Long Skulking Poems
Long Skulking Poems. Below are the most popular long Skulking by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Skulking poems by poem length and keyword.
Cowards die many times before their deaths…
Julius Caesar, Act II, Scene 2 ~William Shakespeare
spouse
a souse
classic grouse
a big girl's blouse
portent ominous
assertions blasphemous
obscure and anonymous
his skulking is nefarious
utterances acrimonious
and implicature often dubious
uxorious but still pusillanimous
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An example of a rhopalic verse.
Rhopalism: A rhopalic sentence is one in which each successive word is one letter longer than the previous one. In poetry: where each word is one syllable more, or it might increase each line in a stanza by one syllable (per my example), or a metric foot.
IN THE SAME CATEGORY OF CONSTRAINED WRITING
The Rhopalic Couplet, also called Wedge Verse, was first used by Homer in the Iliad (3.182). It is a poetic unit of 2 rhopalic lines where each word progresses adding one more syllable than the preceding word in the line, for example, 1, 2, 3, 4 … syllables. The sequence of the syllable count can be identical in the second line, or it may be reversed. The couplet does not need not rhyme.
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In The Coward, stanzas are broken up along the syllables of the end rhymes: spouse, souse, grouse, blouse; om-i-nous, blas-phe-mous, a-non-y-mous; ne-far-i-ous, ac-ri-mo-ni-ous, du-bi-ous & pu-sil-lan-i-mous.
LEXICON
acrimonious: (adj) (typically of speech or discussion) angry and bitter.
a big girl’s blouse: British idiom, meaning someone is ineffectual or weak; someone failing to show masculine strength of determination
disposition: (n.) inherent characteristics.
grouse: (n.) one who complains constantly.
implicature: (n.)* the action of implying a meaning beyond the literal sense of what is explicitly stated, for example, saying the picture frame is nice and implying I don’t like the picture.
innate: (n.) inborn, natural
nefarious: (adj) (typically of an action or activity) wicked or criminal.
portent: (n.)
1. a sign or warning that a momentous or calamitous event is likely to happen, an omen.
2. (literary) an exceptional or wonderful person or thing. [‘What portent can be greater than a pious notary.’]
pusillanimous: (adj) showing a lack of courage or determination; timid.
souse: (n.) a drunkard.
In Celtic lore, Lig Na Basate is a dragon that terrorizes Ireland.
Through the rough and rugged bramble
Lig Na Basate was boldly sought,
By a band of hardy hunters
who cared not of the danger t’was fraught.
The Lig Na Basate had killed three hundred men
and wounded two hundred more,
And the only way to stop the beast
was to pierce him at the core.
Turn away ye wee small men
lest the beast come pick your bones,
Return to your loving kin and hearth
and start to rebuild your homes.
Pray then that the Lig Na Basate
has moved on to other hunting grounds,
But wait, too late for now they hear
the burble of the beastie’s sounds.
Then there at the edge of the wooded glade
they saw their quarry sleeping.
And silently the four brave men
drew near as they were creeping.
Then with a snort the terrible head
was lifted into the air.
And sniffed at the scent with dreadful intent
until he found them skulking there.
The four brave men with lance in hand
Stood north, south, east and west.
In hopes that one would find the mark
and send the beast to its final rest.
Ne’er had the beast encountered such men
who showed no concern towards death.
Yet no pity would he ere afford
as they met with the heat of his breath.
With dodge and thrust they went about,
looking for a spot.
To drive home a deadly lance,
before he killed off the lot.
And quick the battle was enjoined,
with blood and spit and sweat.
In hopes that one day their victory,
would outlive their regret.
The beast grabbed one valiant man
and snapped him at his back.
Then ate one more while the other two
continued on with the attack.
The Lig Na Basate swung round
to slice them with his tail.
But a lance pierced his wicked eye,
and he let out a ferocious wail.
He turned his head to gasp the pike
that had nearly left him blind.
Exposing his own naked throat
to the two men from behind
A plunge by one and the next
a gurgle of blood the only sound.
The beast turned to face the men
but with a tilt he hit the ground.
The scales of the mighty dragon
became the armor of the brave.
And the teeth were buried with the dead
inside their hero’s grave.
And still the tale is often told
of the beastie and his demise,
And in the great hall still hangs his head
as the victor’s well earned prize.
Straight rows of soft chairs, larval eyes stare blank
Absorbed by glowing colors on the wall
Their jaws slack, fetid whiff, unwashed and dank
Arrested minds the blue screen does enthrall
Their horticulture, growing docile strains
Indulge the twisted whims our lords conceive
The whores to culture, placid in their chains
Reclining prostrate, ready to believe
Our nation’s spirit sinking to expire
Omniscient demigods behind the screen
Transmuting our light to synthetic ire
Red, white, and blue bows to red, blue and green
Unconscious fulcrum, force you can’t deny
Black keys in gray hands of the puppet priest
Subliminal, no chance to wonder why
Clandestine reins pulled taut, they lead the beast
Imbue the symbol with gilt qualities
Admire how they conspire, our life rewired
Such dazzling tricks to blind the polity
In breaded, cheap amusements, we are mired
Our brave new virtual reality
With hidden craft, untruth is overlayed
Eclipsed sun darkens to totality
Beneath benighted noon we walk as day
Predicted, instinct’s base reaction known
To tidal waves of violence and sex
Minds titillated by distraction’s bone
From our Media-Government Complex
Our internecine hatreds stoked, inflamed
Creating and enhancing the divide
True culprits are protected, victims blamed
Incessant war, the great rift yawning wide
Unseemly freedoms have been made taboo
Renouncing power, most don’t even grieve
Relieved to give up guns and money too
Behind red tape and laws lurk skulking thieves
Resounding echoes, our once great New World
Through wavelengths, diodes, context redefined
Cold software guiding social plots unfurled
Far colder people fine-tune the hive mind
Inheritors of might presume the role
Unburdened by the ballast of remorse
Their dark ascent to power and control
Soul-searing wind as you climb to the source
Some zealots hold that this is Satan’s world
Each object of desire imbued with blight
Much clearer when the plan becomes unfurled
So glaring it becomes they have the right
This morbid monolith, our freedom’s bane
Temptation steals your breath, you’d best beware
Choose reason in a world that’s gone insane
Reclaim your only soul and say a prayer
© Thomas W. Quigley
7/17/16
Mostly Iambic Pentameter
FASCIST STATE
They did not come upon us like blitzkrieg in the night
or goose step into town like a plague of parasites.
They crept on us like shadows in increments so small
they did not seem, at first, to be that menacing at all.
But an eerie posture lurking in those twisted silhouettes
triggered in my senses the twinges of a threat.
So when I turned to look at it what loomed before my eyes
was a figure black in battle dress, fully weaponized.
The more I studied it the more my inclinations ran
to perceive it as an insect rather than a man.
It was clad in armor that formed a battle skin
like some science fiction creature’s exoskeleton.
Peering like a mantis, devoid of all remorse,
it assumed the posture of a ruthless brutal force.
Unmoving, it awaited some unsuspecting prey
to trigger programmed instincts into deadly play.
It was not a thinking thing but a proxy sent
to execute agendas of torture and torment.
It was posted as a sentry by a calculating hand
to reinforce the stranglehold of evil in command.
Secure in it’s status as an instrument of pain
it stood rigid in a posture of arrogant disdain.
it’s value was its ignorance, it did not comprehend
that it would be destroyed when its purpose came to end.
It emanated coldness so inhuman that it seemed
to have stepped from a nightmare to stomp upon a dream.
The whole landscape of existence changed dramatically
beneath the hostile presence of such raw authority.
Where once the streetlights offered sanctuary in their rays
they now morphed into searchlights hunting down a prey.
Sirens screamed atrocities that took the aspect of
a jackboot psychopath with a fist inside a glove.
Beneath the cyborg menace was evil more discrete
skulking in the think tanks, and the bunkers of deceit.
A covert insurgency of social engineers
bent on the subjugation of the hemispheres.
Through orchestrated episodes of endless global war
they reveled in their orgies of sabotage and gore.
The sentry was the whipping tip of the chain of command
lashed across the back of every dominated land.
What darkness of impressions an image can command
when the shadow of a fascist state falls across a land.
Sassy sobriquets schooled sissy spindleshanks...
studious sexagenarian skinny scruffy scribe
My utmost humblest apology
for inducing the following
cerebral calisthenics upon your cranium,
but the cost of friendship
with yours truly
(me – a foo fighting,
eagle eyed, beatle browed, beastie boy
christened Matthew Scott Harris)
doth newt come
like some hootie and the blowfish
super tramping
cheap trick linkedin to
wings at the reo speed wagon
spinning zz top soundcloud.
Scathing, scolding, screaming,
scorning, searing, sing,
sociopathic sarin soaked skewed
squirt, sputtering, squawking, sleepily
staggering, stabbing, swaggering
sweltering sadistic, sarcastic,
savage, systemically systematically
stigmatized, supersized saber sharp
schick shaving, shunned, sabotaged,
scarred, scorched, smote, sanguine,
stippled, speckled schizophrenic
sensibility, spurring, seething,
somewhat stultified, sophisticated,
spellbound spirited scabrous
schlemiel schlemazel, stenciled,
sundered sniveling sanguine storied
snakebitten sojourning smartass,
skeptical shoddy sophomoric
screwball, subtly sagacious,
stunted, sclerotic, scrappily
shuffling short, Shylock
styled sideburns Semite,
sainted Shasta sipping
shriveled sad sack,
sullenly syncopated, synthesized,
slobbering sybaritic, scruffy
sheepish sketchy scalawag,
Socratically scrutinizing, seizure
stricken, stoically sneezing,
shamed Skidrow skeezer, shifty,
sweaty, sham shaman,
supremely spidery, schmaltzy,
sylan seeking subsidized succor,
self shuttered, sequestered,
sidelined, shiftless, shabby,
semantically snazzy, soldiering,
shrieking, skulking, somber,
stooping, Segway scootering,
schmart spendthrift, Swahili
speaking, straitlaced, streamlined,
spongebobbing, sandal shod
sealegs, squarepants sporting
spectacles, sedate, sensate,
sentient, ship shaped,
shanghaied, salubrious,
slithering, snakish, stuttering,
sluggish, smashface scarred,
sober, solitary, sangfroid
skidamarink singing, Shamokin
speaking scrivener, scuzzy,
spunky, starved, submissively
suicidal, sunburned,
salaried shuffling senescent
snoutish soundcloud shutterflying
snapchatting schnorrer.
Squalidness—Squabbling squeamishly;
Scrutinizing stigmatized scandalization, substantially scarce
Sprightliness...skeptically surrendering
Shamefully—Scolded sardonically;
Snarling splenetically, severing sensibility, scowlingly simmering
Strenuously...sought survival
Sparring—Sinister sisters;
Seductively swiveling soreness, sarcastically snared, swirling
Storms...sporadically striking
Slowly—Sacrificing stories;
Scorching slanderous subversiveness, suffering suffocation
Senselessly...smoldering serendipity
Sinfully—Silent stranger;
Sneaking skillfully staring
Presumptuously—Pursuing pretentiousness;
Promises protruding pithiness,
Potential problems...penetrating
Frantically—Forsaken fantasizes foresee;
Different Man Flourishing...
Suspiciously—Supplication solicited;
Subjectively settling, storms subdue, spontaneously subsiding
Surprisingly...sanctuaries submerged
Sobriety—Soaked scathingly;
Staleness spun savagely, strangely straying, sprung
Scourging...southern spiral
Suddenly—Solitude strangling;
Shallow significants seedily surrounds scrupulousness, slumbering
Spitefulness...shunning sympathy
Systematically—Struggling swiftly;
Skulking shadows slithering, seized sanity, seething
Stragglers scrapping...smuggling
Supposedly—Soberness swarming;
Sunrises selectively swerving, sunsets scattering
Emotionally—Erraticism encouraged;
Enduring essential enemies,
Equivocal excursions...escalating
Hereupon—Heretics hushed hereafter;
Different Man Henceforth...
Relentlessly—Reaping ramifications;
Remorsefully relapsing regrettably, resentful realization recognizing
Reflection...refusing reality
Condescendingly—Condemning contradictions;
Cautiously concealing contortions, conducting contrived conniptions
Conscientiously...capricious consciousness
Arrogantly—Acquiring awareness;
Ignorantly ignoring ideologies, deceitful dramatic disagreements
Transpire...transitioning transgressions
Occasionally—Ostracizing occurs;
Overthinking orchestrates overreactions, obsessively obtaining optimization
Brazenly—Begged, blindingly became;
Different Man Behindhand...
Even foxes have holes and birds their nest Jesus the Son of man had no place to rest Truth's King telling of the cunning craftiness of men old fox Harod a faux king guarding the home of the hen In songs of old and new of two lovers sharing a grape until day break and darkness flees like a roe chased or of Sampson and Delilah the three hundred running firebrands a strong lover setting a field on fire at last only true love stands Unlike the trickster of old or legends as numerous sands of time in cultures gave sport to the music stories the riddle and rhyme The fox has played the allusions of kings preachers wizards and wives Be wise as the fox harmless as doves ask help from above when sifting lies Ask for truth myths will fall to the ground as unscented paths for the hounds only hiding in His truth surrounded by His love can the chaste fox be found Yet in this world myths abound changing shape like a Kit soon with nine lies and nine tails grasping at will-o'-the-wisp's lume Tally-ho little kits while skulking on the leash of this earth Do not believe the lies of the enemy chasing foxfire or being poor eat the sweet peas
What pushes my pen in this whimsical notch of the world?
Something whispers to me like an elder dream....
and the trees hang arbored 'oer a little stream of sea,
the feathered folk flit and flute,
and sip the may-season rill;
Where sun has finally come dipping like a diamond.....
I am measured to this mighty moment found;
and there is holly even in the most forgotten shade,
though royal (even) ----- with garland diadems made
It would seem the angels have foretold this:
to not forget the most beauteous of days;
with proud hours honeyed,
the long-loving minute endures in thy heart,
and remembers the kiss of legends
despite realms of sadness and dark,
the withered wind which blows old upon the sad hills....
too ancient for wise men; for in youth how pink the heart
and varied, new struggles are many -----
yet plain with simple solutions
Mercy hath not a mind for memory....
swift its song, its house clean of enemies lurking,
no bogey-man skulking the midnite hour,
no roving-a-wraith scratching the old attic boards;
Forgiveness sleeps in the quiet wood,
and wakes with whispers of faith,
with the ease of nestled lambs and recollected days;
What poor tragedy to fret with dark remembrance,
to furl hades in the denizens of thy heart ----
black-tongued as the devil in his den!
What fool would prefer a scowl to a smile?
enemies come and go.....
friends come and remain,
when the house is quiet with memories....
of youth and adventure in the old daydream glass;
more precious the ancient hours
and parched the pages of first chapters,
first beginnings, first faces in the ripples of time's pond;
Sassy sobriquets schooled sissy spindleshanks...
studious skinny scruffy scribe
Scathing, scolding, screaming,
scorning, searing, sing,
sociopathic sarin soaked skewed
squirt, sputtering, squawking, sleepily
staggering, stabbing, swaggering
sweltering sadistic, sarcastic,
savage, systemically systematically
stigmatized, supersized saber sharp
schick shaving, shunned, sabotaged,
scarred, scorched, smote, sanguine,
stippled, speckled schizophrenic
sensibility, spurring, seething,
somewhat stultified, sophisticated,
spellbound spirited scabrous
schlemiel schlemazel, stenciled,
sundered sniveling sanguine storied
snakebitten sojourning smartass,
skeptical shoddy sophomoric
screwball, subtly sagacious,
stunted, sclerotic, scrappily
shuffling short, Shylock
styled sideburns Semite,
sainted Shasta sipping
shriveled sad sack,
sullenly syncopated, synthesized,
slobbering sybaritic, scruffy
sheepish sketchy scalawag,
Socratically scrutinizing, seizure
stricken, stoically sneezing,
shamed Skidrow skeezer, shifty,
sweaty, sham shaman,
supremely spidery, schmaltzy,
sylan seeking subsidized succor,
self shuttered, sequestered,
sidelined, shiftless, shabby,
semantically snazzy, soldiering,
shrieking, skulking, somber,
stooping, Segway scootering,
schmart spendthrift, Swahili
speaking, straitlaced, streamlined,
spongebobbing, sandal shod
sealegs, squarepants sporting
spectacles, sedate, sensate,
sentient, ship shaped,
shanghaied, salubrious,
slithering, snakish, stuttering,
sluggish, smashface scarred,
sober, solitary, sangfroid
skidamarink singing, Shamokin
speaking scrivener, scuzzy,
spunky, starved, submissively
suicidal, sunburned,
salaried shuffling senescent
snoutish soundcloud shutterflying
snapchatting schnorrer.
lying in wait,
skulking along alleys
hiding in shadows
amongst bums and homeless
the moon is bright
shining silver on the
rain soaked street
waiting to see the world
walk passed;
like a horse wearing blinders
they don't know
what is around them
they don't know
what's behind them
a shadowy man
stepping out from the
dark corners of the alley
could come up
and wrap both hands
around a person's
swanlike neck
as soft as a caress
of a lover,
they wouldn't know
the difference
they are blinded
by what is only in front
of them
but at the same time
they can't see what is
passed the very
tip of their noses
they seem to thrive in
negativity; where as i
love to wake up and
smell the roses
lying in wait
in the alley and
shadows of the big city
buildings
breathing softly
no one notices
i am inivisible here
i cannot be bothered
unless i make a scene
which i plan to do
with a friend and me
we have music
its a stereo that we
blast to full
and we begin dancing
like mad women
again, this goes unnoticed
by those that are blinded
by others they walk about
wandering over
aimlessly
we are human-
curious by nature...
we make fools of ourselves,
grabbing the hands
of random strangers,
screaming "Dance!" into
random faces;
some comply to our demands
others runaway
...apparently frightened that
we really are mad
who knows,
we could very well be
the world lives and thrives
in madness
full to the brim with
women born children and
grandchildren who
wont admit their
madness
the world is mad....
accept, live, and breathe it.
the world is mad.