Long Streams Poems
Long Streams Poems. Below are the most popular long Streams by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Streams poems by poem length and keyword.
And this picture on the wall of my heart told a story of men giving birth among themselves in the north promiscuously...
Sipping memories from the lungs of the girl child.
They were not ashamed of the little ones watching their nakedness which howled at them mannerlessly.
We bathed the oceans again and again,
We made the sand shone like the moon,
We washed the sky daily to see clearly of what the earth has in stock for us.
We painted the earth and added more colours to the chirping rainbow.
Life became wet in our palms because we saw images and figurines of women whose shinning womb were made abnormal by men of yesterday.
And mother told of an innocent girl that killed her father, mother and brothers,
She was patted by the king for doing so,
As she told this ear breaking tale,
we saw the rain emerged from the ground instead of the lonely idle cloud that watched us through different mirrors.
They said we'll live forever on paradise,
They said there is heaven and hell,
They said evil people will be punished on the last day,
They said we will burn for thousand years,
But how could a father punish his children with fire and brimstone?
How could spirit burn in a fire?
How could we tell lie to ourselves and expect the sun not against us?
We have seen cock making love to a duck and, dog to a cat, and grandma told us it was normal.
And Father told of the miseries of the black spirit in our village streams,
How pouring of libation on the family shrine brings good wife and good harvest,
how rubbing oil and wearing palmfrond on your lips wad away demons.
he said there is a third heaven above us,
He told us why the He goat smells,
He said white ghosts do fly day time; he has seen the flashes of one of them at Benin.
After Christopher, I creed,
After Achebe I loved again
After Seghor
After Wole and Niyi' folklores,
After Habila Helon,
After Chimamanda's truths,
We'll retrace this fables with a knitted thought towards strings of our voices.
How does the patient dog eat the fattest bone now?
Does the silent cock still live for a lifetime?
Mother lied to us
Father lied to us
Grandma lied to us
Grandpa lied also
A mirage formed
Teachers lied to us
An illusion created
We are not who we are through those illusion told to us through their lips.
Yours Poetically,
©John Chizoba Vincent.
Glass shattered Saturday afternoon tea for S I L E N C E
holding steady raven momentum for its own r i p p i n g
fire from heartbeat slashes its void to tumble wounds of
wisdom weeping slow dirty tears of biting burns inserting
into wordless flesh of waiting before window panes were
smashed with stone docile ornaments, rampant afternoon
unvoiced holding a blank white canvas for dripping
bookshelves tumbled, poems torn to sheds, laundry strewn
with glass splinters as lead, aphonics slithering into dried out
stewpot waiting for maniacal tsunami to cremate emotions
tweezer them from dna soiled in possessive prisons ridiculed
Divinity spoke in all pervasive silence on testing timeline taut
holding breath to His nostrils imbibing a billion frequencies
I chose to brave open His serene lips for unutterable L O V E
lashes He crafted brushed breathy implicits with assent
for missions of courage traversed embracing solitude
observed in stillness whilst across eerie forest moss
carpets I deciphered “They Don’t Care about Us”
hush self wears a daisy cloak from heavenly dew fields
luminosity unzips not as lies hop chaotic across
spiderwebs it can chameleon transmute into gentle
streams to soothe that which hides for right timing
~ first bud of white rose birthing delicacy or benign
waters over pebble backdrop quietude
biscuit baker feeds jealousy, deceit, shame, guilt, indecision
escapism ~ swampy keys of stagnant quagmires will too utter
her heart’s eclipsed light breaking egoic invisibility as
softly I breathe her shadowed taciturn s t e a l t h
quiet petaling garment breaks open blackout mission
regurgitating quantum memories incubated in beckoning cell
fertility for decades perhaps centuries, marching crusades of
soul conquering ancient lands, majestic mountains, raucous
seas, ports, yellow spices, when women with babes gagged
anguished longing for men to taste their honey in serenity
hot crusted bread speaking truths of labouring backs bent
cows chewing cherrywood cuds ~ what could be a more
knowing t r a n q u i l i t y ?
now wafered soundlessness is lamb yet diamond piercing
raw, a lark offers sotto tones as harmony cupped in two
musing wings to ascend where it can quintessentially
quiver, hover in expectant repose for another silent mission
Run across the fair fields, as fast as you can run, the fields your grandmother ran as a young girl,
Over long lush dark green grasses, whipping your knees, soft spongy turf springs each new step,
To stop where fast flowing streams rush and dance to the wind, a sweat breaking out on your face,
All out of breath kneeling by the bank of a brook, a stitch in your side, corn waves like a gentle sea.
By the brook with childhood friends enjoying sweet company watching spring as her beauty unfolds,
To walk across wet water mead’s, seeing glades in their finest clothes, to a meadow, in full flower,
Rolling in grass making camps sitting legs crossed as warm summer breezes temper-sweating brows,
Making sure you sit next to the one you care for most, nothing will be as good as this day ever again.
Playing in the meadows where your grandmother played, picking daisies, making very long chains,
Holding buttercups up to chins to see if they shine, then laughing, shouting out loud when they do.
Playing kiss chase, slightly slowing down, when the one you want to be kissed by is chasing you,
Under old pear blossom trees, flushed rosy red cheeks sitting next the one who is your first love.
Laying in high grass chin in cupped hands, it is so special this lovely day will be yours for all time,
Just staring at friends, full of innocence and so happy, this romantic time can never be repeated,
Unplanned moments where beautiful things just happen it’s your youth just enjoy the here and now,
Where everything is brighter has more colour, smells from the meadows become a memory for life.
Laying on your back staring at turquoise watery skies, listening to the silence, a perfect sunny day,
Heaths meeting small woods surrounded by greenest carpets only seen by a child’s pure innocence,
Give your heart and soul to this day enjoy natures gifts, your end of days will recall these moments,
Falling asleep in the December of your life, this last dream your friends will be there waiting for you.
So gather these thoughts, tie them up in a bow, put them safely in a corner of yesterday’s thoughts,
And walk again with your dear young friends in those happy times golden hair fluttering in the breeze,
Back to days of cotton dresses and turned-up jeans with baggy shirts, nobody noticed or even cared,
Hold your sweethearts hand once again and run across the fair fields where your grandmother ran.
Two faithful souls stand listless in the great big tower
overlooking the stranded city that once stood tall
yearning for a quiet place to lay their heads
while far beyond the deserted land
a soft blue light gleams gracefully above tranquil skies,
dancing shadows rocking to midnight tunes,
and sweet melodies echoing from the gigantic moon.
She spans more than a thousand feet long soaking
up the exhausted earth, her immeasurable depths
cuts and carve through valleys and streams
with clear blue water and powdery white sand
what more could you ask for on that distant land.
They have been planning this trip for many years,
but when the time draws near their saving disappears.
An empty refrigerator with two trays of frozen ice
lean against the corner of the kitchen
in their ten bedroom mansion
and a bare pantry exposing a slice of mildew bread
filled with little mice nibbling and playing tug of war.
Not many people knew their story
they have been broke for twenty years
but lived a painful lie, cutting corners
making back door transaction,
eating lamb and turkey from profits
made from sordid deals.
Their empire that once stood tall hangs in dismay
While it watches the world going up in flame
by those who continue to play treacherous games.
Sobibor and Hiroshima horrors of the past
Should have cleared the way for a more sophisticated path
But now athoroughfare mixed with complexity
packed with insidiousness
have ducks walking around
quacking without wings or tails
They finally got an offer to go to Utopia.
with packed bags not a penny in their name,
they set off for Utopia hoping to find a new life again
but when they got their it was the same old begrimed game.
Their entire world has been shaken,
shaken by its own guilt and self-reproach,
the transgression that their ancestors have borne
have been handed down for generations to shoulder
A land that they believe was pure and holy
has turned into nightmare and horror
dreadful things dismount in dark corners
women raped strangers abused
yet religion forms the core of the throne
They have witnessed empires toppled,
Kingdoms have fallen in their sight
Rulers have shaken and wept bitterly
causing the great big god to balance the scale
but blackmail in Utopia remains a formidable game
©2013 Christine Phillips
SPECIAL INTEREST
With the thought processes of the masses overwhelmed
By the heavy burden
Of no influence on policy
And with little scope for advancement
Up the greasy pole
Insurrection and rebellion abound
Catching the chattering classes off guard
Traducing a broke government is the new game
To incite discontent and to pander to
Front page democracy the new weapon
Of those whose frustrations
Know no bounds
Unions and lobbyist throw their
Handbags out their prams
Yet they provide no new income streams
For a government on its knees
The pension pot is the new not to
Be touched holy grail
Its reverence brings to the fore those
Who wish every proceeding generation
To pay for today’s profligacy
Money comes money goes
Often the government seems to have none
To spend it all on special interest
Is a very selfish goal
This new era of austerity is but long overdue
A curb on the excesses that let the selfish
Do as they would please to do
With society’s blank cheques
A welcome break for the taxpayer
The one who petulantly foots the bill
Those that want more may need to pay more
A progressive system is not unwarranted
Tax is but essential to fill the pot
Those that have but give not
A blot on an otherwise decent lot
How selfishly all sides do behave
They want but refuse to give
To be the one who wins all
Exceeds all other considerations
No compromise is considered best policy
To lobby
To influence
To fool
These are the goals of the one sided
Minstrels of the selfish school
Knocked from their little thrones they rise
They but skew interest towards their cause
An unfair system
Built like a house of cards
That flutters in the wind of change
Selfishness is but a wanton Unhealthy game
A grand state of decay is society
Where wants and expectations
Outgun reality
A government unwilling to be brave
Allows democracy to shiver and shake
A useless waste of a vote
A dismal disgrace
Society is but made up of parts
That only function if all contribute
And everyone gains
Grappling hands should be slapped
We must all enjoy what our hard work has begot
A delicate balancing act is government policy
Frustratingly it seldom meets its aims
For the unintended consequences
Forever drown the initial good
Not everyone sadly wants policy to do some good
Seek out what’s best for you
Always remembering it’s not
All about you
I had a dream that I was a butterfly
winged iridescent; my life would flutter by
as I was dreaming a dream of a dream of
my own lepidopteron being above.
Hither and thither I flightily flitted,
or so it seemed, as illusion befitted,
with troubles, eidolons, and nebulous fears.
And thus it continued for one hundred years.
In the Nymphalidae family was I,
akin to the nebula high in the sky
with beauty Cithaerial shimmering bright
in colors that cover the spectrum of light.
Knots and shells detailed in this Hubble capture
glow in light show that can bring about rapture,
cause soulful poets to sing about gladly
(seeing a butterfly wing about madly)
or brood over sadly with soft doleful sighs
the ultimate stages before its demise.
Stargazers perceive it with scientists’ eyes
and give facts and figures astronomer-wise.
The lobes of Twin Jet PN M Two Dash Nine
expand ever outward in pinion design
from central star system, in gaseous streams
of splendorous rainbows pellucid in gleams.
The binary stars at the nebula’s heart
go round one another in luminous art,
spending a century in this rotation,
and form the wings through their stellar gyration.
But let us return to the classical theme
of the Chinese philosopher’s famous dream
(which these rhyming stanzas have sought to extol),
where I found myself playing a starring role.
Diaphanous butterfly wings had I then
in the long-lived dream that I dreamed ten by ten
decades lastingly onward in cosmic time,
as did Sleeping Beauty in legend sublime.
Yet when I awakened, no alae had I.
No longer was I slender winged butterfly,
but veritably was a human once more,
with life to engage in, encounter, explore,
or just suffer through in a sentient state.
How would I create my tellurian fate?
Still I wondered if this was ‘reality’.
Could I be a butterfly dreaming of me?
To die, perchance dream; ay, indeed that’s the rub
that makes us endure the heartache and hubbub.
For death claims all beings as part of its sum.
And in sleep of death, who knows what dreams may come?
~ Harley White
______________________________________________
Inspiration for the poem was from the article, “The wings of the butterfly ~ New Hubble image of the Twin Jet Nebula”, of August 25, 2015, on the Hubble Space Telescope Org website.
He was born with a bushy round follicle-free head
and walks with two legs, because
he is a Neanderthal(1) mutant,
for he is a mutational product,
he is an android(2) not found in the evolutionary tree,
and that’s why he was so sad; he began to roam the surface
of the earth, he climbed up the mountains, crossed the rivers
and traveled over the expansion of fields beyond the horizon;
to soothe the sorrow of being alien
he labored to find another android similar to him;
and if he finds one, he is forced to lay her down on the ground
and sow the seeds to establish a new genealogical table;
the seeds grown to Hominidae.(3)
As time goes by his hair on his head became thinner
because the roots of his hair decayed from no follicle
and at last, he became bald;
each time a sun-ray reflects on his head
his anguish grows in the valley of misery he is trapped in
and leading his poor life. He escapes from the valley and crawls
into a cave(4) peculiar from all the other caves he’d seen so far,
and he fixed a flag.
As the wind rises the flag streams,
when the flag flutters the sky roars to pierce the ears;
then the sky falls to the ground from a gap between
the roars gushing out ashes and fires. The fire heats
to burn the stones lying here and there by the water’s edge.
When sky, earth, fire and the stones intermingled in one
it tortures the Neanderthal with the red-hot iron of death,
then, *****Sapience survived from breathing the oxygen
that Neanderthal left behind; and as day grows taller and taller
*****Sapience finds the way to preserve oxygen;
thereupon, Hominidae mixes this excess oxygen to produce
black powder with the ratio of 10KNO3 + 3S + 8C,
and stuff it into a bamboo-tube;
tomorrow therefore explodes, time stops,
the sea swallows the earth. As things come this far,
though there may be worse things waiting in the future,
the crippled time, comes with quick steps winding a malfunctioning clock.
NOTE: 1. *****Neanderthalensis and *****Sapience are different *****species, therefore, though *****Sapience Sapience is not a mutated species, but just so regarded in this poem.. 2. Android: in this poem this phrase is synonymous to synthetic organism rather than electro/mechanical robot. 3. Hominidae: this term is used as existing modern Human. 4. Francis Bacon, Idra Specus.
If I could write the perfect poem
I’d write it high above,
The stars would be my letters
And the first word would be love.
Love because it brought me here
And has never let me down,
Despite the many struggles
And trials that came around.
The love of parents, siblings, friends
And people far and wide,
If I could write the perfect poem
I’d say, love truly does abide.
I’ve known romance and learned to dance
Over mountains, rivers and streams,
Sailed the oceans and prayed devotions
From Delphi to The Maldives.
I’ve planted seeds and pulled the weeds
Around roses, petunias and Liliam regale,
As bluejays, bees and dragon flies
Flew by without fail.
And if I could write the perfect poem
I’d write it in a prayer,
To the Maker of this universe
Whose proof is everywhere.
In snow and rain and joy and pain,
In daylight, darkness and shade,
In every atom and spec of space
Our Great Maker ever made.
In all our tears, struggles and fears
From the cradle to that spirit-filled night,
Every song we sing, every gift we bring
Every glimmer of a wrong made right.
And my poem would be a testament
To the freedoms I’ve enjoyed
Thanks to those who bravely fought
In far too many wars.
From Bunker Hill and Yorktown
To the Civil War and more that followed,
Too many to name, too many blood-stains
On battle fields deep and shallow.
And I’ve been uplifted and paradigm shifted
From Apollo and Heracles,
To Plato, Shakespear, Emerson and Frost
And their thoughts, ideas and philosophies.
I’ve run and lost races and found a few traces
Of history lost in the past,
In statues, graves and monuments made
In shades of shadows, they cast.
I’ve witnessed sunrise and sunset
By land and ocean breeze,
And counted stars in the darkest nights
And watched comets flying free.
And listened to the sounds of the ocean
In a seashell held next to my ear,
And watched chaos and commotion destroyed
Whenever Beauty came near.
I’ve laughed and cried and watched time fly
Faster than an arrow set free,
Climbed a few mountains and found the true fountain
Of youth inside of me.
And if I could write the perfect poem
About the meaning of life that abounds,
I’d say I’ve been blessed and do attest
To all the Goodness that surrounds.
© Terrell Martin, 02/09/2025
I stare blankly ahead of me;
stare into the cracked soul of the being who used to reflect a smile
- the girl I used to love unconditionally.
That love evades me now.
Where has it gone?
I search desperately, but I fear it is lost forever
- lost forever in the turbulent streams of my --self--consciousness;
lost in the dark recesses of my mind,
in the shrunken cockles of my heart.
I fear I may never find it.
But surely nothing is ever truly gone;
surely it is simply hiding from me
- playing a twisted game of hide and seek -
or creeping in the shadows of my despair until it is needed again.
I need it now.
Words cannot express how deeply, how utterly, I want to love that person;
to see something of worth or merit in those dark eyes,
to smile back when those pale contours
find their pride again.
But somehow, I just can't see that face the same way.
All I see are lips chapped from saying "no"
- from constantly repenting sins they will soon commit again and again.
All I see are those blank, empty eyes staring back at me
- the cracked soul within beating herself bloody to be freed.
I wish I could see it - I wish I could set that girl free - but somehow I can't find how.
I want to see it again:
the eyes so full of promise and hope that they blossom,
the smile of a girl who knows the world will keep spinning.
the face of a girl who may be chipping away piece by piece, but is still trying.
But you can't see what just isn't there.
I'd like to think that with enough wishing, that face will return;
that somehow the withering girl - bound by her own will - may find the sun again.
That against all odds, the cracks will begin to fade - the splintered child will heal -
and maybe, eventually, time will turn back and her smile will find its way through the pain.
I'd like to think that miracles are a stones-throw away - that all you need is a little bit of pixie dust.
I'd like to believe that love does conquer all - much as the world would like to prove otherwise.
I'd like to believe that, beneath the face of a girl with only bad days left, there hides another girl.
I'd like to believe that inside those soulless eyes,
buried deep within a chasm of depression,
hiding, timid, in the shadows,
there lies another face:
A face that, maybe,
I can love
- or at least smile back at in the mirror.
(A lone voice whispers)
I always used to wonder
Where do Robins go to sleep
Then one dark night
Within a deep all-consuming lucid dream
At approximately one o'clock
A beautiful deity appeared out of the mist
Wearing a blue and white coat
Holding a Lily and a shining lantern
Across its shoulder, a golden trumpet and a branch from Paradise
On its golden belt
Hung a scepter and a silver scroll
As it strolled towards me
Within my illustrious sleeping streams
A strange palace of darkness
Where no birds
Flew or squawked
Its mysterious ever watchful eyes
Held me firmly transfixed
Like an ethereal heavenly hawk
Its bright white orbs
Swallowed me whole
As it whispered words
I'll remember
Until I'm old
Within the light of day,
We appear
Your beloved and even I
To watch over and visit you
To see and follow all that you do
When we, the blessed few
Waiting in the new spectacular bright white lights
In the glorious cathedrals of Atmos, shadowy arches
Cross over
When allowed a brief time
Before we are eventually
Reunited in a new form
To rejoice in hymn
Within your All Highs
Divine Church
Depending upon
The faith of your choice
To visit those we still
Love
To leave a sign or sing
A sonnet
Happily with echoes of our new voice as we too mourn
Then in here
At darkness
In
The Great In-Between
A place you all visit
Whenever you fall asleep
In deep dreams,
We always appear
For real spiritual shapeshifters
Like us
Never really sleep
We just transform into Robins
Through a supernatural technique
For sometimes they are merely vessels
We use
Just one of our everlasting souls keeps
So if you see one
And it sings
Looking straight at you
Remember this
It's just a beloved loved one
Maybe even me
Archangel Gabriel
Channelling
Through
And with that beautiful closing line
It disappeared quietly
Back into the receding winds that whined
Of the Hidden Divine
And when I awoke at eight,
I'm sure it met me
Sat on my old garden's wooden gate
My beautiful friend
Who loves to sit on the washing line
Whispering and singing
Hello
Sending shivers and tingling
Shooting
As I remember that dream
All the way
Up and down
My sinuous
spine
(C)
Copyright John Duffy