Long Rural Poems
Long Rural Poems. Below are the most popular long Rural by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Rural poems by poem length and keyword.
Stella Williams was eight years old, living with her widowed mother-
Happily, though a bit lonely, like powder blue skies, sans sunset color.
The Williams lived in a rural area, with no child Stella's age, nearby.
A farmer in the valley, was the only neighbor, like waves of no reply.
Still, school hours were fun for Stella, like rollicking days of summer;
When plum sun, waltzed with stars of glitter, often going undercover.
Stella, at times, threw coins in their well, to wish for a special friend,
Besides the birds and blooms of beauty, and rolling hills of never end.
As faint rays forgive after furious storm, distant family came, finally;
In fancy days of dinnerplate dahlias, of gold, pink, or maroon vitality.
Stella lived in the house of empty rooms, that recollected sunny joys;
There the nostalgic past, argued with hopeful future, making no noise.
A purple path close to their front door, seemed painted with petunias;
In amethyst days of evening sparkle, and sunrises, the hue of peaches.
Numerous nightingales sang at hiigh noon, when new neighbors called;
In notable, precious moments, not ever forgotten-redolence enthralled!
'String of hearts plants,' trailed love petals, as 'oyster plant,' culled gems.
The rich pink, 'quill blooms,' shot daggers, like vexed queens, in diadems.
'Enchanting hostas' charmed summer moon, as 'elephant ears,' harked;
Then 'rising sun redbud' trees sang, with dawn on gloss petals, marked.
Stella still wandered to the well to wish, some afternoons and evenings,
As some yet gaze at mysterious stars, to uncover astrological meanings.
Stella was reading in her favorite spot, on a day of hot, persimmon sun;
And she looked up and saw a girl her age. A new friendship was begun!
Veronica was the daughter of the farmer in the dell, who was divorced;
And she was now living with him. Stella was invited to dinner, of course.
In time, Stella and her mom got to know, their nearest neighbors, well;
For Stella got her wish, when her mother married the farmer in the dell.
'The farmer in the dell.
The farmer in the dell.
Hi-ho, the derry-o!
The farmer in the dell.
The farmer takes a wife.
The farmer takes a wife.
Hi-ho, the derry-o!
The farmer takes a wife.
The wife takes a child.
The wife takes a child.
Hi-ho, the derry-o!
The wife takes a child.'
In our small community, there was a library surrounded by a playground filled with play equipment for children. There was a large and strong swing set
made of iron. There were also a sliding board and merry-go-round, both large. This swing set was the best, and it was built to last, with no fear of breakage.
Whenever the coast was clear, and if no one chased us off, we'd play for hours. "Coast was clear? What on earth do you mean?". What must be understood is this: In America, I grew up in the 50's and 60's in the rural South. Jim Crow laws were in full force, and that presented a major 'bigger than life' problem that my friends and I had to overcome. There was only one playground in town, and it was for "Whites Only".
However, in this heavy farming community, our playtime was limited and restricted. Because of that, when the 'spirit of playtime' embraced itself around us, we were willing to violate the rules and have fun as long as we could, which usually was a very short duration. It was like flying through the air without wings on childhood aircraft forbidden to us. So many other freedoms that were taken for granted by most kids in America were denied to us; but to play on that vast playground was so much fun and so liberating, that we broke the Southern Rule. I cannot count the many times that we were chased off; but we always went back, again and again.
No. We were not trying to change the world; we just wanted to swing.
No. We were not fighting for civil rights; we just wanted to slide on the boards. We were simply innocent kids, looking for joy rides on the merry-go-round.
If we had a motto, it was not "Let Freedom Ring; but rather, "Let Freedom Swing".
That was over 50 years ago, when Jim Crow was alive and well in America. Now, most people prefer to forget that he ever lived. I choose to remember.*
10192017 Contest, The Sounds Of The Past, Roper; Chosen picture for theme: The Swing Set; 2ndPl;*"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it", John Santayana
city limits;on 2nd street and elizabeth avenue,near a tire shop,and its where billy
the kid the out law lived and died;as brushy bill,so sad,yet here stood by those
very same street names in real life,his last 3rd living descendent, generation gap
as i guess we could of called it now!he wasnt dead,like all would of like to
believed or masked;he was my son,mr pj bertrand jr,and me im his mom;norma
jay bertrand the writer4386/homeless international poet of the usa/07!in reality
how practical does that sound,but my son at 24 years of age looks more
idenitical to him every day,its gets kinda spooky!in and out of hico,texas,except
here he was by the same stop sign holding a white plastic sign with a christian
quote on that read on wed,oct 26,05 can gods people help this family in
america;why?we that is i and my family was out on a personal fundraiser walk on
our own;since we were victims of both hurricanes and had no address physically
and lived in our suv;that eventually quit.no organizations cared and femur refused
to aid us;so we did it on our own,headed toward dublin,texas no less;off hw y6
north west for that one paticular night,it was where no one was giving rides and
only passing us by;like a real loser we felt inside;in and out of hico,texas,what
they didnt want to realise;billy the kid wasnt missing he was right there by my
side on the side of a abandoned house of white stone;resting my shattered knee
caps due to my bone cancer,on 2nd street and elizabeth avenue i was then
petting billy the kid who resemblance could kill a real deer that happened by! and
it could of been seen on the back on a rural map;its where njay wrote this on the
side of the ditch,if the residents came up and some would be in literal tears
telling him do you know who you look like;he could only nod yes mam or sir!and
sigh!believe it!ask the manager of chicken express cafe america;if you think i
lie;its more than just a word of mouth!i and he was both in and out of hico ,texas
and thankgod it wasnt in the south;yet no body asked how?nor had the nerve to
smile or laugh!or saw wowl!his living legacy america!is in actual replica on your
streets;a remake of the notorious gun slinger of the west in and out of hico,texas
call me and you can see him more than twice;at 409-679-5423
I feel my spirit burning inside me
And years of fatigue draining out me
My heart is racing, my spirit is swelling
And my heart is singing a wonderful song.
I can still feel my heart beat and I can
still hear the noise in the streets
Motorcade after motorcade brighten up the streets
And the jubilant crowd waving blue
and white handkerchief high in the air.
I could see it from a distance
people join hands in hands
rocking to a spirited beat
as they watch the parade
floating peacefully through their street.
It moves from community to community
through rural towns and dangerous hills
cascading the untrodden green valleys
sweeping darkness and poverty away.
The trumpets and drums grew louder and louder
It pulled my great grandma out of the house
And had her rocking to the rhythmical beat.
I listened to the sound as it fades away
and the life in me was perishing away.
My fatigue grew stronger and stronger
And nothing I do could make feel better
I bore the penalty of sleepless nights
and the torture of guiltless sound.
I could hear my heart murmur
and the blood gushing inside
whoosh, whoosh, swish swish
the sound grew louder on every side.
It’s as if the world was walking with me
And something powerful was propelling me
I took one stride and walked boldly by its side
but something stronger than me was forcing me
to surrender to hope and succumb to the boldness inside me.
I fought relentlessly to deny this feeling
That was forcing me to get away
but something very forceful was beckoning me to stay.
I am here and I am still breathing
dying to journey to the mountain top
to appease the Gods and make my final stop
so I inquired of a special place where I could
be alone and meditate for the rest of my days.
The endless journey has exhausted me
but I was determined to go through it with dignity
my chins up, a smile on my face and positive words
to keep me ahead and on top of the race.
My blood suddenly felt hot and
And fire starts catapulting out of my belly
I found myself on the mountain top
Looking down on throngs of people
singing, shouting and dancing.
It sounded like a grand jubilee
But for me this was my final destiny.
©2015 Christine Phillips
I was a city born and city bred young fellow,
whose shoes had mostly only touched concrete and tar.
Oh yes I had seen grass, but out on a footy ground
and my entertainment was drinking at a nightclub bar.
As a city bred young bloke I had never seen the stars
for blanket smog and neon lights had blocked them out.
I never knew what clean air was, nor really cared at all,
and rain was just a nuisance that I could do without.
I had no idea where food comes from - why should I?
I just hand across ten dollars, and bingo! In my hand,
is warm and crispy chicken with leaves I throw away,
and chocolate milk comes in a carton with a brand.
But I’m informed one morning, this is not the case.
Milk, like cheese and butter, and yoghurt too somehow,
comes to the city from the country, for us city folk.
And I didn’t quite believe - from the inside of a cow.
A cow! I’ve never seen a cow. What’s a cow look like?
That’s right! I admit I’d not seen a cow in all me life.
I barely knew the difference, between a cow and a pig,
until in a nightclub - that’s where I met me future wife.
Jean is a lovely girl; so pretty, and near rural to the core.
She knows every breed of cow that is written in the book.
Jean has milked them, immunised, dehorned them in a crush,
so she’s quite strong in the arm and can land a great left hook.
I’m talking of me own experience; me jaw is still quite sore.
The lesson that I learnt is to choose words more carefully.
I’m not sure if the listeners sed at what I had said,
or were pleased to see an enraged woman acting like a bully.
Since we had married in the city, and lived in a city flat,
me darling Jean for many months suggested time and time again,
we should go back to her hometown where Jean promised me,
that I will finally see a cow and Jean won’t have to explain.
Now I’ve seen Friesians, Jerseys, Guernsey’s, Ayrshire’s;
I’ve eyed Poddy Calves, yearling Heifers, Bulls and Steers.
I’ve become an expert on cows, and just what is required.
I know everything that’s needed about cows so it appears.
But when lecturing colleagues with Jean close by me side,
it became the catalytic weapon to cause a murderous scene,
for I proudly uttered loudly without consequential fears,
that I had never seen a cow until - I met my wife Jean.
The Barefoot Days of Summer
By Elton Camp
When I was a child in rural Alabama during the 1940s, going barefoot during the summer months was still a general practice, especially for boys. It was feasible because few roads were paved and sidewalks in the country were virtually nonexistent. The sun on hard, dark surfaces created burn hazards that prevented city kids from going without shoes outside the confines of their own yards.
My father’s childhood had been spent in the more distant rural areas of Marshall County. He and his siblings went shoeless partly by choice and partly because it was the inexpensive thing to do. Shoes for their large family would represent a significant cost. Memory being the fickle thing that it is, he looked back on “going barefoot” as a privilege and source of delight. It was a childhood rite that he wanted me to enjoy.
“You can start going barefoot now,” he announced in June of each year. His tone showed that he considered he was doing something wonderful for me, so I didn’t want to disappoint him by revealing my true feelings. Going shoeless hurts—a lot. Sharp rocks and stubs of plants seemed to be everywhere. After about a month, the soles thicken enough that walking becomes less painful, but it’s mainly a matter of degree. Without a doubt, the sandy, grass-free yards of his youth contained fewer perils.
In the forties, our yard had what passed for grass, but it actually was a mixture of grass, clover, and general weeds. When the clover bloomed, it created a hazard that no amount of tough skin could prevent—bee stings. The pain was intense and lasted a couple of days. The only treatment my parents knew was to moisten the head of a kitchen match to make a paste to apply to the sting. Despite their assurance that the folk treatment would help, I felt no better beyond the fact that something was being done. In later years, I took a perverse comfort when I learned that the sting tears out the internal organs of the bee so that it dies shortly. The mere fact that I was crushing the insect with my foot gave it no right to retaliate.
Apart from the beach, I haven’t seen a barefoot child over a year old in a long time. Viewpoints and circumstances change and that childhood ritual has vanished. Good riddance to it.
It is not like these restaurants in America
with their sterile atmospheres: slick new furniture,
stylized art, ambient lights, and every angle
rationalized to the judgment of specialized interests.
It is a restaurant filled with details,
inviting customers to take in an experience while eating and drinking,
to converse casually and caress senses
with a collage of décor less convenient.
One side is open to the city,
looking out on multi-story hotels with lush landscaping,
palm frond trees and a pine tree
with spreading branches and a green cloud of needles above any tourists.
Short squat curved posts hold up a wide concrete rail
with two bouquets of flowers on it: one has small yellow blooms
while the other has white daises mixed with tiny red blooms.
A Mediterranean influence can be seen in columns
supporting a large opening onto the street.
It is also present in a mural painted on the wall.
In the mural a tall woman baring her breasts
looks down on an angel reaching out to her,
below them is a rural town and above them two puffy white clouds.
Painted around the kitchen doorway’s edge is a grapevine.
Near the doorway a statue of a nude child blows a horn.
At his feet are a bouquet of daises and some yellow candles.
In the center of the room is a wide wood column,
on which appears a green copper statue of a woman in a long dress,
holding a large round bouquet of live yellow daisies above her head.
There are four groups of people in the restaurant.
Two are near the wall.
Two are in the center of the room.
All sit at round tables draped with white linen trimmed with intricate patterns.
The chairs are curved with no angles.
Two small rams’ heads are carved on the top back pieces of each chair.
Each table has a bouquet of red flowers and a large yellow candle.
Customers drink beer from green bottles and tall clear glasses.
A waiter rushes out with the empties.
A man with a dark complexion, thick hair, and mustache
beams with friendly eyes and expressive hands
talking about things that interest common people.
For him common, in his place of impractical details.
For travelers far away from their bare, stripped, planned environment
his speech has a life that is new, different,
paced with living rather than practiced in haste.
"Can you feel the soul of an abandoned house;
can you hear the whispering? "
Quote by _Constance La France
I suspect that most major cities have abandoned houses.
I have lived in three large American cities, ranked in population,
3rd (Chicago), 17th (San Francisco), and 35th (Sacramento).
Of all the abandoned housing sites that I have seen, none struck me
as sadly as those that I have seen in rural America these last 15 months.
Perhaps my suspicion ascends from my being touched by the site of them
because they represent a history and experiences with which I am familiar.
This write is forcing the question of whether it is better to be abandoned
than to be torn down; to be torn down or to be permitted to return to nature.
The torn-down factor deeply affects me personally, and I am grateful for the
opportunity to share this experience with fellow soupers and others.
There was once a plantation house occupied by my parents
and their family. It was our home where I and at least 10
of my siblings were born. It was a well-built house made
of concrete blocks. We were farm workers and never owners.
After our father had passed and I grew up and went off to
college, my mother was later asked to move.
Some 30-plus years later, I learned that some of those
plantation houses were moved and converted into hotel rooms.
Our house was not among them. Presently, I don't know what
became of our house where so much life was lived and a myriad
of memories were born. Whether brick and mortar or wood and
nails, or asphalt or tin and strews; And whether torn down
or permitted to return to nature, they are now gone to places
unknown to me.
Did our house and the others become a part of trees as some
others I have seen recently, or will the trees knock down
the house? Anyway, their usefulness had expired, and they
were abandoned with no one desiring them anymore.
Indeed, I feel the souls of those who resided in our abandoned
and torn-down house. I feel the souls of Grandma, Mother, Daddy,
8 sisters, 3 brothers, and a dog named Jack. Indeed, I hear the
whispers, the loud noises of children laughing and playing.
Indeed, I house a bank of a thousand memories and more.
052723PSCtest. Constance La France
Contest Name. Writing Challenge - C Quotes -. 2P
Jenna lived in rural Wyoming lands,
where grass rolled over small ridges and buttes,
a small town way out in the cow country,
where the ranchers still throw lassos in loops.
She was driving out to see her boyfriend,
who owned a ten thousand-acre large spread,
he had a big house, riders and a herd,
and was a keeper, all her girlfriends said.
It struck her funny that he'd done so well,
since her man had not been born around here,
they said when we came here eight years ago
he'd shied away from a mustang in fear!
She supposed he must've overcome that,
since now he rode like a weathered cowboy,
he'd bought his own place, made himself a name,
and had brought Jenna no small bit of joy.
He wasn't expecting to see her now,
but she knew that Calvin would understand,
the diner had been sheer hell this morning,
she'd even been groped by a sketchy man.
She needed a break, to hash this all out,
Calvin always had a way to comfort,
and he liked to say that she was his world,
she was sure that he would be there for her.
When she pulled up the whole ranch was quiet,
the hands must have been all out in the hills,
but she saw Calvin's horse at the corral,
had he decided to just hang back and chill?
If that was the case, it was good for her,
she would've hated being here all alone,
so Jenna walked up the big farmer's porch
and noiselessly entered her boyfriend's home.
She was tied, didn't bother to yell,
just padded upstairs to his big bedroom,
the lights were off but a translucent glow
seemed to pierce through the darkness and the gloom.
Inside she saw a bipedal figure
dressed all up in Calvin's battered work duds,
a flat-faced being with a slit for a mouth,
and two huge eyes, both the color of mud.
The skin was smooth, with no human blemish,
a vibrant, bioluminescent green,
and when the figure turned to see Jenna
she loud out a truly terrified scream!
“Jenna, what--”the creature began to say,
speaking the words in Calvin's own voice,
then slumped down and muttered to itself,
“Well I guess no I don't have any choice.”
There before her eyes the green skin shifted,
the figure became Calvin once again,
he frowned and awkwardly looked to his feet...
“Well, I guess I should explain all this then...
CONTINUES IN PART II
Kids,
like adults,
who become ecologically active,
join in gardening,
urban, and suburban, and rural cooperative farming,
green environmental sciences,
school gardens as group art installations
and outdoor entertainment
and spirit/nature nondualistic humane-divine experience,
tend to be joiners and stayers,
sometimes annoying OpenSpace Occupiers
Who stray away
from competing subcultures
and millennially stray toward
green cooperatively-owned and
matriarchally co-managing climates
of healthy-wealth interdependence--
the opposite of competing encampments
for forced and loathed
compromising Win/Lose codependence.
Ecologically passionate kids,
like adults,
tend to be joiners
and stayers,
but if they stray away
then probably they,
like you,
only have so much time
in any one day
and they have found a more resiliently healthy place
to transparently WinWin
vulnerably, yet safely, play
Where Positive/Negative Energy Democracy
is another way to say
Let's listen Both/And
bilaterally Ego/Eco
Inside/Outside climates together
and not judge ourselves
or each other
as always autonomously Yang-good
or Yin-bad
when we could
instead
invite YangLeft with YinRight
to ecologically with theologically
roleplay WinWin plant planting nicer
as each creolizing
PositivEnergy
Trust-Democratic other
blooms where cooperatively planted.
Kids,
like adults,
who are ecologically active
tend to come from theo/ecological past WinWin joiners,
heading toward Left language for Right nutritional experience
ecopolitical secular/sacred vulnerable transparency,
yet safely protecting past errors
as long transparent,
permeable,
regenerative/degenerative lines
of WinWin Here with Now intent.
Health-evolving mission statements
free to reacclimate
mutual subsidiary
co-arising dipolar
Left with Right
inside/outside
Ego/Eco
Health/SacredWealth enculturation
of binomial ZeroZone
resilient ego-choices
For EcoTherapeutic revolutionary avocations,
praise,
liturgical dance,
sacred meaning
theological sacraments
for ecological purposes,
ethology of EarthTribe developmental phylogeny
Historical WinWin revolutionary dominant,
occasionally hysterical WinLose devolutionary,
EarthTribe compassionate
becoming WinWin
ego/eco-dominant.