Long Steerage Poems
Long Steerage Poems. Below are the most popular long Steerage by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Steerage poems by poem length and keyword.
I knew the day we met that we were meant to be
I realized our destiny was set and she was the one for me
She was rich in beauty but poor for she will die with it
Her appearance nonplussed me and I couldn't hold the steerage of my course anymore
She is the one I consented to have on my slender thighs
At that point her pearly lips gave appointments to mine
This lady killed me and roasted my carcass
Leaving the scavangers performing the post-moterm
I walked tall in the genesis of our affair
Now I'm wrecked….
Higgledy-piggledy daughter of a lesser god!
Today, deluged with anger I regret
The day I met this devil incarnate;the mastermind behind the bleeding of my heart
She tattooed my heart with wounds;I no longer have a clean heart
Her friends and her drunk the gushing blood of my wounded heart
That night my heart contorted into painful lumps
But I had to forgive the being that created her and put her in my world
Bitter are my words,she is a nonsense with no sense at all
Daughter of Jezebel-show up on the day I get laid to rest;lower me to the ground,let me down like you always have-stupid creature!Nkt!
John Lenda (Poetic World,2022)
1. Not thrown out of the show business
every year’s good and never less
my age placed in his mind’s steerage
I’m down to prove he won’t manage
it is no different loving him
I'm older but with the same vim.
Chorus
A freebooter visits his youth
but my hands put him under soothes
I am grown, a feminine roué
not in charge he’s quite the Princeling
first time to be out of his niche
same game but in a bigger pitch.
2. I am an atmosphere of ease
together can lay and eat cheese
we are a perfect assortment
I’m his entire allotment
my wear can’t be an allergy
the mind still has same energy
naughtiness I can also brew
staying so drunk under fun’s screw.
Chorus
A freebooter visits his youth
but my hands put him under soothes
I am grown, a feminine roué
not in charge he’s quite the Princeling
first time to be out of his niche
same game but in a bigger pitch.
3. None stays acidly expectant
my years of play, a lubricant
I swim in it with him, my drake
denied has been conflicts’ outbreak
romance rhythmed by a septet
but just two are the Architect
both young, both old, difference’s weaver
like my far age, ‘best’ feels deeper.
Chorus
A freebooter visits his youth
but my hands put him under soothes
I am grown, a feminine roué
not in charge he’s quite the Princeling
first time to be out of his niche
same game but in a bigger pitch.
4. Scared of the city’s outcry
Now upgraded after our try
my kisses and massage, his lunch
signals of softness in a bunch
to his fun, never came down draught
in his love, each other we taught
I'm a mum, lover and teacher
he's a thirty-year-younger Sir.
Chorus
A freebooter visits his youth
but my hands put him under soothes
I am grown, a feminine roué
not in charge he’s quite the Princeling
first time to be out of his niche
same game but in a bigger pitch.
Trailing naked toes, hat low peaked
fingers laced abaft head and sun,
white-water gently threading through
the webbed keel of one foot.
The sky is blasting blue,
splotching louder blobs of cobalt
around a midday solar blaze.
Even the river billows,
heaps uplifted ripples into crests.
An old man rests
his skiff rolling rhythmically
to a tune
the wind whispers
through reed quilled banks.
He smiles beneath a broad brim,
wonders how long further this journey
can flow onward
without a braced rudder,
nor clinched knuckles
upon an implacable steerage.
He wallows in his ease,
allows the world to float on,
to find its own effortless,
unhindered way.
Grandpa Francesco Proia,
from Caserta, Italia,
a clever stowaway
in the bowels of the ship
bringing him to Ellis Island,
Feb. 4, 1905.
Gruff ways,
often snarling a guttural “Huh,”
a lack of English,
never-ending hand gestures,
made me fearful of him.
But awestruck I was
with the romantic notion
of his stowing away.
Bootlegging homemade vino
during Prohibition – another
plus as he captured my imagination as
un farabutto – a scoundrel, a reprobate.
Add in his being a coal mine boss
in Marianna, Pennsylvania,
and I had a genuine hero.
How many other children
claimed such details about their grandpas?
Never telling anyone
of my naïve admiration for him,
family loyalty prevented me
from bragging about him.
Living to just a few days short
of his “hunnert” birthday,
I loved and admired him to the end.
Even when the ship’s manifest
I discovered for La Lorraine
listed him as a passenger
in steerage, not a stowaway.
A Lady Waits
The sleepy sea massages a creaking ship which slowly navigates
through blackness the sky emanates and the great Atlantic integrates.
A sailing school of serenading seagulls dips and dives and celebrates,
and amongst the sea-sick shipmates, a welcome murmur swiftly circulates.
A wave of steerage class splashes onto the seaweed-soaked stern and congregates,
viewing a line of lights which levitates on the horizon it incubates.
As fingers point to a distant shore, the name “America!” reverberates.
The salty air invigorates, and the chorus of commotion escalates.
A cry pulls the tide of faces to the rear row of citizen candidates.
Her wind-whipped shawl barely insulates the ravenous newborn she placates.
As if Moses were parting the sea, the silent congregation separates.
Gleaming with gratitude, she glides to the front rail the moon illuminates.
As her baby’s throat pulsates with mother’s milk, through lash-locked lids he fixates
on the Emerald Empress whose torch radiates on the dreams she consummates.
Beholding the beacon who beckons brave believers, his mother boldly states,
“When this restless night abates, the misty morn of a daring dawn elates,
but tonight, sleep well my child … for across the harbor, the lady waits … ”
- E. V. Wyler -
They hailed her as the empress of the waves
Supreme upon the ocean’s vast domain,
Yet those who watched her launch, and bid ‘Godspeed’,
Could never have foreseen her fleeting reign.
She left Southampton heading for New York;
The sky above was somewhat overcast.
Such hopes and dreams were riding on her bow,
But this first voyage proved to be her last.
The pinnacle of luxury and ease
Awaited wealthy passengers on board,
Whilst crystal chandeliers to music swayed,
A toast to life was raised and champagne poured.
On lower decks the entertainment lacked
Yet children made the most of little space.
Locked heavy gates were purposed to divide
And keep the third-class steerage in their place.
But when disaster struck the glacial path
And frozen waters threatened souls of men,
Proud opulence and rank would count as naught;
Humanity was equal once again.
25/03/19
Titanic - Fare Thee Well Poetry Contest
Sponsor : Tom Woody
'2019 Poetry Marathon Mile 27' : sponsored by Mark Toney
A Noteworthy Ship Poetry Contest : sponsored by Robert James Liguori
Travelling to America with hopes of a brand new life;
Crammed into steerage with his young child and his wife.
It took his whole life’s savings and some borrowed money too;
Dreams of prosperity, this trip would get them through.
Sounds of music from the top deck, where the privileged class would dine,
Were fodder for his new world dreams of a life in a future time.
His skills as a craftsman, he was sure would treat them well;
Where they go after Ellis Island only chance and fate could tell.
He laid with his wife that night; his young child in-between;
For days, the open skies, not one of them had seen.
They drifted off to sleep with thoughts of an America so nice;
Later that evening the Titanic struck some ice.
The rest of this story, you certainly already know;
What few life boats they had, weren’t for the passengers down below.
Their prayers for a better life were answered in a different way;
At the bottom of the ocean, in the unsinkable liner they still lay.
At the birth of every male child,
At his hair-cutting event styled,
At first birth-celebrations wild;
At his sister's ear-ring pomp, mild,
At school when their admissions filed,
Blasts the crumb, whole soul forces, piled...!
When enjoying a silent sleep,
When solemn meditation keep,
When, within, alone, cry or weep;
When as rituals blind-faiths, seep,
When in farms rich harvest we reap,
Roars the crumb of drum like bomb-heap...!
When boys go mystic in playground,
When girls hysterically bound,
When kith-and-kin awe-filled surround;
When moralists sow seeds so sound,
When, wildest of the wild gets crowned,
Booms crumbs of music; all get drowned...!
At great festivals of marriage,
At bride-groom's glamour-horse carriage,
At bride's courtyard like effleurage;
At death, with mourning, like steerage,
At mingle of broods like peerage,
Cracks crumbs with fullest coverage...
Crumb, for us, is not bomb or shell,
Nor any grand ancient witch-spell,
Nor blast of some planets far dwell;
It’s, loud noise pollution, like hell,
That, in truth, is a rude death-knell,
Though we cherish it like church-bell...
19 January 2022
He is watching an in-flight movie,
staring at it in steerage
as he fades away.
The boarding procedures were too slow,
there were delays.
Tightly stringed tensions
arose between ears and nose.
Cardiac murmurs grew raucous.
He is a pilot, but not on this aircraft.
He’s flying a Piper Cub over Sri Lanka;
much younger of course,
alive not fading -
a dead girl is laughing once again.
He wishes that he had
found someone to film that flight,
it was never a movie
and he needs a different picture to watch,
especially now that he is slowly floating
alone like an air balloon
over a disappearing landscape.
I'm Just Getting Started
I'm just getting started, though I'm not in control,
But I am all dressed and indubitably, very well-composed,
virtuously loved by many, with honored adulation exposed,
so I lie and wait, but ready to go, anew, in my dapper clothes.
A broken watch on a floor, as time ticks onwards as before,
A kiss that's giving--believing, a kiss that's receiving--deceiving,
The moon coasts to attuned hearts that are squabbling on a lane,
Stars twinkle to sparkled wishes pouring from tear ducts of the hopeless,
Night waves surge, tickling the traipsing shoeless of the fully-clothed.
Baby falls to ahhs!--cries--carried, cuddled to coos,
Then wide-eyed to wonders of weird faces of two adult fools,
A writer's measure can be the length of a Tolstoy novel or the brevity of a Haiku,
Mata Hari can read her victims like a book, while Cassanova can undress pages with his looks,
The blessed and the bliss read scriptures from this,
While Cain to the cursed cast spells and do their worst,
From the sublime to the lowly, to the noteworthy and the ordinary,
From Titanic's affluent first-class to her destitute in steerage,
One day we will stand equals, titless bearing none other,
The Book Of Life is read, there stands, once a king next to a pauper.
2019 September 13
*5th Place*
I'm just getting started
~~John Hamilton