablaze again!
©Chitra Arun
Note:- In Hindu mythology, Sati, daughter of King Daksha, dies after her husband Shiva is shamed by her father’s wounded pride. This poem carries Sati beyond myth into the present, where in India her fire still burns in women killed for honor, choice, and love. The names change, the gods fall silent, but the crime endures.
Into the morning light I rise,
a reluctant soldier clad in skin,
hair a tangle map of sleepless nights,
the ghost of yesterday weighs within.
Eyebrows, half-plucked reminders
of a time when self-care felt like a dance,
now a chore - a forgotten ritual,
each brushstroke of make-up, a heavy sigh.
I force a smile, an actress in my own play,
lucky if the sun finds me awake for eight.
My socks don't match,
like the thoughts in my head,
a quiet rebellion against order that I long for.
Jeans collecting dust,
just like dreams left behind,
once a fabric of colour,
now a relic of effort spent,
as I make my way through the chaos of my mind,
a patchwork quilt of what was and what is in time.
Still, amidst the mess,
a flicker comes out;
resilience stitched at every frayed edge about.
I learn to breathe,
to give pride to the fight,
finding strength in the cracks,
embracing the light.
You said its realistic: that portrayal of love captured in a tiny window frame of romance – shrinking small in juxtaposition to the expanding love. Stood on the precipice of acceptance I look in while I can. Firm on your door mat where I bow my head and know im welcome. Circumstance. It wont let me enter. Here im left to stand, wipe my feet and cool my heels. On the edge of something queuing quiet for a quart of promised nothing, waiting for that ritual washing of hands.
I said its real but sad. Paying for a moments happiness with a currency i feel I cant afford – a sorrow stretching over all of yesterdays tomorrows. The kind to leave me broke beyond belief but I still acquiesce thinking that in times ahead to keep me going I can think how much such an actual mess made me rich beyond my wildest dreams; albeit for a moment only – a muddy footprint at one of many turnpikes on lifes lonely journey.
She said at least you have me for a little while for the alternative was not at all. That if its any consolation you would cry when it was time to say goodbye. But truth be told it felt like time was standing still and I had silly boy like machinations of keeping it like this. Holding hands and arms and never letting go. Drowning out the well known sound of time passing through my finger tips unlike that everlasting lingering taste of her upon my sullen lips.
yearning
of ritual
lethargic
in thunderstorm
through
huge chasm
of window&
watching
sky
darkened &
drizzle
dropping &
gust
howling
non-stop
yet stipulating
coldness
within
intimacy&
a glimpse
charming
longing
for flowers
blooming
rooting in
womb
relishing
drafting
sun and moon
elysian fields
of yesteryear
& blue oceans
crave
scooting
&
alleging
obsession
musings
notification
compelling
1St place contest winner
Written: August 1st, 2022
A Brian Strand Premiere Choice Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Brian Strand
NOTE:THIS IS AN OPEN(organic) FORM VERSE using spaces&breaks without grammatical symbols ,the ' open' relies upon 'the one breath limitation' & so inherently requires the 'reader' (reciter) to input and responds thus making this enigmatic form a two way interplay & interpretatIon unique to the moment& changing according to mood is inherently variable.
Once is never quite enough,
Once again feels more like trust.
Once more, close to sure—
Eat, has eaten, ate, will eat—
Breath itself repeats,
A ritual done compulsively,
Yet never fully satisfied.
Like tasting twice, the second time charms,
Knowledge grows through shifting views,
Education’s pulse is repetition’s arms.
Sometimes, a new truth breaks through,
But the next generation—
History rewritten, old made new.
To learn just once is perilous, my friend,
To keep vital truths alive,
Stay curious, hungry—for what you think you know,
It’s not fresh facts, but the rhythm that thrives.
From the corner of my eye, I catch a glimpse—
Not enough, I seek a retake,
To still the mind’s restless whispering.
At its core, the brain’s a tireless gossip,
Finding joy in repetition’s simple act,
Without it, a vacuum swells with doubt,
So we repeat—to anchor, to trust, to act.
born with hair slightly wavy as
summer sea's crest, Mom would
treat it as her morning decor ritual---
ponytailed, pinned at the crown with
zigzag of ribbons, braided two-ways,
and god knows what arrangements
followed--oh yes, the old maid bun!
jet black , it flowed down past shoulders;
the envy of high school.girls as we
started to soiree and party...like so,
by 2000, my lattice of curled tresses
met its waterloo: silky, straight locks
invaded mod media, downgrading
my status as a hometown freak...
my Nicole Kidman jive looking passe!
I remember fanatically calendaring
regular visits to a stylist-- a rite abhored
in young adolescence...
yes, magic of fad can be done;
from brazilian rebond, collagen tweaks,
highlights in tints of raspberry or maze
and more top shot brouhahas just
to be part of the scene!
yet, few seasons back, i began missing
myself... though shoulder length
locks inhabited me; i grew forlon, empty.
Imagining how Mom ran her fingers
down my young hair, I chose to let
my tresses flow without restraint---
jet black even through bright hues
of moonlit passages and
dawn's sequined, golden rise.
now. air- tossed, wind blown,
hand- caressed, aloe- rinsed
with few organic whips,
I sweep my hair
in its free flow movement --
allowing the me to be the natural
woman I am.