Long Salem Poems
Long Salem Poems. Below are the most popular long Salem by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Salem poems by poem length and keyword.
Salem Village, Massachusetts
May 11, 1692
Of evil works in league with the devil, I am accused.
Spit upon, bolts tethered in chains, I have been abused.
People mardle I cast spells of palsie to make them twitch.
Blinded by fear, they labeled me a sorceress, a witch.
Superstition is to blame for blinding their eyes.
I claim innocence when affronted by boisterous cries.
"Burn the witch!" they shout in frenzied outrage.
Until tomorrow's trial, I am to be kept inside a cage.
These Puritans are wrong to think they do God's will.
Christians should not have such an urgency to kill.
There is no talk of banishment. That would be a blessing,
but the crimes they say I committed, I am not confessing.
Other women in the village are facing this tragic fate.
Pity that our lives will be in the hands of the magistrate.
Sorrow fills me knowing I will meet death on the gallows
and tossed in a grave, not worthy of ground that is hallow.
I am already convicted in the minds of those who leer.
My pleas of having done nothing wrong, they do not hear.
All of a dudder, I hear them say, "She is a witch possessed!"
"Forsooth," I will cry in court, "to witchery I have not confessed!"
Somewhere from outside, I faintly hear a church bell clanging.
Then, a hoard of voices screaming, "It is time for hanging!"
I write these words before the mob comes to take me away.
God, please keep me in your heart. I will not live another day.
Bridget Bishop,
Falsely accused of being a witch
Situated in an embroided spacious field.
Attracting fortunes,wealth and by honey filled.
Land moistured in peace and grace forlorn.
End of strife,struggle,sickness; Goodness un-turn.
Made for all that are drilled.
Second coming; Graced with heightened failure.
Amounting pleasant pressures and did into strife lure.
Lake around,fountains abound,caressing joy.
Entrusting hope and elating reward,by love coil.
Made for all that are like crystal pure.
Shaking and weighing her pupils.
Average gone,dred-ed fall; withering daffodils-
Leisured heart,pounced soul that wealth did make.
Enjoying the company of they that ate the saviour's cake.
Made for none but they that takes the pills.
17:01:09:12:08
When fallen angels came roaring down,
Darkness formed the company of Nephilim,
In renowned legend, armed with more legion
Godless tinctures fleece hapless Canaan town.
The grim left breath in the ground, wild and wet,
Through Pitch-black gate, giant beings embark.
Deluge of demons rising from the dark, deep pit
Roaming around, trying hard to find the Ark,
Dappled with flu, attack the faithful few,
What would the ancient world be like?
Once bereft, now, strength of nobility drew
Windpuff deeds out of what history left.
In the pool, that groans with banshee froth
Fortunes loom to our detrimental doom,
Which craft hides the most fear in the cloth?
That covers the sea in secret phenomenon.
Salem sail on Siren, over the deep waters
Basham shadows frowning, despair of drowning
In baptism of fire for atonement of martyrs,
We at ease, see surprise revival of the Nephilim.
Let the disembodied imps that were chained
In the wicked wilderness, phantoms burn in urns,
Nymphs and Nixies witches that religion claimed
Will descend again, in latter times, reigning flames.
weird sounds were coming through the wall
they were faint and often disturbing
once in the night
i heard what sounded like large strong talons
scratching at the wall
" scratch, scratch, scratch:scratch!"
lord what must I do
these talons sound like
"the devil himself was coming through the wall
to cause me devish-will.
pray ye god
to cause this satan ill
that he might suffer from
your awesome power my God, My God
the devil is coming through the wall"
she yelled!
bump, bump:bump:bump!
"they banging she heard
they sound like wolves stalking sheep,
this is the lucifer of Salem,
the devil himself!"
ye my God, might you
spare us: ye my God, might you spare us!"
one day the lady got enough nerve to ask the gentlemen next
door,
"Sir, if you will can I have a moment of your
time?" Yes, he said kindly, es you may have a moment of my time!
smiling the lady asked, at night do you hear loud bumping and scratching sounds?
He look startled, saying know, their's a ghost or something in the wall of our apartment,, a witching woman who cry's
out to god, often, my wife and i have to stop making love to calm the voice of this devish woman!
You cast your gaze, sharp and cold/
A relic of Salem, a story retold/
Convictions weigh heavy, though truth stands clear/
Yet you brand me alarming, fueled by fear/
Your judgement looms, a shadowed stake/
Bound by laws, yet the fire you'd make/
If time unshackled your hands today/
Would I see the embers of history's fray/
Puritan echoes, they linger still/
Through whispers low and sharpened will/
Not robes and hats, nor torches bright/
Yet still you strike with veiled delight/
I am a person with rights to defend/
My faith, my freedom, no need to amend/
No shame, no guilt, no crime in sight/
Yet you twist belief into blinding fright/
You see the world in black and white/
A rigid mind, afraid of light/
Yet truth will stand where flames may fall/
And justice calls beyond your wall/
Let laws restrain what hands would do/
But laws can't cleanse the thoughts in you/
Puritan thinking, aged yet bold/
Still walks among us, shrouded in gold/
The museum is full of gangs,
child gangs that roam sneering at the 70’s people.
The 70’s people live now in a diorama.
For the most part they are cheerful,
they cut grass with push mowers,
swim in above ground pools.
By and large they don’t kill each other
or pillage the Malls.
Some are vets with grey ponytails -
they ride to forget.
The 70’s people that lived in New York
pretend not to have been there back then
and take long meditative soaks in crude
high rise jacuzzies.
Behind the glass
the 70’s people mechanically wave
at the hordes of sneering children.
A young questioner asks his handler
why the 70’s people are not all dead?
A reasonable question
which the handler deflects
with a long tale about dinosaurs.
Meanwhile the 70’s people
peer out of their mid-century homes
and watch the foot traffic
as if it were an older black and white TV.
The young are getting bored with the 70’ people.
they move on to stare incredulously at a representation
of humankind back in the 60’s.
The handlers also cannot quite believe their eyes,
they explain that though there are many artifacts
of that previous civilization
experts disagree as to origins
and the strangeness of their bygone lifestyle.
Salem Alabama and Woodstock
are small print on a sign no one reads.
The kids are hungry and whine loudly,
the school-outing is a bust so far.
Harassed handlers usher them into a cafeteria
where they slaughter the air
with a wolfish glee.
A few Jeer at an 80’s person
who has wandered into the wrong room.
Once upon a Halloween night,
Billy Butcherson came to life,
A zombie with a tongue of tar,
Brought back by three witches, so bizarre.
Hocus Pocus, the witches chanted,
In the night, their schemes were implemented,
But Billy, once a lover scorned,
Now sought redemption, reborn.
Through the streets of Salem he roamed,
Among the living, his heart still roamed,
For Sarah, the witch who'd put a curse,
On his life, cutting it short in verse.
The townsfolk screamed, they ran away,
But brave Billy had something to say,
He'd found his voice, his heart was pure,
He'd fight the witches, it was sure.
With courage in his heart, he went to war,
Against the witches, three times three,
He battled through the darkest night,
And saved the day and set things right.
Billy Butcherson, the hero true,
Proved that love can conquer all anew,
With a heart so brave, a soul so strong,
He found his way to belong.
And so, each Halloween night,
We honor Billy, and his might,
For he reminds us, through fear and fright,
To be brave and hold on to what's right.
My footsteps echoed the echoes of Time
as through the streets of Salem I walked.
The hour was early and the city still asleep
with only a cat sitting quietly on a cold granite sill,
the sky slowly turning from night into dawn,
my mind still in twilight as my footsteps echoed on.
The Ropes Mansion looked proud
as I strolled Essex Street,
its pediments and roof balustrades all stately,
its fence posts freshly painted
and hydrangea all in bloom.
I faintly heard voices
of a long-ago family
gathered about the hearth
in its fine parlor room.
I passed the Athenaeum
and hailed this library noble, so renowned
its soaring columns and arched doorway
have welcomed countless seekers of knowledge
and those sharing the wisdom of learning
and the comfort of reading from volumes well-bound.
Ten generations of Pickerings
have lived in the 1660 house
situated on 18 Broad.
A descendant, Timothy Pickering
under George Washington had served
and witnessed the surrender of Cornwallis’ sword.
I admired the house’s gables, its unique fence and its posts
then journeyed along to find more of Olde Salem’s ghosts.
At the Broad Street Cemetery
just steps across the street
I tipped my hat to those
who once lived here
now in honest sleep
at the second oldest resting place
in Salem Town.
But I shook my head over the grave
of High Sheriff Corwin of the Witchcraft Trial
beneath his time-weathered obelisk
he must be tossing for all Eternity
in his dank unholy ground.
For the true ghosts of Olde Salem
haunt the air of Proctor’s Ledge
where 19 innocents all
swung in the 1692 breeze
and it was there at the edge
of this hillside they died
overlooking a town
where too many had been tried.
How real was their torture
how sad was their pain
and in their lonely silence
do they relive it all again?
And when it all was over,
all said and all done
Salem would feel cursed
for its unforgivable deeds
that could not be undone,
for as I walk the streets
of Olde Salem
in the still-early morn,
I see their spirits all around me
along these sidewalks old and worn.
Copyright 2020 Gregory Joseph Firlotte
four years old and she was already looking for a Higher Power
her parents were bookworms and she piled one onto another
Hemingway and Nietzsche firmly stacked with Sartre and Poe
the latter she thought was misspelt because of Winnie the bear
a tower of language and words reaching to her own little heaven
she put on her boots and stood tip toed in full stretch at the altar
on which jars and packets were stacked ready for celebrations
Quality Street Cadbury marshmallows and lush candy of all sorts
paradise on the table and no one else to spoil the spiritual feast
the days were when children were still allowed chocolate cigarettes
her heart lit up and she smacked lips and taste buds in delight
in the knowledge that devout worship came in many tasty forms
worldly and openminded she felt that one God was never enough
believed firmly in gummy sharks dating toffee dolphins in church and
was especially attracted to biting off chunks of Fisherman’s friends
‘My God’she chanted and added ‘Salem Alaikum’ for her Muslim pals
there was even a fat trumpeting elephant in celebration of Ganesh
and to top it all a almond coated devil with pitchfork ready to savour
the table was high but the powers of be knew her sweet little longing
no tooth for a tooth but she was aware than not one god is the best
05th July 2020
For those who might not know, ‘Goody Gumdrops’ is an old fashioned expression for utmost delight.
I spend most time within this grave
Unmarked and deathly silent
I met my end remaining brave
Which made it no less violent
Pressed to death for 3 long days
Only asking for more weight
Not this lie but other woeful ways
I wonder if I'd sealed my own fate
A young man from my living time
Caught stealing just some apples
I beat him for his modest crime
Now my soul still with me grapples
Shy a fortnight I did keep him here
Only to deliver him to deaths door
This caused my current state, I fear
To haunt Salem Town forevermore
I never gave in to their torture
When it was me unjustly tried
My wife hanged instead of scorch her
Am I the fault we both have died
Save for occasional haunting
I still feel I'm being pressed
This eternity seems daunting
And weighs heavy on my chest
This young man's name was Goodale
His soul must have been set free
Nightly down here without fail
Mine is still here trapped with me