Long Spoken Poems
Long Spoken Poems. Below are the most popular long Spoken by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Spoken poems by poem length and keyword.
Man, What’s the Rush?
Music swirls like a summer storm, each note becoming a new form/
The horn speaks free in smoky jazz club rooms/
where jazz shadows sway and silence drinks in Monk's play/
Syncopated verses leap/
Sonic abstract jazz finds new life in innovative, revolutionary organic jazz, steppin' out into a new cookin' funk orchestration/
Guitarist John McLaughlin Grooves awaken in the mind, and meditation settles there/
a quiet home within the soul that is reelin' in the feelin'/
Man, that's something' else/
You bein' a cosmic swing jazz philosopher sing speaking' the hip dialogue of Ken Nordine/
In the clutter of a jazz-lit life/
art becomes a quiet riot rebellion/ and the work of our political jazz masters hang deep in our horn playin' activism of truth/ ya dig?
Here, in this sound stage of life
The day keeps shouting/
It has to be done/
But the horn bends time and asks, Man, what’s the rush?
Yo Bro Sound It Out/Tony Adamo
Yo bro, you got to sound it out/ let the spoken words roll/ let yourself go/your words are in and out of the rhythm track/ It’s the downbeat groove/ man, hit that word vibe hard you’re in the jazzo frame of mind/ word speak with high energy kickin’ it to the crowd/let your spirit upload/ I see you be diggin’ on that modern tempo, sync it up tight to punk jazz punchy/ bringing fire to your words that last all night/lo-fi horn breaks that make your spoken words come alive/ you be doin’ it to it on that hipster speak ride/ abstract thinking blows their minds/hey bro, take it to the edge/ neo-soul, hip hop, house, RnB, and jazz/ that’s your backing tracks for the complex word rap arrangements that smokes out the house/ are you hip to the soul train dance line with that vinyl 45-style sound/Don Cornelius was king in the programing of his dance show/ the funky rhythm and soul textured magic made the music sing out loud/ acid jazz lines push the drive in your words/ I feel the pulse, I dig the feel of the break beat delivery popin’ from your spoken wheel of feel/ You even rap speak to the radio along with the 50s and 60s soul music past/ man, you are the real deal/chilled out boppin’ hip hop, you spread your words like butter on toast/ funk music samples dance from the DJ backing you on stage, man he is the most/ beat chops kicks the words flying off the mic in a rage/ spoken word in between dusty breaks filled with jazzy baselines/ your downtempo feel in breakin’ it down/ man, your words have sex appeal/ you have the low riders cruising through time/ car hoppin’ and dancing to your spoken word rhyme/ brother this is your time/ let the world hear your shout/ hey bro, you gots to sound it out/let the triplets of jazz words you speak/ crash against the soul jazz horn section on top of the hip hop instrumental free beat/ Yeah/ now you be MCing/
Yo. From a whisper, barely a breath, to a front-page roar/ EAST COAST JAZZ in the fifties, sixties/
Not just blowing trumpets, but blowing up the jazz scene jazz/
LPs stacked high vinyl spinnin’, cracklin' truth in every hip-to-be way. Jazz LPs, popin'’ the Truth, etched in black and white/ modern Jazz on the HIFI/
Jazz woke the airwaves up and made the radio take notice; everything felt right. Radio turned on, folks got wise and understood, and Jazz got the blood pumpin' in the mean streets day or night/
If you wanted to be hip to the now, the real, the raw, Late-night clubbing and listening was law, absolute law/
Ornette Coleman, man, a wild, horn-blowin’ free-to-be jazz king machine/ Free jazz founder/ hear his freedom RING!/
Then there's Mingus, righteous anger in his bass, Collective improv, settin' souls ablaze. Lay into "East Coasting," on Bethlehem Records, and let the music soak you down/
Starch your mind with Mingus, that ain't no stereophonic joke! No cover charge here, baby, just pure, unbridled bebop to the cool Miles sound/
A caravan of cats, late-night jams, playin’ something new and bold, Europe callin', TWA Flight 978 ready to take flight/
The Big Apple throbbed, a concrete, jazz-filled hang, Saxophone Colossus, Sonny Rollins, so raw, New York summer Hot Rollins, defying every jazz law/
Moody and quirky, a genius in disguise/ Influencing the young horns, reaching for the skies/
Sonny Rollins, deep in jazz thought on a New York big city day/
Sonny wrote a brand new Jazz Forever heavy page/
The jazz world exploded, on the silver screen, a fifty-cent ticket was your soundtrack to life, a vibrant, vital scene/
"Take Five," baby, the pulse, the driving soul on a jazz beat on stage/
I'm on the Lex Ave Trane, headin' for Groove Street! hold on, hold tight, let Abbey Lincoln sing, while we map our next gig, let’s name our new LP/ the Big Vibe/
Yeah… East Coast jazz… never really dies… spinnin’ vintage jazz LPs to keep my head alive/
ECJ morphs… and lives… in our own soulful eyes. Give me a holler give me a shout I’m talkin’ what’s It all about/ Want to be hip? Want to be in the know? Then listen late at night, and let the jazz sounds flow.
Loving You Is an Art ????
Loving you is an art,
Not just words, not just emotions,
Not just romance.
It is like carving a linocut,
Each stroke, each cut—
Careful, gentle,
So I do not wound the sketch,
The same way I hold your heart,
Responsible not to hurt you.
Loving you is an art,
Like stringing beads with patience.
And when the thread breaks,
And the beads scatter
I do not leave them behind.
I gather them, mend them,Like
The way I would gather your broken pieces
And heal them with love.
Loving you is a design,
A vision that sparks in my mind daily,
A creation I bring to life,
Over and over again.
Loving you... is my masterpiece.
I Rise Again
by Elvis Otieno Gikoi
ArtFromHeart
I call upon the mirror,
not of glass but of memory,
not of reflection but of revelation.
I am Otieno, son of Kisii soil.
My footsteps echo in ancestral valleys,
my voice rises like smoke from sacred fires,
my breath carries the weight of drums
that once summoned warriors to guard the village gates.
I am not a wanderer lost.
I am a flame carried through storms,
a teacher who sows wisdom in young soil,
a poet whose syllables bend the air,
a believer whose prayers carve paths through silence.
My scars are not wounds.
They are verses etched by survival,
they are maps guiding me back to myself,
they are rivers that remember the mountain
even when they flow into the sea.
When doubt creeps in like a thief,
I remember the rhythm that lives in my veins.
I am the keeper of cadence,
the sculptor of meaning,
the one who turns pain into prophecy.
I lift my head.
The night may be heavy,
but within me burns a lantern
fed by love, guarded by resilience,
a lantern that refuses to die
even when winds howl against its flame.
I rise again, poet.
I rise again, teacher.
I rise again, believer.
I rise again, Otieno.
And the chant continues within me:
The ancestors whisper,
We see you, child of ink and chalk.
We see you, guardian of fragile souls.
We see you, bearer of words that heal.
The earth beneath my feet remembers my name,
the sky above my head waits for my prayer,
the river beside my path hums my song.
I rise again, poet.
I rise again, teacher.
I rise again, believer.
I rise again, Otieno.
Until the drumbeat fades into dawn,
until the chant becomes tomorrow’s hymn,
until my story is carved into the bones of time.
"Yo, it’s a swingin’ machine, Man, popin' through the city like a late-night pulse/Soul groove in the gears, a brass-tuned Tower of Power horn section that never clocks out/
Word from Bird slides through the air, quick as a sparrow in the valley of smoky jazz clubs/
Coltrane follows with a long, silver breath, reed-wide open as the horizon sets up the day/
The street becomes a jazz club man, don't ya know/ Soul Shack, sugar shack watch your back jack/
a doorway of rock soul 45s stacked high, where the past nods to the future to be sure/
Break it down, count down, the rhythm rebuilds itself in bricks to the soul jazz tempo/
Nu Jazz banners wave, NEW YORK Monday traffic slows to listen, and the gypsy cab, Latin tinge kool sound to refresh the hot summer day/ each car on their horns like a big band sound section/
Lou Rawls drifts in on a velvet breeze, baritone city slick, smooth in the morning/ His "Lady Love" waits for his embrace/
Philly Joe Jones keeps the clock honest as he jams in hi-fi/ sticks snapping a cadence snare to bass drum that won’t quit/
Settin’ the soul jazz pace, jazz hipsters walk the line between memory and invention, jazz players go toe to toe with the possibility of coming up with the new jazz thing/
Work it out, Mel Torme's "Comin' Home Baby" is out there, some were, every note a workout to dig up a new way to say the same thing/
over and over every chord change every beat every solo every Tenor conclave man, all night long/
Red Garland Quintet threads the Something Else needle on collective Improvisation with swingin' abstract jazz with pocketfuls of tempo logic/
Rellin’ with the Fellin’ in, Man, It's Sonny Rollins he folds space like a drum-major bending time, the horn colossus in his prime/
I remember the first time I heard Ginsberg's voice,
A thunderous, cosmic howl that shook the air,
Like bebop horns wailing in the midnight noise,
A raw, unfiltered cry that stripped away despair.
His words, a jazz improvisation of the soul,
Breathless, wild, spinning in free flight,
A sacred chant, a rebel's roll,
Inviting us to dance in the neon light.
He was the poet as a bebop cat,
Slinging syllables like saxophone solos,
A spiritual anarchist, a love diplomat,
Breaking chains, defying all the old roles.
In his voice, I heard the universe's roar,
A call to be true, unshackled, free,
A portal to the sacred core,
Where art and life merge in harmony.
Allen Ginsberg, the beat's wild star,
Blazing through the darkness with cosmic fire,
His words, a jazz riff from afar,
Forever echoing, lifting us higher to right now, right here
Yo... Man... Really? That word echoes, hangs heavy in the air/ You say "no," dismissive, a flippant affair/
But the air vibrates with possibilities, unseized/ Two "yeses" shimmering, carelessly released/
You could have been a builder, brick by brick, Instead, you're a spectator, watching dreams get sick/
Your girl she's riding ragged, a runaway train on crack's cruel track/
Little man in the back car set munching’ on a Big Mac/ Someone saw her screaming, a shattered, desperate plea/ Lost in the asphalt jungle, wanting to be free/
And you? You clutch your comfort, your convenient denial, Trading empathy for indifference/ wrapped in cold filial Loyalty to your dead stagnation/ your comfortable cage/
Help your girlfriend and baby boy find haven/
Don't mouth "impossible," "too hard," "not my fight," Two "yeses" could ignite a future, burning bright. Ya dig?
You're missing the bassline, the fundamental beat, Lost in the noise of self, your own small, selfish feat. A viewer, not a doer, trapped in your sterile frame/
While the real-world bleeds truth, whispering your name. Lay low, brother, for a spell/
Drop the jazzy pretense, the horn's mournful moan/ Pawn that tenor sax, that symbol of a dream unearned/ Get a J.O.B., let the rusty gears be turned. 'Cause that soaring saxophone, it ain't singing for you/ Just a hollow echo, amplified in your mind's eye, man, Be a doer, not a viewer, step out of the haze, Learn the power of "yes," in a million different ways/
Say "yes" to the struggle, the mess, the inconvenient truth, Say "yes" to growth, to change, to building something for youth. Say "yes" to compassion, the hand reaching out in the dark, Find the "yes" inside you,
(Snapping fingers rhythmically) Cobham's downbeat/ A thunderclap birth/
Shorter's sax, a comet's fiery girth, blowing jazz-poet notes, a furious chase, too quick for the tongue, lost in sonic space/
The new head of jazz, they say, has spoken true, searching for the next, the unheard, the new/
Charles Lloyd, a soul song, a sweeping refrain, brooming the blues off/copping a new jazz riff to be played and improvised on/ never to be played again/
Herbie's Headhunters still echoes in the mind, a rhythmic revolution, a groove you can't unwind/ his Headhunters smashed the groove/
Jackie McLean's Institute, man, he got it going on!/
A jazz rebellion brewing, before the break of dawn/ Functionality plus, a thought bubbling bright, who's the jazz rebel burning through the night?/
Thinking big, a canvas vast and bold, Chick Corea's ivory keys, a story to be told. Piano whispers, intimate and deep, then Esperanza on bass, secrets she keeps/
Man, I'm coasting now, riding on the wave, drum bags packed, the next gig I crave/
Who's next to rise, the champion to claim/
Whose name will echo on the top of the jazz playlist's fame? (Silence, then a final snap) The music waits.
I get it.
I’m lovable
yeah, the kind you call sweet,
safe,
easy to be around.
The one you text when your world’s too loud,
when you need peace,
not passion.
I’m the soft landing
after someone else’s chaos,
the calm before your next mistake.
But I’m not the kind you crave.
Not the body your hands remember
in the dark.
Not the name that slips out
when you shouldn’t be saying mine.
I could starve myself
into silence,
shrink until my bones
spell worthy
but even then,
I know it wouldn’t be enough.
You’d still look past me,
like warmth without fire,
light without pull,
a heartbeat without desire.
And I’m not hurt
by the words you said
no, I’m hurt
by realizing
they might be true.
That no matter how I change,
how I bleed myself
into a smaller shape,
I’ll still be the one
you like
but never reach for.
The one you trust,
but never touch.
The one who’s almost enough
but never quite wanted.
So yeah,
I’ll smile like it doesn’t ache,
laugh like I don’t see it
the truth that hums
under every glance.
I am lovable.
But not desired.
The comfort before the craving.
The story before the sin.
The almost
you never choose.