Long Stringent Poems
Long Stringent Poems. Below are the most popular long Stringent by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Stringent poems by poem length and keyword.
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Silence first knows of itself
Self-knows only answers
For self or silence, there is no room for questions
The measure of silence is equal to the measure of self
There is no more and there is no less
It is for what it is
A stringent strategy
Discipline is absolute
Accords of righteousness
Benefits for the private sector
The world of the deaf
has accustomed itself
to a world of the hearing
Seijaku
teaches parallels
where the hearing finds the paradox
in the world of silence that offers solutions
a balance worlds of the nexus
creative self-equality
within themselves and the world around them
Failure invites chaos and mayhem
Always remember
shadows are friendlier forms to the daylight
then are with the night.
The Summer of Nineteen Sixty
Lying on a blanket by the loch side on a summer’s day
I close my eyes and listen to the quiet.
I hear the slap, slap of the small wavelets lapping on the pebbles and
The plop of some brave fish as he twists and turns his way through the cool green water.
Above my head I hear the distinct call of the peewit and can imagine him hovering high in the
sky.
Into this calm comes the soft rustle of the rowan tree, then, the more stringent sound of a wicker
basket being opened.
I smile for I know what comes next.
The chink of crystal glasses, followed by the pop of a champagne bottle being uncorked.
I open my eyes to see my lover smiling at me.
Glug, glug, the sparkling liquid pours from the neck of the bottle.
I reach out and take the glass of fizzing bubbles, unable to keep my eyes from straying to the
new diamond sparkling on my finger.
And in my mind I hear again the words of love he whispered a few minutes ago.
These, to me, will ever be the sounds of the summer nineteen hundred and sixty.
Evil, Guns, Cowardice, Stupidity, and Fear
is anybody out there?
does anyone really care?
seventeen innocent souls departed this earth
unexpectedly and tragically so whilst leaving
grieving loved ones, classmates, and friends
to wade through another mass-murder event
is anybody out there?
does anyone really care?
many clownish and dud politicians in Washington, DC
including the vacuous person parading there as president
cleave themselves to a vaunted aura of self-righteousness
whilst singling out mental illness as the only true cause
is anybody out there?
does anyone really care?
the evil intentions and actions of a deranged person played
their horrific roles in sending these innocents through death’s
door at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on that fatal day
as did guns, political cowardice, stupidity, and fear of the NRA
is anybody out there?
does anyone really care?
and so, it is: guns, guns, guns, guns, and even more guns
proliferate American society today as many in Congress
oppose common-sense gun legislation and more stringent
background checks whilst lapping up money from the NRA
is anybody out there?
does anyone really care?
standing with those families who are aggrieved in such tragedies
and embracing the memories of those who have so sadly perished
requires compassion, moral consciousness, love, and political courage
to do the right thing and not to succumb to greed and abject stupidity
is anybody out there?
does anyone really care?
yes, many good people are out there
and many of them do really care
it is now time for Congress and this president to wake up,
to grow some backbone, and to do the right thing to ensure
that tragedies like this one never occur again!
I am out there
and I do really care—do you?
enough is enough!
this madness must stop now!
support and stand by the students!
amen . . . amen . . . amen
Gary Bateman, Copyright © All Rights Reserved
February 18, 2018 (Political Verse)
Author’s Note: This poem is dedicated to all the students,
faculty, and staff at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School
in memory of those brave students and faculty members who
perished on that tragic day of February 14, 2018.
It was cold in his shack and rain squeezed through gaps in the walls
Built as a summer retreat near the beach during prosperous times
A single door creaked under an onslaught of memories and drizzle
Oh well Dylan Thomas wrote in his Boat House
Waves reaches foundations erected on shifting sands and firm beliefs
Thunder resembled turmoil and salt of the earth in search of a home
A sea weed mattress moulded his mind into drift wood of dilapidation
The Old Man by the Sea and no fish in sight
He was freezing his hands stiff and stringent merely holding the pen
Once more he cursed arthritis and age and icy ink in mere circulation
His gaze fell upon a ceiling which suspended possessions and dreams
Carl Spitzweg The Poor Poet umbrella in hand
When the tide reached his shaky resilience and vanishing aspirations
He succumbed to the dire question of how to use the last bit of paper
Buried nearby the iron cast stove which was an alcove to his lost hearth
Dorothy Parker You may as well Live
As frost set in and he hesitantly resolved to kindle a dim meagre fire
Piled bits of a sodden wooden crate onto an opening for new beginnings
He rubbed his fingers and rejoined the quill adorning his crooked grip
No one can make this decision but me
When flames of near forgotten passion flickered a few shadows of hope
He required no pages to write to his lover in the realm of infinite script
The sepia photograph was faded but the picture held court in his heart
He draped an octopus around star fish and dolphins
23rd January 2020
The Youth:
The clock's face smirks at me.
It mocks my glare and irks me.
I roll my eyes, it grinds its gears.
I tap my pen, it tocks and sneers,
its minute hand a finger
that flips me off and ticks me off...
This class will never end.
The Dead:
The clock is a useless tool,
only taunting fools who let it,
only making rules that people fuel
by immersing their lives
in stringent time.
The Elder:
The clock 's face pities me.
It stares at me with sympathy.
It counts each white hair on my head.
It counts the lines that branch and spread
across my weary skin.
It ticks and tricks just like a bomb
counting down to an epilogue.
It counts my beats like a metronome
And tocks in foreign tongues.
Still, I dread the day
this torture stops.
The Dead:
The clock is a useless tool,
measuring mortality,
narrowing vitality.
Don't let it tick-tock away
the waning moments
and fine components
of your final days.
For Craig's "Talking to Yourself" contest
I know how scared some folks feel, I share their fear:
they're out of work and running short of money.
And it takes all their strength to hold back a tear:
when only last month, their futures looked sunny.
And then the coronavirus arrived here,
and people died; it's no joke; it's not funny.
I've been self-quarantined for four weeks at home,
frightened by the coronavirus syndrome.
Our once-bustling city looks unoccupied;
shadows scurrying about at their peril.
Rejecting the stringent rules that were applied:
some still won't wash their hands to keep them sterile.
But, to safely restart the economy,
we need to regulate some autonomy.
Yet this catastrophic failure of healthcare
begs the question: was big business not aware?
We asked for it,
We fought for it,
Opportunity to be ruled by
ourselves and for ourselves,
Our leaders protested in words and slogans,
They won,
Their voices rang through,
We were freed,
Our masters let go of their leashes,
Here we are,
Walking in circles,
Here we are,
Going back and forth,
We build and demolish,
We enact laws too stringent for our survival,
We give policies too harsh for our well-being,
Our leaders gone past have beaten us with many stripes,
They have taken the bread out of our mouths,
Our present leaders have not done any better,
They are the same people in different attires,
Old wine in new skins,
They have made promises that
never saw the light of the day,
The confused leading the ignorant,
We're in a state of despondency,
We're in a dilemma,
Who will rescue our sinking ship?
Who will bring us to the shore?
Darkness looms over the space,
Days ahead look bleak,
There’s who I see myself,
There's who I want to be,
This person is far and away,
We say we have come of age,
Whereas we were excited by
what we saw on the surface,
Freedom is for the tested and strong,
It’s not a meal for the inexperienced.
May 22, 2022.
NA poetry contest
Sponsor: Ink Empress
3rd Place.
The beauty you see in me is a reflection of you ~ Rumi
To me, you were
my youth.
The remainder of my childhood dreams,
the obscure smiles of benign warmth
the gentle whispers to a tear so meek
the flower bed veiling a breathing corpse.
And I had seen cruel strife
Trees of shade being cut off
Sipping the blues drained of life,
I bore the scars of alabaster loss.
And I was told miracles exist
but people who get them don’t prevail
you lifted me so, I insist
painted my days, thawed my scalding maze
Stringent change left my cries muffled
I was just running, regretting the passing days
But you changed how I saw the world
let me pause, if not stop my ways
You made the skies live
you gave rain meaning.
You made winds breathe
you gave me meaning.
And I-
Loved.
Elevations and Invocations
Elevated thought forms from a stringent disposition
Relegated to warn the innocent of the incoming derision
Segregated from the form as insight pierces my vision
Consecrated by a storm of violent premonitions
Invocations of melancholy streaming down from a moonlit sky
Provocations of pure folly as they don’t stop to even ask why
Intonations of the sorry that are nuanced when they cry
Imitations of worry line the face of a woman about to die
Alleviations of suffering allowing temporary relief
Commiserations of an offering that is consumed by grief
Configurations of stuttering as the image defies all rational belief
Constellations of wondering stars that shine like a wayward thief
Pure intention invoked by honesty and virtue that eviscerates the unkind
Demure retention provoked by beauty and the grace of the refined
Mature reflections bespoke the complexity of her convoluted mind
Statures of inventions that are beguiling to the nature of mankind
Amalgamating process, form, design and structural cohesion
Promulgating progress and reform only to find that it defies logic and reason
Infiltrating undulating societal norms that could justify as treason
Pontificating from a pulpit to warn and subjugate the season
Uplifting the notion of benevolence toward the highest of regard
Shape-shifting upon the ocean as the sunset divides into light shards
Grifting on the concept of devotion that is sung by sincere bard
Shifting the underlying commotion to grace when it all becomes too hard
The End Copyright Elizabeth Moroz 2025
Beyond the boisterous bustle I go,
I find the way, I want to know,
You think twice, you don't deny,
You fill me up, you help me die.
Wishes with wisps wobble about,
I love with passion that dubious doubt,
You break in, you sing too loud,
You send the rain back to the clouds.
I traverse inverse in a psychosomatic realm,
I begin to grow dicey, till virtues overwhelm,
You say a soft prayer, you invoke the crowd,
You unwrap the dull and mysterious shroud.
I take an identity, I throw the idea,
I imbibe new courage from an emerging phobia,
You tread across the air, you begin tantalising,
You become transparent, you turn enterprising.
I don't recognise the Prince of Denmark,
I bump into Prufrock in a children's park,
You happen to be on the wings of poesy,
You strike out the light for Darkness to see.
I see the skylark vanishing into the forest of the night,
I do not stand alone watching the angels fight,
You pick up a ravishing red red rose somehow,
You draw the stringent curtain, you forget to bow.
The world's not a stage, neither are we players,
We exist in the void, we supplicate to the layers,
I being nowhere, where's no water to drink,
You come upon as Godot until we don't sink,
I pantomime the hour, that often struts and frets,
You hold the flaming alter, in a packet of cigarettes!