Long Roughened Poems
Long Roughened Poems. Below are the most popular long Roughened by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Roughened poems by poem length and keyword.
A tempest of brute force whips the coastline
Where boats and seafarers howl for dire plea;
Unshaken, I guard with strength to disarm
The lash of tide’s wrath… my tower, a marquee.
Though brazen crests dart like slithering mesh
As Night Keeper, rays glint to face storm’s dare
Protecting tender lives, their hopes on edge
Upon roughened waves, my lights flash, “Beware!”
Infusing more ardor till an onrush calms
Heaven’s stars glitter while ships haul the net;
Where from the ridge, my safe harbor appears
On easel of bright air, a task well met!
..................
Contest: Eve Roper’s Sentinel Quatrain
4/14/2016
I inhabited a small house near the shore
where the fishes of men hauled their nets,
in dawn’s waters under boats
of wood sheltered by thinning masts.
Time was when they were like kin of god
Trying to feed the hunger of men;
with bodies burnt by a merciless sun
as hands, blowin' free,
allayed 2,000 souls or more.
Riding through for many hours, to catch food
They now pray for bounty when nights break,
While we strum guitars, " The king will come",
That would supply our children’s bowls.
Our trawlers arrive and throw the sword
Weary from roughened winds, leaf, and streams
Yet,I watch them smiling under a darkened cloud,
Looking like apostles of our tiny harbor.
Brian's Select A
In the beginning, so long ago
When the world was young, yet to grow
There stood the first men, brave and strong
With hearts fierce, and wills unyielding long
Their skin was roughened by the sun
Their hair, wild and woolly, undone
They walked the earth, unafraid and free
Living each day, wild and full of glee
The first men roamed the land without control
Far from the structures and comforts of the modern soul
Hunting and gathering, they made their way
Living in pure, simple ways
They slept under the stars, on the ground
Ate what they found, with no limits bound
The earth was their home, and they knew it well
Surviving with skill, no one could compel
Their spirits were strong, and their hearts pure
They lived each day, unsure of what would occur
For the first men, life was a grand adventure
Their stories and legends, still told with pleasure
Though time has passed and the world has changed
The first men's legacy forever remains
They were the pioneers, who paved the way
For us to live and thrive, each and every day.
My love is like a worker's gloves grown old.
His hands are leather, roughened now with age
and years of work in weather hot and cold,
yet through the many years, he has grown sage. . .
My love is like a builder's pair of boots.
He's dusty and fatigued and still he walks
while trailing mud, but now his attributes
shine through despite life's many stumbling blocks.
My love is like a pair of jeans much worn,
a pair of socks with holes that have stayed warm.
Though time and all the trials he has borne
have left him frayed, he wishes no one harm.
To write a beaming sonnet would not do,
but threadbare love (in some ways) bests the new.
Divorced and tossed aside
The kittens dragged along
for a very bumpy ride.
You've lost some weight but still sinking.
2 days a week seeing a secondhand shrink.
They paint so slowly, over roughened stones.
A hundred bucks an hour for the green sideshow.
You bought an E-bike -a bright Nike running suit.
You're beginning to primp and purr.
You're on the prowl, once again.
Shiny crimson stilettos for stepping out...
While Game Boy is babysitting the kittens.
A half dozen ogres later...
you've decided the whole scene
was a carousel of sugared desperation.
Show horses without any virtue or soul.
Snake eyes rattling at three in the morning.
Where did all those plain plow horses go?
Alone isn't so bad, you whisper to yourself.
You've survived both opaque and glitter.
Love songs rotting in the shallows.
Shallow words over cold T.V. dinners.
High tide may block some paths
but it always refreshes the journey.
You've gained the weight back...and then some.
But shed the shrinks and learned so much.
You're wiser, earned an associate's degree in living.
It's been five years since you were slung aside.
This new-age wisdom forgot to mention.
To pay more attention to your kittens.
You hadn't noticed that while you chased show horses:
One kitten earned a degree in deep cutting.
The other has a PHD in methamphetamines....
And you thought your life was such a mess...
You're still asking Where did all those plain plow horses go? "
.
" I CAN'T HEAR YOU WHEN YOU WHISPER "
you screech one final time,
so loudly that the walls between us shake
(Listen, listen, listen!)
I repeat, with fresh rebellion
but to you, it's just a whisper
so you hear nothing
'til my lips are at your grimy ear
and now it is too late
After I have done, you thump behind me down the cellar stairs, eyes aglitter
And leaning awkwardly against the roughened wall,
stare past me as I work
I may now speak my mind unmolested,
while you, of course, can make no further
comment
These shaken walls hold sentences for far too many ghosts
and tomorrow, I'll begin to tear them down
but for now, I eulogize at the height of my voice
so I can't hear you when you whisper
Daily there were clothes to wash
The load count was always five
Then there were the meals to fix
So her children could survive
She swept the floors and dusted
And washed dishes mountains high
Back then no conditioned air
In the hot days of July.
With a needle and some thread
She mended family clothes
And as she sewed she rarely thought
Of sorrows or of woes.
Grocery shopping was another thing
Of her chores each week
Always she wore gingham
In a dress way past antique
The hours they turned into days,
And the days turned into weeks
As the weeks went into years
They brought lines onto her cheeks
Her roughened hands and furrowed brow
Put gray steaks in her hair
Then, her children grown and gone,
She found her rocking chair.
And as she sat there rocking
Looking backward at her past
She knew she’d done God’s calling
And her job was done … at last
The creaking of the rocking chair
Was music to her ears
And daily she relived the life
Of all her prior years
She had lived life fully
From childhood through her prime
Right up to when
The chair claimed all her time.
No more mounds of dishes
No more mountains’ clothes
And with a smile in a rocking chair
Her life came to its close.
I met you amid the branches
of an old, evergreen tree –
we were wary at first,
dangling like flushed and obscure fruits
from twisted limbs;
exchanging precious gifts
of blue-black berries and tentative smiles
until we gained the other's trust.
We clambered ever higher,
full of that clumsy grace
that comes with youth
and the thrill of a secret shared.
From atop the highest branch
we surveyed the kingdom we had conquered,
and swore to rule with fairness
this world of wood and wind.
Palms were scratched and roughened
where they lay, clasped together,
and the sunlight left dappled laughter lines
upon our upturned faces.
Our subjects were the fickle white-eyes,
darting overhead like leaves given flight,
chattering charming nonsense in our lordly ears.
Somewhere, adults laughed,
but we could not see them,
so we listened instead to the bees
who brought us tales of lands afar,
and our own laughter was lost
amidst the rustling of the leaves.
We wore crowns of purple flowers
in hair still wild and uncut,
and I showed you how to swing
with no hands
from each lichen-covered limb.
Later, we crouched hidden
among the roots of all we owned,
and listened as discarded names
grew closer on the breeze.
There was a brush –
clumsy, but not unwelcome –
of lips on dimpled cheek,
and the promise we would meet
a day, a week, a year from then,
amid the branches
of an old, evergreen tree.
You look at me and see a northeast highway after winter
Cracked, worn, roughened by conditions not meant to be endured.
I was once the most beautiful cobblestone pathway through a garden of ripe, unpicked fruit.
I was the apple whose sweet center no man could resist tasting
But you see affliction where held addiction.
You think my mind feeble, that thoughts slip through my brain
Like water through a child's fingers in a sudsy, post-playtime bath.
But I was once the network that ran every station in the steel-girded high rise
And ran the split level in the suburbs. I never needed to reboot.
A victim of time, still in her prime.
I look in the mirror and don't understand who that old woman is who gapes back.
I have long blonde tresses and eyes that rival Liz Taylor on her best day.
This, this is a shadow -- a black and white picture version of a colorful scene.
Inside I am 25, still as vibrant as the peacock whose feathers once graced my favorite hat.
I'm a tomb . . . of an ancient bloom.
February 14,2016.
Before the screens arrived in rows,
before the glowing, restless light,
the old library I loved was built
of paper worlds and quiet delight.
It greeted me with weathered shelves
and pages softened by the years,
a scent of dust and faded ink
that somehow calmed my childish fears.
The sunlight pooled through dusty panes,
and settled softly on the floor,
and silence lingered in the air
like a hymn I'd somehow heard before.
No one asked me who I was.
No one cared if I was shy.
I could wander through the aisles
and never need to explain why.
For I was quiet by my nature,
content to linger on my own,
and in those stacks of waiting books
I found a place that felt like home.
The books themselves seemed living things,
with clothbound backs and gilded seams,
their worn-out corners telling tales
of lives once lived and countless dreams.
I loved the weight within my hands,
the whisper when a page would turn,
the roughened paper beneath my thumb,
and all the things a book could learn.
The libraries of now still hum
with different rhythms than before.
They hold a thousand useful tools
and open every kind of door.
Yet when my memory wanders back,
it is not technology I see.
It is the scent of aging pages
and the quiet that once sheltered me.
Even now I search old thrift shops,
hoping somewhere I may find
a weathered book whose faded scent
can carry me through space and time.
For sometimes home is not a house,
nor any landmark on a map.
Sometimes it lives in memories
the passing years cannot unwrap.
And often peace is found again
in stories waiting on a shelf,
between old pages, worn and loved,
I find a little of myself.
The old library asked for nothing,
yet offered solace without demand,
and loved a quiet little girl
exactly as she chose to stand.