Long Sidelong Poems
Long Sidelong Poems. Below are the most popular long Sidelong by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Sidelong poems by poem length and keyword.
Snowflakes falling gently on the ground making not a sound
pine trees waving sprightly branches sharing sidelong glances
I hear cornflake crunches beneath my feet, I am keeping beat
to the rhythm of the wind and falling snow, I have to go,
inside a flurry of white pristine snow
inside a fresh puff of wind, yes I know
Snowflakes are falling gently and my heart is calling me home
evergreen moments on a January day, I am never truly alone
I hear the sound of sleigh bells, horses prancing in the snow
to the rhythm of a slow trot, I go, go go go ...
inside this fantasy of silver bright
inside this winter lullaby of light !
Snowflakes falling falling falling, gently in the January snow.
Act One: the stage and scenery are set
I was told the play, I'd not soon forget
But if truth were to be told
More like the game, whack-a-mole
I needed a hammer, not a lorgnette
Thespians were vying for the limelight
Popping up everywhere, ready to fight
Sarcastic words ill spoken
The golden rule was broken
A princess rudely slandered by a knight
Act Two: the actors wrote their own stage play
A long soliloquy to have their say
The audience booed and hissed
"Put that one on the blacklist!
Kick that charlatan out," they did convey.
Someone had to quickly close the curtain
'fore the crowd decided they'd be hurtin'
the actor they were jeering
with sidelong looks of leering
meaning, "Fit for a role by Tim Burton!"
Act Three: Then Queenie tried to take control
Each part played, she admitted that she stole
Just another know it all
Boring with each scribbled scrawl
Showing up everywhere like whack-a-mole
Bad actors can't write plays worth a ripe fig
But criticize others to make a dig.
Negative comments given
Are they jealousy driven?
Wantin' to make the rules like a bigwig
The play, though not very well attended
is being recast with those commended
who are never rude and crude
and have a kind attitude
Instead of those whose words have offended
The next play is about a new dog breed
I heard it's called a boghound with a need
to chew on a bone until
its nibbling has caused ill will
and seats are all empty; audience freed.
The concrete and plastic, chrome domed
bricked up auditorIum rang
like a hollow bell,
a meager few red skins circle the stadium seats
like smoke from a mythical “peace” pipe
ragged, distilled, diluted, distraught, “dised”
A 21st century ablution of angst.
Round shoulders meet, sidelong glances;
old and young form for dances.
All semblance of nature betrayed
by polyester tassels and cheap Crayola yarn fringe,
a sneakers and moccasins mix,
only the whistle-drum, and sage smoke sanctifies.
Circles form, crouching over polyurethane floors
silver hair, braids and hands harden; they bear,
bore the “dis” missive, disdain,
the balm of music eased all the pain.
Round shoulders meet, sidelong glances;
old and young form for dances.
The roof “dis” appears becomes the night sky
air vibrates with the heart thumping of stick on skin,
and so WE, the PEOPLE begin.
Chants warm the taunt throats of man;
a whistle trills the coyotes howl.
Heartbeat sings a drum song,
bowed and bent the circle dancers form.
Stomp, twirl, braids a whirl, winged dancers rattle and bell.
Mans peacock form no longer forlorn rises above the well.
Chant the tell tale heart,
the sorrow the joy, drum thumpers hatchets fall
on the neck of a starry night.
Drum and dance invite…..
scream,….soul song, smoke dream,
eyes daze in a reverent scheme.
How to "deserve" -- how to be "worthy".
How to feel equal to -- how to compete,
partially or apparently successfully so.
How to function well enough "to serve."
How not to be unsteady, how to be rigid;
how to stand, to walk stiffly upright among them.
How to sense their suspicious direct stares
and their sidelong furtive glances.
How to live, to exist, to recognize their aversion to
this repugnant, repellant "otherness", this difference:
and to show them that you recognize, you see,
that you will never -- never! -- be, like them,
"one among the many": a "brother", a "member".
Never! Never, ever.
Death is a best friend
she visits often to dissolve old cells
tweak dioxyribonucleic acids
carrying silver sword and bamboo pipe
to draw breath, pointing to moon
caped in indigo velvet with hood
her whispers are silent breath on
white pillow
I invite her to sit on my bed
she admires an octagonal quilt red
removing her cape, accepting offering
of camomile tea, her eyes smiling hollows hyena, warrior, eagle, dung beetle
all at once, elegantly slow she settles
closer, fingering my ears, cold breezes
ripple down my legs
With sidelong glance she asks :
“So what is your claim to fame ?”
I reply : “I know not a name. Fame is
a shadowy flame, an orange-purple
one flickering to become lame.
All the same, I claim to be the highest
version of what Source intended
nothing more, nothing less.
This is free fame, oxygenated.
That is my game, if insane, let it not
be a shame, or a blame.”
Smiling, she asks next : “How have
you helped fellow humans ?”
I reply : “With Pluto Sun squared as
a dominant in my Chart, I undertook to
integrate escaping gloom into Light for
Self and others. As God granted Ketu
long periods of rulership over my form
I pulped Self in backwaters, where
angels fear to tread, to be a Presence
for fellow humans.”
Her hollow eyes with high cheekbones
move closer to my face. Sipping from floral teacup, fingers spindly, she asks :
“How erect will your spine be before
THE ALL ?”
I reply : “Not as erect as when I practiced kundalini and hatha yoga, though I detect
zero regrets, bereft of debts, slate clean
as an uncooked bean.”
Laughing, she replies that Divinity
will be pleased with my use of poetics
whispering : “Know that your spine will
revert to 21 years when I draw your
breath into mine, to gently carry to
Divine. You will sway on your way
into a ringlet bay of rosy everlasting days.
17 more good cheer years, hear my Dear.”
I watch quick footsteps across the
garden path. A thoughtform follows
slender caped back : “My claim to fame
is to be what HE-SHE desires me to be
~ Co-Creator of my own destiny.”
Next time Death visits, I will word it this way.
__________________
*[new form: L&N : Letters and Numbers]
from: "Me to You", by Alastair Reid
"...write me about the weather.
Perhaps
a letter across water,
something like this, but better,
would almost take us strangely
closer to home.
Write, and I'll come."
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Monterrey, Nuevo Leon
Dizzied by the whirl of crowds
On sidewalks, seen through windows --
Reflected in mirrored, columned walls --
I drink, I eat, I mull and fret, I yearn,
Little lulled by homely music
Softly playing beneath sonorous
Strains of Spanish
(Beautiful tongue, not yet my own,
But now not strange to me --
Not wholly foreign.)
I sneak sidelong glances, I peek, I stare.
I feign indifference:
A pseudo-cosmopolitan air.
I am quiet and excessively polite,
Not yet knowing how to be rude
In this still stiff idiom.
And, I am intensely lonely --
Hungry for a caressing, offhand phrase,
Only a stray familiar word, hardly heard,
Whispering all there is to say of home.
Wind blows soft on my bare arms
I ride through deep green woods.
These simple pleasures all I love,
Air on my skin feel good.
The wind shakes leaves for sidelong sun
To make her pictures from.
So much,so rich the offerings
This is senses' realm.
Alone in woods, I plight my troth
To earth and gods thereof.
I sing my own sweet melodies,
To solitude and love.
Far from the maddening crowds of folk,
I hear earth's own true songs.
And then refreshed by woodland charms,
I feel at peace from wrongs
Inside my heart,there is a wood,
And there I shall now dwell.
And so I'll solve the mystery,
Of how we can live well .
Each wood has its particular birds
On tree tops in sunlight.
And each wood has its special song,
And each wood has its sights.
I shall accept the mysteries
Of who has made my wood;
And how we are all joined bodily,
All sharing this green blood.
Deep down we go into our hearts,
To find out who we are.
Just at the deepest,quietest parts
We find all beings there.
FACES
compelling
features
ageing
into
formal components
of
continuous interest
an
unplanned
unpremeditated
sequence
inventive
& revered
to
capture the soul
images
a
testimony
to mirror
the reflection
setting
apart
sidelong
reactions
to
correlate
the shifts
between
frustrations
& irritations
alongside
the
learned
verbal
& emotional
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.
Copyright © Brian Strand
It leans, a solitary hue
upon the austere granite,
Neither sown
nor awaiting favour’s grace,
Yet dares the sun
with steadfast, quiet fortitude,
Its petals murmur softly,
without entreaty or trace.
I crouch;
my fingers graze the stone’s cold skin
And sense a tremour, subtle, scarcely known;
A heartbeat threads the rock’s unyielding din,
Its pulse, clandestine,
wrought in the marrow of living stone.
The air tastes of dust
and nectar, tempered, rare;
A tang of memory, faint
and curiously sweet;
I inhale,
my own hands pressed to the enduring earth,
Aligning with warmth the stone has borne
through centuries of sun and heat.
A bee veers past,
its flight an off-kilter ballet,
Its solemn humour
provoking a quiet grin;
The hum unravels silence,
subtle, precise,
And in that interstice,
the world contracts, expands, and thins.
Sunlight slides across petals,
like a sidelong glance,
Not pleading,
merely acknowledging what is shown;
Roots insinuate themselves
through fissures with languid perseverance,
A covenant of patience,
wrought without audience or applause.
Its scent, neither flower nor mineral,
insists upon endurance, unobserved;
It bends to nothing,
yet its insistence resonates,
Leaving me implicated,
unreserved, unredeemed.
I rise,
hands lingering on the warming stone,
The quiver of petals,
small, intimate, insistent;
Existence, fleeting,
absurd yet incandescent,
A bee forgets its song,
and I hesitate, quietly,
holding the impossibility in my chest.
By supervision to me a sight have been shewn
Sultan with a green starboard have been shown
I am telling you what my eyes have known
Sultan with a green starboard have been shown
He opened his starboard and walked through
My heart inside its oil has molten down all
Light of Muhammad covered up the throne
Sultan with a green starboard have been shown
His starboard was white converted to green
I woke up and hit myself with every grain
Dear divine show me again once more by dream
Sultan with a green starboard have been shown
He opened his starboard wend to his road
Lots of thousands of pilgrims at his sidelong
Come dear sinner servant pray for pardon
Sultan with a green starboard have been shown
Dervish Jonah truthfully worship to you Lord
Ones who don't worship deviate from straight road
Dear Allah save us from all sins of old
Sultan with a green starboard have been shown
Written by Dervish Jonah (Yunus Emre)
Translation Onur Ünlü