Long Shuffles Poems
Long Shuffles Poems. Below are the most popular long Shuffles by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Shuffles poems by poem length and keyword.
On the edge of town, in a painted house, with unclad shades of gray
the north winds claim the somber dawn, on a dismal winter day
The trees bend low and the sun peeks in, as he slowly leaves his bed
Then with rote routine, the coffee perks. Next, he grabs the frozen bread
Four vinyl chairs, Formica clad, a game of solitaire
Before him sits a plate of food, at a table set for one
A cup of cold, a cigarette, and he who sits alone
The room depicts, what might have been, but reeks with wrought despair
Inaudible, just barely heard, he hums a song they knew
He tells her that the coffee's done, and offers her a chair
He shuffles cards, a few for her, and pours a cup of brew
He sips his own, then cuts the deck ........for double solitaire
He takes a puff, then bites the crust, charred taste of toasted bread
For company, she stares at him across the morning's edge,
Her body propped against the wall, beneath the wooden ledge
Her fixed eyes stare, as if surprised... . The one-eyed Jack is red
______________________________________________________
MUSING AT THE LIBRARY
Curmudgeon staring me down, what do you think betwixt those eyes? I dare to stare back this time. “Are you having a good day, sir.” “No!” he says back just as fast. But perhaps I laugh with a mischievous twinkle in my eye, perhaps sir, just a scintilla bit better.
She stares at me unknowingly cutting in line, ready to speak, then doubles back for someone was before her. She shuffles to the next counter with her stack and opens her jaw, “Are youuu Jewish? Because you look Jewish…” and I just stare back at this odd woman, rude woman, what is she jabbering about. I’m befuddled.
Supergeek, and I say this lovingly, gives me the lowdown on everything humanly possible about the comic book world. Even the color coding of heroes and villains.
“Oh, I’ve got something special for you to do,” she rubs her hands together before I can rub the sand out of my eyes. Oh, boy!
And there’s the “Do you remember me?” and just like a book with outline, the colors come back to me. I erase the red hair and make it gray and I wrinkle up the paper. Oh yes, I remember you!
In the sorting room, I put my feelings on the conveyor belt. They fall into a variety of bins...adult, child, ones I leave behind, those headed outside and those to shelve.
10/12/2018
They are under the hedge, the elderly,
the silver whiskered. Threadbare possums,
frail chipmunks. The feeble,
squeezed into narrow parts of the day.
Her apartment is hedged in.
Her telephone is black, silent and Bakelite.
A groundhog comes out to gaze at the sunset,
some myopic sniffing, then shuffles back
with that stout rolling gait of his.
She forages in her living space.
From a window she blinks at the moon,
only yesterday it slipped from her purse.
Once she bought tickets, visited the young.
Once relatives parked new automobiles
under her sparkling windows.
They are settled, tucked into socks and pockets
seeking foods
unprepared for the present.
Paws hang soft.
Pills pend under bedroom lamps.
Some of them are under the hedgerow,
some unsnarl the threads of bundled quilts,
together they gum at a nub-end of twilight.
They will stay here knitting hours together
until the long forgetting finds them.
The crowd shuffles
hands raised in vain attempt
to catch a windblown lottery ticket
If you spend 25 bucks
(not counting the price of the turkey)
You can get the turkey
for 89 cents a pound
If not….you’ll pay more
for the turkey than for
the entire dinner.
Took my grandkids to the park.
saw 32 wild turkeys crossing the street
without a crossing guard.
Never play checkers with a cat.
I made Rock Cornish Game Hen for supper.
My kids wanted to know what happened to the turkey?
I told them I washed it…..and it shrunk.
I once ate “Blood Pudding” and Parsnips with my father.
Don’t ask!
How long does it take to become “indigenous”?
I asked Mom: “how many jelly beans can I have?”
She answered: “how many is too many.”
If you factor in all the cleaning, shopping, arranging, set-up, preparation….
the Thanksgiving meal comes to about $89.73 per person..
More if you have a “kids” table.
John G. Lawless
11/23/2021
It was the bronzed bell of a tinseled Ocean ship.
Until Destiny was scuttled by a fiery water witch.
In time, it became the haunting clang upon a reef.
A macabre knick-knack for cliques that ruled the deep.
They returned like blue birds, lonely for a blossoming.
To pay homage to every sailor overtaken by the sea.
They lay bouquets over shadowed grief...
as ghosts pared sweet memories into paper effigies.
Between shuffles of worn decks and ninety-proof lips.
They spin tales of crimson seas and horrible dorsal fins...
Torn hearts and sails, forever on a starboard list.
Drifting between a blue refrain and the salty mist.
In the graying vein of time, everything's forgotten.
The sweet angelic, the mundane, the eternally rotten.
Gravestones hoard salt within their granite cracks.
Tokens to a time when auroras bled into blackness.
One by one the crew will drift from this pearled realm.
Riding Tradewinds into the gilded scented heavens...
or become driftwood in the brackish heart of hell...
as the captain sways to the clang of his beloved water bell.
This is a great place to hide, high above the frozen
creek. My brother will be walking down the middle of it soon.
He'll never see me or this snowball I will hit him with.
I hear footsteps crunching down the thin top layer of ice.
A little closer and I'll attack.
Here's a nice limb to hold onto to balance myself for the throw.
"Crack" The stem has broke, I'm falling, and I feel my body punch
through the ice. I'm cold freezing I need to crawl out onto the bank.
Good, I have made it out, now the long walk home through
the snow before my pants freeze. Each step is becoming more
painful than the last. My steps are becoming shuffles. The
distance home is becoming further and further away.
It's beginning to feel like forever.
Behind the glass, a ticking god of brass,
Who waves a withered palm of fiberglass.
The neon crystal bleeds a bruised magenta hue,
Dispensing plastic tokens, counterfeit and true.
“Your wish is granted,” the solenoid sighs,
While servo motors calibrate his glowing eyes.
He sits in a paisley vest and a gold-wrapped head,
Proclaiming: “Be happy living, for you’re a long time dead.”
Drop in a copper, hear his jawbones creak,
The algorithm’s gospel is the truth he’ll speak.
He shuffles fifteen fortunes from a secret slot,
Telling you of money, love, and what you haven’t got.
A silicon swami in a cedar cage,
Selling sudden adulthood on a printed page.
For twenty-five cents—or a swipe of your card—
He dictates the future of a weary backyard.
But if you feed the Deluxe Cabinet every spare dime,
He loops all his blessings in a paradox of time.
A timeless automaton, forever programmed to please,
Dispensing our destinies on tear-off degrees.
Leisurely walk around Lords non stop pop of champagne cork
Scorecard dork does chalk the first over from Will O’Rourke
Another flowering Kiwi tree who gets the ball to talk & fork
While towering style of Kyle with guile & wile gall fans gawk
Doff your hat to Matt who really is all that aficionados squawk
Smith another hawk with similar riff for this tiff swing will stalk
Serious talent apparent not transparent with delirious torque
Balk one last refrain from the reign of Kane the Kiwi bulwark
If it grips rips what pips seeing Glenn Phillips flips & fillips
Golden arm charm can disarm like when baby Joe in skips
With Kane masters and pastors of snips missing the slips
Nudges nurdles overcomes hurdles as fans lick their lips
Never ruffled by kerfuffles silky shuffles and wristy whips
Express bouncer nips & dips caress the ball off their hips
Finesse not largesse witness their prowess heavenly sips
Zach having been so cack defence so slack got the sack
No coming back picked from the pack Gay to have a crack
Not out of whack got the knack this season has got a stack
Trust plucky Ducky again gets lucky no vastly ghastly hack
Stokesy becomes like Wokesy bat & ball gets us off the rack
Dirty Harry not shirty silly willy nilly hill billy flirty is like smack
In Ashes dung Tongue among the flashes of changing tack
No Josh tosh stung with gung ho bolts flung stumps thwack
Tongue climbs a rung with pace he brung others made us yack
Golly after much flak jolly Ollie the wally again leads the attack
After scold behold in from the cold part of fold & in the black
Coz after Oz fires our tyres flat just old hat we need a new jack
If not too chatty no cheeky drag on sneaky f*g or fatty snack
Hopefully no folly he will be fit on the track give us bit we lack
No off his trolley verbal volley Ollie could be return of the Mac
Brooding, unlit and unkempt
A house that is daylight exempt
Sits three doors down from the park
Its doors and its windows are dark
Weekly a grocer arrives
Drops off a bag of supplies
The door opens not very wide
A hand pulls the shopping inside
Neighbours still say tongue in cheek
That’s the highlight of the week
It’s what happens once every year
That fills local children with fear
It shuffles out onto the street
With Wellington boots on its feet
A wizened old thing with a stoop
Its head doesn’t raise from a droop
It makes an incongruous sight
As it strolls looking not left nor right
In clothes dirty brown, who would think
It would tote a small coat that is pink
And just as the street lamps alight
Portending the coming of night
’tis said that he walks in the dark
To grab a young kid in the park
*
And then at the lake his step doesn't break
He simply walks into the water
And as it gets colder the coat on his shoulder
He wraps ’round his long missing daughter
*
A brief but chilled wind whispers, ‘Daisy’
The lake’s surface mist rises hazy
The breeze hums along to a young girl’s song
But the old man and young girl are gone
Emerging from behind a hedge
Kids hurry up to the edge
The bravest one reaches to take
A little pink coat from the lake
***
It’s what happens once every year
That fills local children with fear
It shuffles out onto the street
With Wellington boots on its feet
_____
[Wellington boots = Rubber boots]
With walker support he enters the door
He’s there every day, from 10 to 4.
Orders coffee and bagel’d cream-cheese
Then sits there for hours with hands on his knees.
He sits near the window and watches his past
Within his mind as old shadows cast
His vague recollections of sweet reverie
Which only his fading memories see
A smile now and then becomes his vaccine
Against reality’s attempt on the scene
To interrupt the flow of the past
Which for decades he worked to amass.
Loneliness he constantly wears as a coat
His only companion: memories remote.
So … solemnly, quietly he spends his days
He rewinds his memories into replays
Aged and wrinkled thin hands so frail
Around 4 o’clock his walker assail
Again he shuffles out the front door
Tomorrow … he’ll return, and be there once more.