Long Smallness Poems

Long Smallness Poems. Below are the most popular long Smallness by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Smallness poems by poem length and keyword.


Premium Member The Heart of the Matter

how can a speck of dust
comprehend     the universe
in all its glory        and majesty
I am at times beyond      overwhelmed
past the point of         feeling my smallness
infinitesimally minute    barely even a presence
and yet you have generated           
a wonder        beyond anything
I could possibly feel   outside of
a magnitude         of gratitude
for the   minuiscule   perception of glory
you have taken dust
and congealed      a realization
that gives        light to life
and touched        even the broken
with a glimpse     of     paradise
of a grace    that even in our brokenness
that you could reach          deeply
beyond all      that an eye can see
and touch          the hidden 
that we have       fortressed
and sheltered        and not allowed
violence of nature        or  men to touch
for only         your   divine   purity
and innocence     will           we
even allow to enter         this room 

COPYRIGHT © 2014 C Michael Miller
via Duboff Law Group LLC


Premium Member Lost In Nature

Sun's golden glean cascades over the peak
To leave reflections where black waters lay
Its beauty stills the enchantment I seek
And offers scenes of a peaceful ballet
I close my eyes while in this sacred place
Where only the sound of my breath is heard
My dim soul lights with a flickering trace
Tremble's impatiently searching for words
My soul is naked, my heart pierced in awe
As Nature's masterpiece opens my eyes
To grasp the darkness of my spirit's flaws
I am moved to smallness beneath its skies
How quickly the sun will move from the light
How quick it falls silent into the night

1/24/16
Form: Sonnet

Premium Member All At Once I Knew

All at once…

I realized that it was peace
Who left me breathless,
Hope who left me without a question,
Faith who knew my deepest need,
And love who silenced my every fear

All at once…

I knew, down deep inside me,
That there is something more important
Than my own tears – my own needs…
There is someone who prays, prays
And, in my gift of time – my gift of light…
I answer those prayers, those prayers
Who abide on the heart’s beating,
Abide in the questions, the believing

I answer those prayers
With the gifts I bring, giving
My hopes, my dreams, my friendship

Gifts of grace, listening, faith
Interest in the smallness of a star
Attention to the kindness of a heart

All at once…

I knew that real faith gives away
More than it takes

All at once…

I simply knew that God’s love
is generous and plentiful
it is lavish and lives in those…
who listen to the heart who believes
it is far better to give than receive 




2022 Poetry Marathon Mile 22 Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Mark Toney
December 8, 2022

Premium Member Little minds

Strange sedition moves in silence,
cloaked in artificial green,
a painted smile that hides the sting.
Some ask with twisted curiosity,

“Where are you from?”

Others slip away, eyes averted,
finding excuses to keep distance,
though your face is harmless, open.

There are those who pull back deliberately,
carving out space, quickening their steps
a quiet theater of unspoken pride.
It steals the innocence of childhood,
brings endless loss,

miscarriages of justice,
countless favors granted to others,
spiteful glances, open put-downs,
strange stares that twist what nature made.

The sun that warmed my skin
taught me to shine in my own light.
I do not envy you in your cold.

The spite comes in waves,
unprovoked jeers and insults,
at work, on the bus,
in crowded malls,
inside elevators,
in sideways looks and hesitant rejections.

even in church, the brief pause,
the subtle exclusion on sacred ground.

We see it clearly, watching in silence.
Sometimes it’s too obvious
the quiet favoritism, the “us first,”
you last, or simply erased.

The way they say “minority” or “others,”
as if the words could shrink a person,
make us less human.

I am African, not minority, not other.

We recognize these sorting games.
In civility we often let it pass,
holding onto deeper knowing.

This body is only a temporary shell,
already fading.

We are not inferior.
We are not a threat.
We are beautiful.
We observe.
We laugh at the smallness of these minds.

And when the true maker of colors
finally snaps the chains of twisted justice,
then you will understand:
we are all just travelers here.
Form: Narrative

Premium Member Perfection

The sun's golden glean cascades mountain peaks
Where reflections on still black water lay
The evening's glow of enchanting mystiques
Bows to the night with its starlight bouquet
Sky's dim light changes with flickering trace
Without description from a written word
This sacred timeless theater, I'll embrace
And the quiet beat of my pulse is heard
In solemn respect, heart's rhythm will crawl 
As perfection in form slowly applies
When I see stars fill the night's cathedral  
I'm humbled in smallness that purifies
The evening's reflection changes from light
Welcomes softer glow from the breadth of night


1/2/18 contest Water and Sky
Form: Sonnet


Premium Member Torah, Black Fire On White Fire

Torah: Black Fire on White Fire, A Nafka Mina

Every Place, every Space,
In ink, 'tween signs, ‘tween lines,
Everywhere He, Where are we?

Ask, "Mi Hashem Aylai?"
Not, "What's in for me?"
Descent from Kedushah is "I"

Ego, Ugly Mess, Rears our Smallness, 
Whether in "I" or Mired in Man,
My Hand, My team, vs. Oneness

We can live to please "I",
Or Harvard or other Men,
What's the difference? Our Eye's Sty!

To live His Torah, Nullifies Me
We Need to Be, Alive ‘n Doin’,
Here, Now! We Want to Be.

He gave us myriad Mitzvot,
To glimpse Him, to Breathe ‘n Do,
To be in His Company.

Life's not just other Men,
Them With to Hang Out, Them to Please,
He Knows our Dodge Cop Out.

Men are Seen, He’s Hidden.	
Pleasin’ Men is counter Our Goal,
He smiles, if We’re Herein.

As He is Here, We Be in our All.
Men make Noise, when Losin’ Stature,
Men are in Places, not in 'tween Spaces.

Be as the One, Sip His Strength, in Being Alone,
Be a Rolling Stone, Not just a Clone,
He’s Here, We likewise ignore Noise.

It takes max strength Chutzpah,
Swim Agin' the Torrent, Be Current,
Carpe Diem, Not be a Puppet of Them.

The Gematria of Aish equals Kara,
Or Fire in Hearing 'Sounds of Silence': A Calling, 
Horton Hears a Who, Choosing is Less than to Be Chosen.

Be Strong; You're Created to Be a Man,
Hashem's Eved, In touch with Your Maker,
Answer to Him, not some Faker.


© Chaim Ben Moshe 2018

Premium Member Poetry From Two Sonnets

1
Sun's glean cascades golden over the peak
Reflections on black water a ballet
Beauty glows, brings an enchanting mystique
Senses peaceful, before it fades away
To lift my eyes from their desolate place
Only the sound of my breathing is heard
My soul's light dims with a flickering trace
As my mind trembles searching for a word
To stand naked,with my heart pierced in awe
Nature's masterpiece brought tears to my eye
Lowly I am understanding my flaw
I'm moved to smallness as I'm purified

How quickly life's sun can move from sight
and leave me alone to embrace the night

2
To be in love is when the heart is free
and kiss warm lips with a passion tender
This bond is soft upon the heart's decree
Through sunsets we lay beneath love's splender
Shall the passage of years be ever still
and wrap each finger with a lover's hand
As we share love's gentle cup, both will fill
The years will come and go at our command
We'll seek the farthest edges of our dream
With tears and sighs we find along the way
And answer each turmoil without a scream
Wrap our bodies tight when life starts to fray

To be in love with your lover's heart
and travel through the days never apart
Form: Sonnet

The Sacred Smallness

—The Ancient Law of the Lowered Hand—

No chronicle remembered the man beside the village wall,
The one who gathered broken cups where the forgotten slept.
He mended a child's clay bowl with a thread too worn and small,
While rain tapped on the stones and evening shadows crept.
No stone preserved the kindness of his name or marked his call;
The world walked past him quietly, yet grace remembered all.

An old king mended a child's broken wheel beside the stone,
While winter's pale fingers combed the fields of sleeping grain.
His crown rested in the dust; his hands were not his own—
They belonged to mercy, not to glory, pride, or reign.
The child saw no ruler beneath the fading sky,
Only a hand that taught a broken thing to try.

A scholar left his vaulted halls before the morning bell,
And swept the ashes from a widow's cold and silent hearth.
He found beside the fire a little wooden doll that fell
From a child's forgotten hands before the winter darkened earth.
No book had ever spoken with such quiet truth or grace
As the dust upon his fingers and the kindness in his face.

I saw a gardener beside a tree struck hollow by the storm.
His old coat carried rain; his hands were stained with soil.
He placed his ear against the wound and listened through the night,
As if the broken wood still held some hidden voice of life.
Within the emptiness there stirred no leaf, no root, no form—
Yet something in that silence leaned quietly toward light.

Then from the mountain's oldest silence came a gentler fire,
A flame without a shadow, a warmth without a name.
It rested like a child asleep beside a broken lyre,
While forgotten stars grew still around its quiet flame.
The heavens did not descend; the earth did not ascend—
A breath remained before all things began and after all things end.

Let marble keep its thunder, let towers challenge time.
Let kings be carved in stone and kingdoms turn to dust below.
The lowered hand will travel where no monuments can climb,
Through hidden fields where only humble mercies grow.
And when the final star is gathered beyond the edge of night,
A nameless hand will still be there, returning borrowed light.
Form: Rhyme

Premium Member The Last Organ Grinder

The faint sound of breathing
is heard in the silence of darkness
where eyes gaze into the sky
with tear-stained thoughts
  how still the moment
  the smallness of being
reliving each sorrow from yesterday
as a metaphor
that stands on the edge of emotion
looking into an abyss, feeling nothing
awakened by a mirror of reflections
that flutter in the background
like the last organ grinder
pulling his worn-out cart into the shadows
on an empty cobbled street
playing, though no one hears
beneath the last lamplight
as a quiet death of echos
fade into the dim-lit realm
to leave an after-image in the swollen eyes
and a haunting sound of sadness
that endures through the calamity of loneliness

Hemmed In

The sky has climbed over
its usual low cloud cover,
today it is high, blue and vertical
with no hand holds,
those places for the eye to cling to.

In the city we don't get 'big sky'
we get pencil thin shafts
that sweep the dust off ledges,
we have foot-slogging
staircases and elevations.
where the sky cannot rise beyond
one last viewless window.

Far below
upon those hemmed-in streets
some seem forced to grow
into hybrid creatures
that must suck upon
each other's fears.

There are trees, a few stretch and reach
like mountain climbers,
yet all that high air above us is not reassuring,
it creates a feeling of smallness,
our arms too paltry to grasp the infinite.

Mostly we give no thought
to the sheer narrowness of it all,
and so with only these
manmade clifftops to jump from
it's no wonder some choose to leap.

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