Long Sojourns Poems
Long Sojourns Poems. Below are the most popular long Sojourns by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Sojourns poems by poem length and keyword.
© Ben Burton 2-20-2015
If I were Edgar Allan Poe
I'd been dead many years ago
Two score, no more, the poet bore
Before rejoining his Lenore
Reflections now, from sixty-five
I'm wondering how I have survived
For, having shared his mental state
Induced abuse which bordered crazed
In looking back it seems most strange
The lucid fundamental change
Created in a child of eight
Whose kinship must have been innate
With one long dead, a hundred years
Before that smack upon my rear
I learned his poems, all were gems
And thought that rhyme was named for him
Read "Gold Bug" and "The Telltale Heart"
Thence, for some time I feared the dark
And as I read, I knew that I
Had, even then, the skills to write
Though modesty forbade the act
Far less than the assured attack
For none dare read foul poetry
In place of chase or hide and seek
When unassigned, a travesty
I wrote in fits, but just for me
"The Raven" and "The Bells" bequeathed
A rhythm beat of hell in me
Too natural to be mere chance
My mind would rhyme through happenstance
With no attempts to join the breed
Through school or university
I, nonetheless, read works aloud
In hopes their authors had been proud
Won competitions far and wide
Unsatisfied, the words weren't mine
And yet, I kept my pen at bay
Years past my graduation day
Jack Daniels opened up my soul
To take me on poetic strolls
Not unlike Poe who oft consumed
Whilst making sojourns to the tomb
I hungered to make words my own
Through blank verse, limerick, or song
Though mostly as a barroom trick
Which oft'times made the pick-up quick
But then, at length, I followed Poe
Officially gave up the ghost
By then I'd fifteen years surpassed
The forty Poe logged for his last
But providence did intervene
Man-made machine, propitiously
Brought back to life that muscle which
Once stilled, rarely renews its tick
My second life was born to write
To spill it all, let nothing slide
And, on ten years my pen creates
Whatever my odd mind dictates
With second chance, I wish to praise
The first man whom within me raised
A passion known as poetry
Though I am light years from his league
We met in El Dorado's dream
Two kindred souls, Edgar and me
I am the hunter with belt and sword.
I am captivity and desires searched for.
Great my name has become.
My dynasty is vast as a Roman Legion.
I stand for truth and honor.
Many have tried to defeat me.
Many I have defeated.
I am glory and shame in a world devoured.
So overwhelmed that we sputters to speak but overcame undefeated.
I am Law and Justice.
My government is Monarch.
I am the Emperor and Judge.
My engagements are that of Poet and Philosopher edification to instruct my people out of darkness.
So obfuscated, they splutter to speak but I am there as their teacher.
Mystification is our world.
Those who find us are forewarn that we are given life by God,
therefore, we are sentient to what is said.
If he or she sojourns, he or she must learn our ways.
So distinguished we are.
We have conquer multitudes.
Delegation to our land we deploy.
Emissaries formed and our people adhere.
We rejoice over our victories.
Measures are not require.
We know who we are.
This is our Empire beyond the stars.
Galactic bears as named.
Galactians are woman, man, and child.
Our minds are affixed.
Our hearts are forbidden.
We are not forsakes of love.
We are the image of unions.
Neither he nor she achieves without some form of unity.
Here is our belief and our creed.
We are the Galactians of Orion.
Constellation on the equator east of Taurus, we are one world diverse.
Our people are multifarious.
We are unions unified.
Our missions is to remain distinguishable from all others.
Strength of our brothers is strength to all.
Solidarity is domain, which includes woman and child.
Diversification must form.
Mixt we are colors all around.
Amalgamation is a twilight zone.
We are the Galactians.
Once discovered, we embrace.
Conformity is our aspect.
We informed with a straight face.
Life is not lost here.
Our horde will segment.
Our ways must be sought.
To those that come, whether by choice or coincidental, we inform.
Our creed is our belief that anyone can be a Galactian.
Within a dream, we may live.
Within in a world, we are.
If you are the choice or the coincident, we are your protector from enmity.
We are the Galactians.
We are warriors and man!
As a Roman Legion, we possess the power and the strength.
_________________________________/
Date Written: March 29, 2014
For the Roman Legion Contest
Love the oldest,
Love the youngest,
The smallest,
The broadest.
Imperfectly perfect,
Proudly humble.
Endlessly end,
Peacefully troubled.
Quietly lousy,
Uncountable counting.
Pleasurable painful,
Ungainly gainful.
Resurrecting in killing,
Smiling in weeping.
Coming in going,
Abiding in departing.
Truth in lies,
Open-mindedness in sly.
Elevation in humiliation,
Built in destruction.
Unity in separation,
Honesty in temptation.
Standing in tribulation,
Thanking in starvation.
II
Love a burning fire,
But never to consume.
Even though she wonders,
But she never get confused.
Love is the source of life,
The fountain of light.
Love, so above death.
And she has no end.
The she's highly immortal,
But she in love with the mortal.
She is sane,
But love the insane.
She is so peaceful
But she's found in a troublesome place.
So careful,
She sojourns in this careless cave.
In an offensive place to pardon,
In sinful house to forgive.
Descending to comfort the abandoned,
Coming so low for poor to give.
Going blind to see,
Far away to come near.
Hardened heart to believe ,
Becoming deaf to hear.
Pleading in rejection,
Blessing the prosecutor.
Hunted but growing,
Hated but reigning.
Too real to the fools,
Because is so true.
Erred men don't believe its free,
Because is so cheap.
So abundantly, but only few has it.
The people she love are rejecting.
If you find one you're lucky,
Because she's one blood thing you can't just inherit.
My solemnity
Oh! I need you thou love,
I wonder if I can in men find one.
I can trade my eyes for it,
Because I know in her will I clearly see.
Really, men are so many.
But how many can truly love?
Marriage can be done within ten minutes,
But are mostly grounded in lust.
If you say you're true lover,
Show it to many like that pauper.
Don't only love your rich husband,
Show love to your maiden servant.
Preaching and boasting of it on the pulpit,
Have you ever have a meal with the poor?
Show it when sad and when happy,
Accommodate your enemies' daughter and son.
Tis easy to love our family,
That's not in the dictionary of we lovers.
It is easier for us to love the whole country,
And those that has once make us suffer.
An abode you can drive down a road is a trip,
but the learning curve’s steep. It’s a help to be rich,
strong, and good with your hands (for things often go wrong
that you will not expect). All support’s a trip too:
fun can stop for repairs - your transmission goes out
at some watering hole where you’re barely a guest.
A rebuilt one located takes days to arrive.
You’re hung out on a limb with relationships cash-
based, though credit cards help. With a vaporware smile
and some luck, a motel has a room you can wait.
At some point, you’ll be glad a towed car’s on your plate
for just parking a motor home can take a while.
Overnights on the streets of a city are rash,
but a grocery store parking lot helps one survive
for a night in a pinch. Cops uncalled, let you rest.
If you buy some supplies, it will give you more clout.
I am happy I bought mine though big trips were few.
A gas engine, no slide-outs, I stole for a song
in year slide-outs and diesel were salesmen’s fresh pitch.
But low tag fees, no property tax floats my ship!
Farms have Quonsets to soften Dakota through time,
hide from hail, sun, and blizzards, a part of the year.
Coach revives, as my residence, when I am there
with the usual hookups, propane, and TV.
But one April, the snow where it parks saw a drift
that eclipsed a man’s height more than corn grows (rains bless).
Weeks would pass till it melted, ground firmed, spring wheat drilled!
But the highways kept clear, a spot found I could park
where Missouri’s clear waters reflected cloud’s path,
and fish leaped as they struck hard and tasted hook’s bait.
I’m a poet who frequents cast lines till they rhyme
and replace my lost bait with a new thought as dear.
Souls and poems will bloom that we offer our care
though we see droughts occur and earth’s water’s not chi.
May some readers drift with me when words are a gift,
have a color they own that eclipses their dress.
Bait rejected? God bless! If you chow down, I’m thrilled.
Who would want to burn rubber alone in the dark?
With a transparent purpose, I don’t fear God’s wrath.
Pray rhymed sojourns bring respite, share love, and not hate.
Brian Johnston
12th of September in 2021
Poet’s Note:
A new metered poem that uses what I call ‘distant rhyme.’
WordScape Triptych #1
Coming from the Underworld as a ghost, just sauntering out of the depths like you did;
With all the rest of us just watching and wondering what you were going to say;
Tell us young Beatrice what shavings you encountered in your intrepid sojourns;
Regale us with splendid tales, and grand dishes with squid meat and fried barnacles;
Intrigue us with your newly-learned dances taught by dead men beneath the grasses.
Manipulate us with your pouting grimaces when sad phrases turn inward the head screws;
Sweet Beatrice, there is no relief or recourse from these exacting heart exercises;
These time-stopping surrenders to the moist touches of absolute skin arousals.
Please lovely Dulcinea, guide us to the far-away stones piled atop the ancient green expanses;
Where screaming armies once pondered mortality amidst the spreading proliferating weeds;
Soothe us with your tender eye gazes which shoot through the airy spaces with calm affinities;
Made immaculate with silent prayers and lifted legs around the shoulders of the nobilities.
Create us for your strange mansions and your strange universes made of chalk, and fingering fears;
These soothing squanderings of doubting time, and the strange splashings of forgetful mercies,
Made manifest with the urgings of the stones, and the apex gods with the sharp plastic crowns;
Please Dulcinea, sing to us with your tenor gyrations made of pickled stardust and squid meat.
And proffer for us, sweet sweet Laura, your lilting songs celebrating the recurring exhalations;
From the lips of bearded nomads coming like leopards across the squared-faced, death vistas;
Expose to us your battle-scarred appendages where bleeding arrows found the stringed lattices;
Reveal to us your arched spinal bridges which flatten and turn with the seeking wind shears;
Gather us, lovely Laura, to your immense home hidden in the spiral ferns for tea and secret games;
Teach us how to be present and aware of the artifices, as rendered woodenly by the blind gropers;
Yes, sweet sweet Laura, we are at your service, but finally, kill us, destroy and annihilate us,
With your slithering clandestine movements behind dripping tombstones in the snoring graveyards.
The Protraction of the Epiphany
Complacency in a stilted light of regret
Vagrancy in a jilted sight of neglect
Emergency in a wilted light of insects
The urgency of a curative substance to inject
Wellsprings of artificial truth and humour
Hells things accumulate with the modern day consumer
A year in the jungle with the rare black Asian Pumas
A fear and a rumble of a growing brain tumour
Excerpts of illumination beaming out through a crowd
Concerts of contamination leaning forward and loud
An old hearse of consecration screaming lines of the Proud
A written verse of invitation about what is sworn and vowed
Desert storms inland from the sea
Crescent forms of moonlight that shine down upon me
Elegant storms of starlight that are too bright to even see
Decadent norms shed for what’s right as you embolden the free
Elevated insights into the passages of time
Nominated fights about the ravages of crime
Consecrated rights about the rhythm of a rhyme
Ill-created sights as we look to the night for a sign
Refine the moment before you descend from your throne
Define who owns it as humanity leaves you alone
Confine who clones it before it hijacks all of your homes
Incline to hone it before the Queen turns to stone
Perpetuate the intimate and sign up for the next sequel
Commiserate the consulate before human rights become the prequel
Eviscerate then integrate as you shout about it from the steeple
Amalgamate then consecrate the water for the people
Divide the notion of partial responsibility
Inside the ocean of martial comparability
Apply the lotion of spatial inter generational exclusivity
Collide the sojourns of musical improvisational proclivity
Allow your sorrow to rise up and purge from your system
Now you follow the size of your urge to demystify him
How tomorrow through the eyes of your words make you thin
Bow to the borrowed lies of the absurd man with a grin
What comprises the ultimate act of integrity?
Hot suprises to formulate the exacts of berevity
Not decided to promulgate the contraction of longevity
Of the insiders I consummate the protraction of the epiphany
The End Copywrite Elizabeth Moroz
Intimacy
by Rahat Indori
loose translation by Michael R. Burch
I held the Sun, Stars and Moon at a distance
till the time your hands touched mine.
Now I am not a feather to be easily detached:
instruct the hurricanes and tornados to observe their limits!
The Mad Moon
by Rahat Indori
loose translation by Michael R. Burch
Stars have a habit of showing off,
but the mad moon sojourns in darkness.
Body Language
by Rahat Indori
loose translation by Michael R. Burch
Your body’s figures are written in cursive!
How will I read you? Hand me the book!
Insatiable
by Rahat Indori
loose translation by Michael R. Burch
This mighty ocean, so deep and vast!
If it sates my thirst, how long can it last?
Honor
by Rahat Indori
loose translation by Michael R. Burch
Achievements may fade but the name sounds strong;
walls may buckle but the roof stays on.
On a pile of corpses a child stands alone
and declares that his family still lives on!
Dust in the Wind
by Rahat Indori
loose translation by Michael R. Burch
This is how I introduce myself to questioners:
Pick up a handful of dust, then blow ...
Dissembler
by Rahat Indori
loose translation by Michael R. Burch
In your eyes this, in your heart that, on your lips something else?
If this is how you are, speak to someone else!
Rumor (M)ill
by Rahat Indori
loose translation by Michael R. Burch
I heard rumors my health was bad;
prying people made me ill.
The Vortex
by Rahat Indori
loose translation by Michael R. Burch
I am the river whose rapids form a vortex;
You were wise to avoid my banks.
Homebound
by Rahat Indori
loose translation by Michael R. Burch
If people fear what they meet at every turn,
why do they ever leave the house?
Keywords/Tags: Rahat Indori, Urdu, translations, Intimacy, sun, moon, stars, feather, hurricane, tornado, hands, darkness, body, cursive, book, read, ocean, honor, river, banks, vortex, thirst, walls, corpses, dust, wind, family, eyes, heart, lips
The Three Islands Sleep!
Sleep, sleep, the islands asleep!
Sleep while the winds blow on her face,
On her trees, and on her mountains and hills,
Sleep when the thieves dressed in suit come in,
Like the befuddled man sleeps in his own vomit,
Or like the overworked farmer, who in his bed creeps.
Sleep! Sleep! The islands sleep!
Sleep with unclosed eyes, like he who can’t sleep,
Sleeps to the sound of alarm, the fight for her life, and her sea,
Sleeps, when the red crimson blood from her vain shed,
Like anesthesia in flesh, make it numb, feel no pain,
Or like the brain hypnotized, would not think for itself.
Sleep! Sleep! The islands sleep!
Sleep when the foreigners come, move her out of her bed,
From the kitchen, living room, on the trees she sojourns,
Sleeps, though her offspring bewail, for some bread and a rest,
For schoolmasters that left, with no school nor recess,
And the peril and risk that play daily on the streets.
Sleep! Sleep! The islands sleep!
Sleep, the three of them sleep, when they empower the fiendish,
To keep the ball rolling, the robbing and defrauding,
When the ballots that are twisted, in their hands feel no different,
Sleep when the liars can lead them, but the truth doesn't reach them,
Or when death sentence upon them, they hear, neither see their grave ending.
Sleep! Sleep! The islands sleep!
Sleep when the corrupt one comes, with false hope to promote,
Like better jobs, new buildings, profuse gifts are given,
Sleeps like the reefs and the cays in the deep,
When the hurricane sweeps, still they all in deep sleep.
Sleep! Sleep! The islands sound a sleep!
Sleep! Sleep! The three of them sleep, when rain water falls and seeps,
Seeps through their pores, deep down in their souls water leaks,
With thorns, wild trees and tall bush growing from underneath,
The Cassava, plantain, watermelon, sweet potato, food produced choked and killed,
Like invaders our land destroy, but we sit and daydream, since our islands sound asleep.
Sleep! Sleep! The three islands asleep!
Avoiding Pain? Suicide Might Help!
I don’t like to get hurt, grok this path that most walk,
so write poems for strangers (I never will meet,
verse few friends do abide short of formal requests)
that reveal mind in verse (where hearts bathe in the light
of exposure on page). Am I loading a gun
life might point at my head? Will my readers see threats
to their lives in a verse filled with blanks that roam free
or find fault I’ve ascribed trumps the guilt I’ve explored?
Though life’s problem at times, I adore, get adored.
Does fact many bright ships pass at night on time’s sea,
south stars missed in North Hemisphere, call for regrets?
Let me celebrate all that God grants - light from sun,
dreams encountered sleep whispers in sojourns at night,
threads muse follows in wisdom or folly, bequests
laced with sorrow and joy that frame truth bittersweet
I’d fain hang on this wall when I’m talking the talk!
I implore each dear friend to extend grace to pain,
for pain’s truth holds life lessons (that spurned pose grave risk)
Might pain hint you’re remiss in pursuit of some bliss?
Could a toothache suggest sweets close kin to decay?
Does a love that’s forbidden just heighten your burn
and imply you’re afraid of available love?
Is love real that would trick, dare to bribe heart to yield,
would love author a love that denied love a voice?
There’s no touch (one survives) that divorces real gain
though the strength of love’s contact seems long, is too brisk.
Would a lover of pressed flesh sigh, “too hit or miss?”
Pain, I ban for all life, courts a brother’s, “Hurray!”
and a sister in ‘left field’ asks, “When’s it my turn?”
What of pain felt by Noah awaiting God’s dove?
It’s a measure of love, that worst pain gets concealed,
most incredible love known whose pain stays your choice!
Long Tooth
February 19th in 2021
Only A Poet Would Understand
Only A Writer Will Know…
Why I Would Feel This Disheartened and
Why I Can’t Shake Writer’s Woe…
… I Lost 200 Poems or More
Tho’ The Exact Count Doesn’t Matter
Most of What I’d Written Before
… is no longer gathered
A Circumstantial Mishap
My Family Didn’t Realize
That Case… That Mildewed, was a Map
Of My Flight thru Vision-Skies!
Eclectic, Romantic, maybe Eccentric
… also of Favorite Things and Fantasy
… Kinetic, Static or Copacetic
And Sojourns into Soliloquy
… Only A Poet Would Understand
Only A Writer Will Know
Those Exact, Precise – Phrases, won’t come again
… I can only end-up where they go…
Lost Type-of-Line, Pencil-Points of Lead
Lost Sonnets, Songs and Secrets Said
Now, Instead of Ink-Blots, My Tear-Stains Spread
Those Lost Words… Ripped My Throat to Shreds !
… Lost Track … Lost The Time …
Lost Treasure – Can’t Find Rhyme
Lost That Paper-Trail… of Where I’d Been
Lost Paper-Peace –that was Marked: Amen
and I’d Rather Have Lost My Money
‘Cause I Can Always Earn A Dime…
Instead of My Increased Memory
that Remembers This Literary Crime !
… Lost Documentation of Determination
Documentation of Dreams
… My Certificates of Celebrations
… My Tickets To My Park-Themes:
… of Snowflakes to Raindrops
From Heartaches to Heartthrobs
From Whispers to Declarations
Of Best Friends, and Far-Vacations
200 Trains of Thought – Wrecked
200 Expose’ Sheets – Axed
200 Treatises, Throwed Away, Gone…
… on Tragedies, Joys, Jokes and Moans
… Yet, I Rely On God, to Resurrect The Dead:
My Older-Sister, Brother, Grandma, Mom And Dad
and … if its not too silly, vain or bad…
Resurrect Those Words, I Wrote and I Meant to be Read…
Until then…
Only A Poet Would Understand
And Only A Writer Would Suppose …
If I Do Not Write Again
What Lost Poems You’ll Never Know…