Long Slanting Poems
Long Slanting Poems. Below are the most popular long Slanting by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Slanting poems by poem length and keyword.
As Marion trod the old familiar path
leading to the river of her childhood,
she viewed the willow tree across the river
and recalled with clarity
the event that changed her life
half a century ago - that memory
which for all her adult life
she‘d managed to suppress . . .
She was being chased by Ellie down the path;
Ellie, the fair haired younger sister
favored by their father
and wearing the golden pendant he had given her
when she’d won a spelling bee.
Yanking the pendant from her sister’s neck,
Marion ran into the river’s icy water,
threatening to throw the pendant in.
Screaming, Ellie followed right behind.
Farther into the river’s center, the two girls moved.
Where the riverbed dipped sharply,
Ellie had caught up.
Suddenly the wind blew violently,
The chain with its beautiful pendant
slipped from Marion’s hand
into the swirling water.
Ellie tottered, falling backwards.
Then the river was carrying
Marion’s little sister to the other side.
Marion called out, but Ellie did not answer.
A strong swimmer, Marion swam
to her sister’s lifeless body
on the opposite bank where a nearby willow stood -
witness to her crime.
Marion now was standing where she once had stood
that fateful day. The river had receded with time,
but its current was still strong.
She stood recalling her parents’ bitter tears
and how she had escaped their wrath
inventing her own version of the truth -
that Ellie had run into the water by herself
when the sudden wind came up
causing her demise.
She felt bad, but in the end,
she became her father’s newfound pride and joy.
Something glittered at the water’s edge.
Marion, now heavy and clumsy with age,
moved closer to see. Could it be after all these years?
Yes, it was the pendant, shining in the river’s sludge!
She stooped to pick it up, but lost her balance,
falling forward toward the slanting floor.
As she struggled, a great gust of wind
moved her out. . .farther and farther to the middle.
Before her head vanished below the water’s surface,
she saw that old willow’s leaves flutter angrily.
She could almost swear she saw the form of Ellie,
fair sweet Ellie, beckoning her from the other side.
For Frank Herrera's POEM ENDING WITH A 'CHILLING TWIST' Poetry Contest
What a small room - my finger traces dust across the plain table.
What did Grandma DO here? I glance around for electrical sockets - none to be seen.
Her life was spent staring out the window, at 3D life, but only seeing memories.
I go to the wall and test the switch
a bare light bulb illuminates an area with a hot plate.
"Jesus", I mumble.
Why would she live in this shabby room?
Was this a punishment? Like a place where a nun would live?
No, *I self correct in my mind* Gramma was the sweetest person on earth.
I walk three steps, twirl and flop on my back, on the bed.
Dust explodes off the bare mattress in the sunlight
slanting through the grimy, half-open, shade-less window.
I wave and blow the dust away and now I'M lost in memory..
She was ninety-three - I never heard her say an unkind word
In that tiny, sand-papery whisper of a voice.
She always wanted me to sit in her lap, she wanted to brush my hair.
From 10 on I was bigger than she was and afraid I'd break her.
"Don't you worry over ME", she'd say with a chuckle, "I'm an old piece of leather."
Her cheeks were pink and wrinkled like old rose petals. Her hair a white bun.
"I miss you Gramma", I whisper.
The wind, careless in its airy freedom,
Feverishly furrows the prairie grass.
With a cry like a lost spirit, it winds
And wails through leafless trees and toothless fence
To vent its eager force upon the boards
Of a lonely, weather-beaten farmhouse.
Afternoon sun shines ashen and mottled,
In slim slanting shafts, through a smoky pane,
Opaquely painting a penumbral room.
Dust motes dance before an empty stone hearth.
A man, like a silent sentinel, sits
Dreamless, and loveless, between the bare walls.
Wearily wringing his wrinkled thin hands,
He sloughs his solitary years away,
Staring sleeplike out an open screen door
Where stands a windmill, in still-life, framed.
Tumbleweeds pile against the west house wall;
And a plough lies broken in drifted sand.
Wrap me in dreams, like a canvas of stars draped over my soul,
When the rain weaves its silver silk on windows like a veil of silence,
The cold gathers us like birds under the same sky, caressed by memories,
The sun, a weary painter, lays slanting rays on the terraces of our dreams.
Let dreams carry me through the labyrinth of deep velvet night,
Where shadows hide untold stories in the whispers of the wandering wind,
The wind, a messenger of lost desires, whispers forgotten secrets to me,
Fears and hopes intertwine in a breath like a dance of the stars.
Wrap me in dreams when the night stretches its mysterious velvet cloak,
I, a sailor on the seas of time, seek the lighthouse of your heart in the distance,
The ray of hope hides beyond the horizon like a morning dream,
Cherries ripen like unspoken promises, in your absence, like a vow.
Autumn comes like an old friend, bearing leaves of longing and nostalgia,
The news that our paths will meet again under the starry sky,
Wrap me in dreams, and let me float gently on their luminous wings,
A butterfly of light in the garden of memories, where every flower is a secret.
The deep silence of the night becomes a bridge of stars linking our hearts,
In the labyrinth of eternity, under the sky of an autumn morning, the magic of love,
Is reality, and dreams become paths of light that unite us forever,
Like a secret song of souls meeting in the eternity of shared moments.
The sun on this September afternoon
is not quite what it might have been in June,
but hot enough. My barman’s chatting on,
while somewhere, some lopsided carillon
is clanging tunelessly. I’m in the square
of San Francesco in Arezzo, where
I’ve longed to be for years. Rome’s far behind
(in fact it’s hard to summon Rome to mind,
albeit I was there not long ago.)
Tranquillity! I almost feel as though
I’ve plunged in freezing water. And the sight
of fiesta flags, inflamed by evening light
can make the heart start pumping. It’s too late
(for me) to learn to free-associate,
but what feels right, is right. I’m in a groove,
and who can say if I will ever move
from this precise position? Favourite pen,
a fine coarse notebook and “remember when” …
can life improve on this? When things combine,
we feel we’ve touched the hem of The Divine:
perhaps I’m heading for a nuclear fall,
but sunlight slanting on that craggy wall
is just as good as (better than, perhaps)
a coffee in that place from “Google Maps”.
Until I found Palazzo Guillichini
Gregorio, life’s classic “in-betweeny”
was lost to me: but I, “traquer le lièvre”,
can get the story from the cause célèbre.
HOPE, THE PAINT MOVER
The patterned palette clasping the melted rainbow
doesn’t take time to dry as streaks of colored bone
if the amateur painter waits long and doesn’t know
how to choose the colors fast and select their tone.
The blank canvas waiting silent on the slanting easel,
the unpainted bare face wrinkles in creeping wet air
if the unsure moody painter hesitates awhile to tell
the dormant imagination to make the motif in color.
The hued palette, the waiting canvas and the painter
turn into a useless unlinked trio in the pursuit of art
if they can’t find for their purpose prime paint mover,
the camel haired innocuous painting brush to start.
The brush comes alive in the painter’s nimble fingers,
paints from the pliant palette with ardor it captures.
The face of charming canvas glows in collage of colors,
in surreal art form the nebulous imagination appears.
When winds of stormy time abrades life’s canvas bare
how long the painted rainbow will last you’ve no clue.
If all the colors start to melt in the torrents of despair
in color of future dip the mind’s brush hope gives you.
October 9, 2018
It is written in the Constitution,
to even qualify as a small town,
you need to have a drive-in ice cream place,
you can trust me, Madison wrote that down!
They become our favorite gathering spots
when the snow melts and the weather gets warm;
Dairy Bar, Custard Shed, the Frostee Hut,
we’ve seen the names, and it adds to the charm.
They look like they were built in the 50s,
and all of the best ones usually were,
the slight slanting roof, two windows out front,
paved spaces for parking instead of dirt.
A spattering of old picnic tables,
sometimes a pavilion in case it rains,
often a playground or a nearby park
where the kids run around and act insane.
Thy have the normal milkshakes and soft serve,
this is the baseline, where they make their cash,
but also a host of fun novelties,
snow cones, bombs pops, and other things like that.
The best ones usually also do food,
you see the smoke venting out from inside,
burgers and fried clams, American classics,
pigeons stand by waiting for dropped French fries.
Come Independence some do fireworks,
and brings local bands to play for the crowd.
They don’t seem much, but a town without them
is not the type of place I’d stick around.
Sit beside my bed...
Sit beside my bed...
Before my breath starts counting to naught.
One more last time,
For many lives to come,
Let our eyes meet once again to love,
Before they part..
Let me once more smell the fragrance of you
The fragrance which I adore to keep
My breath will take the last smell and go
Along with it your memories will flow.
Let me once more touch your wrinkled fingers
Once so soft like a wet rose petal
Smothered in roses under the grave
Those rubbing fingers alone will stay.
Let my heart again melt on your heat
The heat once covered me in vile winter colds
The warmth of your hugs and kisses of dew
Will fly with me to the heaven high.
While last slanting rays glaring my eyes
Sit beside my bed...
Sit beside my bed...
That Blessed Door
O the rain...the rain...the falling rain
that fell and fell and fell again
keeping you from my door...O my door...that blessed door!
O the sunset...the sunset...the carnelian sunsets
how I long to hold them in my hand...so when you are blue...so blue
so deep dark blue...you can come to me
and I will open my hand so
you can wonder...O the wonder...wide open wonder
Xanthus yellows and amber golds streaming
from my palm...my palm...my humble palm
and so you will become immortal
O if only I could keep you there
...you...only you swathed in light and warmth
safe...and sound...close to me forever
You who I am lost to...the vessel-ed seas
O how I long for the sea...O the sea...the sparkling sea
in its emerald greens and topaz hues
it's passions, powers …a relentless muse
I long to place it in my heart...
my heart...O my a thousand times broken heart
so the pieces can wash away and I can float free
into the wind...O the wind...the wetted whipping winds that billow the sheets hung in my yard
whispering wild and wondrous things to dreaded demons
washing them away with the rain
...the rain...the falling rain that fell and fell and fell again
keeping you from my door...O my door...that blessed door that opened
to your face -one cold crisp morn...
So blessed by God ...O My God...My Gorgeous God!
if only I could hold you in my soul…O my soul …my sodden soul
that I would not get so often lost in my shadows ...O the shadows
my small and tall...wide and slanting shadows and the darkness
...O the darkness...the black coal darkness
that chases me down alleyways of night and telling taunt me under the slivered moon...
O the moon...my beautiful mindful midnight moon...my crescent and my full moon
O my love ...my love....my eternal love
if only I could sprinkle you like confetti...upon the earth
and every life
O life...the very thing life...the breathe that enters that which wasn't and so then is till cradled in death
Death....O death...O damned-able death!
if only you were not so draped in confession that I must pray
I pray...O how I pray that the vastness...the vastness...the great and cosmic-ian vastness beyond is more splendid still than Earth...
Our Earth...our blessed wondrous Earth
perfect hungry sad beaten tarnished dirtied Earth...O MY EARTH
...how I love you!
Outside my window the glimpse of a twinkling muse
sprinkling little bits of imagination into my soul.
I espy a little Reindeer prancing in the deep, deep woods. Slanting my eyes just so I try to take a better look. Before I get to sing
the first refrain of Jingle Bells, he has gone away. Hidden behind a white spruce filled with gold and silver pixie dust. The train keeps moving on, secured by fast moving rails that seem to have a destination of their own.
Planting a cold kiss on the glass my voice turns to a whisper, and I feel miles away from my home. The sun is beginning to rise in the North and the dawning sun is infusing me with warmth. I can feel it dance on my cheek, rousing me slowly from a dreamless long night's sleep. No sun kinks on the rails, just the invisible passengers, the Conductor, and a Pullman porter who is fast asleep in his folding seat. My spirit roams free on this blessed morning. The wagon has an almost feel of religiosity attached to it.
I sense the Conductor long before his shiny black shoes kiss the ground. " Missy, would you like a cup of warm milk?" But all I see in his toasted big brown hands is a bowl of hot steaming soup with a couple of dumplings.
We exchange a puzzled look then I take it in my hands and bring it to my hungry mouth. I sip it slowly. As the liquid pours down my parched throat, an inkling of memory returns to me.
I smile for the first time, in my fifteen long years.
To be continued...
Copyright © Mystic Rose Rose | Year Posted 2023