Long Sy Poems
Long Sy Poems. Below are the most popular long Sy by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Sy poems by poem length and keyword.
Last Trains at the End of an Echo
by Sy Roth
The Conestoga wagons littered the wasteland with their spiny bones
in search of the comfort of others
clattering, grinding wheels singing an unmelodic song
laments the guile of the others
who screamed a gale of voluminous disregard for them and their emotions
sucked the breath from their mouths
unfriended them.
So sudden their demise,
an unwinding of beliefs and closely-held credos
that peep like golden hinds from behind a lea of blustery grass
and suddenly there is a no more.
On either side of the mending wall
a phubbing, vacuous ending subsists
as a contemporary shout-out
an electronic melding,
a landscape of nothingness,
of swollen egos and prideful, self-congratulatory accolades
notwithstanding, they gather in the sheaves of like-minded souls
to their bosom
avowed them friends
and just as carelessly discarded them without warning
no cautionary tales
lose themselves in their overblown egos
set them adrift in a steady stream of electrons.
Wave after wave of waves
awaken them to their loneliness
a never-ending unfriending
for the somnambulists to find sleep--
And it goes on,
an unbending gusher of brackish water slicing through canyons
building up to a continual gathering of its waters
building to crescendo of effusive outpourings of love and adoration
where they ultimately meet at some shadowy terminus
where the last trains wait
at the end of an echo.
They slavishly adhere to
amassing their own kingdom
like the king in his counting-house
filling his coffers with beating hearts
and an unlimited slew of adoration from uncolored naïfs
hidden behind a curtain of bits and byte
until ennui overcomes them.
And they unfriend like flushed toilet tissue
wearing unchanged undergarments in a quotidian dream
of newly-donned silken mantels
that stop briefly at the end of the cycle
back to the watering holes of their non-communicative, non-essence
and bid them a hollow adieu
until the last one standing
a last friend blows lazily in the breach
and the wagons' wheels can be heard in the distance
rolling toward the community of men
who touch and sing and play at life.
A WEED
A WEED IS A TARE
THAT DOESN'T CARE.
ALSO, A WEED
IS A PLANT THAT DOESN'T GIVES A DAMN
ABOUT LIFE FOR OTHERS : MEANING FOR OTHER PLANTS
THAT IS OUTSIDE OF HIM, OR HER.
IN FACT, A WEED
IS A WEED THAT WE DON'T TRULY NEED
AND I SAY SO, BECAUSE A IS NOT A SEED
THAT WILL HELP OTHERS TO GROW, BUT IT WILL TRY TO STOP YOUR FLOW
AND EVEN TRY TO SLOW YOU DOWN; ON TOP OF THAT, IT WOULD EVEN CHOKE THE LIVING BREATH OF YOU; BELIEVE ME THAT IS NOT A JOKE.
AND, BESIDES, A WEED
IS A PLANT THAT IS RELENTLESS
WHEN IT COMES TO MAKING SURE THAT ANY OTHER PLANTS, OR FLOWERS
THAT IS IN THE SAME HOUSE, AREA, OR BOX DOESN'T EXPERIENCE ANY HAPPINESS AT ALL, BUT A FALL; AND IF YOU DON'T BE ON YOUR GAME,OR BE MINDFUL AND ALERT, A WEED WOULD NOT LET YOU GROW TALL, BUT TO GO BALD, MEANING IT WOULD TAKE YOU DOWN ALL AROUND, IF YOU DON'T SEEK T SUPERCEDES IT IN ANY WAY THAT YOU CAN, FOR IT WILL NOT BEND FOR YOU, OF PLAY FOOL FOR YOU, IF ANY THING, IF YOU ALLOWS IT, IT WILL TRY TO TAKE YOU FOR A FOOL; OR A FOOTSTOOL, BUT ANY THERE IS SOMETHING CALL A WHEAT AND ITIS VERY GOOD TO EAT; IT COMES WITH A WHOLE LOT OF HEAT; AND WHAT I MEANS BY THAT, IS THAT THE WHEAT IS NOT WEAK, NOR CHEAP; NOR IS IT BLEAK, BUT IT IS AT ITS HIGHEST PEAK. AND I SY THAT, BECAUSE A WHEAT DOESN'T COME EMPTY, BUT WITH PLENTY LITERALLY AND EVEN MENTALLY AND SPIRITUALLY (COMING FROM A SPIRITUAL POINTOF VIEW), FOR IT HAS A LOT DEEP DOWN INSIDE TO EAT, TO SUPPLY AND TO MULTIPLY; YOU WANTS TO KNOW WHY? IT'S BECAUSE IT IS NOT A WEED, BUT IT IS A NEED AND A VERY PRECIOUS SEED THAT GOD CREATED ADNN MADE TO FULFILL US AND SUSTAIN US WHILE WE GO THROUGH WHAT WE GOES THROUGH IN THIS VERY WICKED WORLD AND THROUGH THE STRUGGLES THAT IGNORANCE AND DARKNESS TRIES TO KEEP US BURIED IN,OR UNDER. IN OTHER WORDS, THE WEED REPRESENTS THOSE OF DARKNESS AND THE WHEAT REPRESENTS THOSE OF THE LIGHT AND OF THE MOST HIGH GOD. AND ALWYS REMEMBER TO BE THE WHEAT AND A WEED, SO YOU CAN SUCCEED NO MATTER WHERE YOU GROW, GO, OR BE PLANTED AT. FOR A WEED IS A TERRIBLE THING TO BE. SHALOM. POEM WRITTEN BY: (CRYSTAL) YEHUWDIYTH Y. YISRAEL
Entrance into the Garden of Eden
An Exit Oft Repeated in Four Acts
By Sy Roth
Act 1—Somnolence
Smells of winter tickle a warm sun.
Crisp air,
Red, brown and yellow leaves,
Thrust the trees aside for their impending sleep.
They all come to the dance brushed
Content to revel in the gift of a cool early morning,
The commuter moms wave queenly to their spouses
The kindergartners snuggle at their mothers’ thighs
The yellow buses creep along the streets like multi-legged caterpillars.
They all bend their knees
With uplifted arms
They stretch in a free-day yoga plie.
The balance of warm sun and falling leaves,
Comforts them into a somnolent sleep
Cats resting on windowsills dreaming of nothing
But belly rubs when they awake
And the mothers remind themselves of the need for toothpaste at the local CVS,
While they ignore morning headlines that shout of a fiscal-cliff fall.
Act II—The Awakening Asp
Miles away a mother dies in bed alone.
Her dreams lay in bloody splatters on her morning pillow,
The house bellows silence afterwards.
Task one, a bloody heap of compensation for their silence.
He prepares to meet the crisp morning also,
To grab the low-lying fruit which hangs lusciously ripe in his mind,
Green fruit of the loin
Slathering beast of his senses
Giving way to knowledge.
The asp in his frozen garden sibilates silent messages
He happily complies,
Runs his tongue over his sandpaper rough teeth,
A fava-bean violence rests in the venomous one
Spits his triumph at the world.
Acts III—The crossroads meet
Garden of wishful dreams meets at 9:30 a.m.
Sounds of enthusiasm settle in in the lush green garden.
The air like a popped balloon
Is eaten by gunshots and screams.
A boy reacts in fear, in Room 303, and
She comforts him
Shoos the ghost from the room,
but it is insistent.
She hugs the boy closer,
Trigger pulled,
She brings him closer,
Conjoined twins in their new hell.
Act IV—Finality
He leaves for other gardens,
Remain in a loving embrace
All dreams flop flaccid to the floor.
Gewoonlik is my boundaries sterk
Word ek assigned deur guidance met a Engels'vlerk
My journey neem langer en my sielsnare word gevleg
My boundaries raak flexible en a unieke konneksies word aanmekaar geheg
A journey het ontwikkel in a vriendskap so eg
Dit gaan my verstand te bowe want dis so opreg
God praat in a taal
Wat ons laat stil staan
Aandagtig in afwagting laat luister
Na Sy liefdestaal wat Hy in ons harte fluister
God wil my wys ek is gebless
Sag en delikaat word ons 'gepress'
Hierdie keer is ek uitgebole vir a ses
Soms moet ek relax, let go en vergeet van die res
Hierdie is wat God vir my skets om te besef...
A vriendskap gestuur van Bo
A konneksie met frekwensies watse sein nie verloor
God het ons gebless met baie in stoor
A hegte band in ons harte in geboor
In a droom staan ek buite my liggaam en staar
Na a sielskonneksie so raar
A Visie in die droom omvou my om te aanvaar
God se tyd en redes is set in stone en klaar
Ek word gewys
ek is besig om op a deurskynende glasbord te skryf
Met rooi cokie en merke soos ek uitvee en oor die bord vryf...
jy kom met jou blou cokie aan
Help my met die organogram en teken a traan...
Verward staan my siel en kyk en wil net nader gaan...
Let op na die stilte, die konsentrasie en vloei
Saam vorm ons die kleur op die bord wat gloei
In a moment kraak die glas in a spiderweb form...
Begin ons huil soos a raining storm
Verward staan ek en kyk en vra Here wat nou???
Als was so spontaan hoekom kan dit nie aanhou???
Ek kry a duidelike antwoord wat van langs my af kom
Dink aan die visie...
dit slaan my stom...
A deurskynende glasbord so sterk en skoon
Maar wat is die doel as daar nie a boodskap in kleur vertoon
sonder kleur geskryf is die glasbord doelloos
Die 'smutch' merke op die bord is van gebeure in die lewe wat jou laat bloos
Die traan word vasgevang in die spiderweb
om jou te herinner julle is daar vir mekaar in die scattering moments of life in 'flashing' red
Live your life met veelvoudige pret.
A Horn and Hardart Story
By Sy Roth
It begins with buttons,
ivory buttons,
Pearlized pieces--
Not the plastic crap,
Over-industrialized flotsam
that adorns clothing these days—
Eager hands fluttering like twin doves in flight,
Delivered buttons.
His effort earned him a nickel.
His hunger traded for the warmth and noise
of the Horn and Hardart he passed daily--
This road did not diverge
It led him to the Horn and Hardart
With all the other lemmings and their jangling, coin-filled pockets.
Their hunger needed to be assuaged.
His button booty could buy him a cup of steaming, baked beans.
The Indian-head nickel lay in his palm reminder of this reward.
Each week a cup of baked beans to sate a hungry soul,
A victory in the face of hard streets
A rout of the spirit.
He searched the boxes to find the niche of beans
And rolled the nickel into the slot.
Surrounded by other vacant faces and their selections.
Plinking coins marked the choices
An assonance made rhythmic by the needs of the hungry.
They plunked in their coins in the Horn and Hardart’s slots
Producing a symphony of those choices.
He cupped his cup of baked beans in his small hands.
Time passed and the lure of the nickel treat drew him back.
Horn and Hardart,
Celebratory return to the chapel of his past dreams.
He dragged his young son there after purchasing the boat of his son’s dreams.
He gave him coins,
His keys to the kingdom of slaked thirst
And told him to buy what he pleased.
The boy selected macaroni and cheese.
He kept one coin back to buy his past,
A glass-caged tidbit of yore.
He cradled his cup of beans in his hands as he returned to his table.
As he watched his son eat,
Reveled in the pleasure of that moment
Dreaming of sails and soft ocean breezes to take him to ports,
Dreams that amused the corners of his imagination.
His son could hear the spoon scraping the cup free of its baked beans
And he listened in paradisiacal wonderment to his future.
A Memory
By Sy Roth
It didn’t come in like an invading horde of Mongols astride their horses.
It came like a Siren whispering a sweet song, blowing soft winds in my ear.
The old woman sat on her frayed settee, her head resting on her Macassar
Grey hair splayed sensuously across it, teary eyes turned dreamily toward me.
The old trunk, her trunk, life’s collection before her
A throne of memories, and my invitation to bore into her life.
It gave a creaking welcome as I did her gnarled-fingers beckoning me to open it.
They framed a permission, a V for some victory that danced in her head.
I searched her glacial eyes for certitude
And she nodded approval, chin jerking forward for affirmation.
With some trepidation, the old trunk beckoned me to explore.
Its creaking lid gave a diffused meow in preparation for my exploration.
A malodorous drift of the ancient met this young mariner.
It came on a charging chariot to greet me.
The inside, Kodak moment, welcomed me
And my hands fluttered excitedly to dive into this ocean of memorabilia.
A look at the old Dame and her fingers fluttering at me--
“Continue,” she cried for no one had explored her depths in an eon.
The sepia-colored photos of the ancients greeted me with their austere looks,
Bundled letters wrapped in a pink organdy, the flotsam and jetsam of life, unread,
The uncultured pearls that I draped around my neck,
The cameos in profile of a youthful, chaste being,
The trinkets that marked the progress of life’s cycles.
This spelunker of this being caught in this moment
Held her life’s Morse code without great tenderness
Only an acknowledgement from the grand dame who found a joy in my exploration.
A soft smile marked in a moment of a callow youth
Who seized the moment to recognize that there was a life.
Resting in Benign Pleasure
By Sy Roth
They watched me,
Waiting for a segue.
Continuously gazing at me
A waxen bowl of fruit
Tantalizing,
Clinging to my every move
Like lichen on the leeward side of an ancient oak,
Like barnacles on the underbelly of a ship
Gasping expectantly
Awaiting my keel hauling.
I dared an idle life,
I am a blushing-red, waxen apple resting atop
Single yellow banana,
Erect among the pear and globular-red grapes.
In my quiet hours of an armchair
Sitting idly by a window overlooking a waxen-western sun,
Humming a lilting song to the juicy, tangerine-soft rustle of grasses
Dancing among the ferns
A mambo to a sirocco wind.
Cochlear serenity
Settles in.
indolence writes a silly book filled
swirling in the brackish waters of their existence—
as I, a rotund Macintosh, rest niggardly and escape.
They Google frantically—
add apps to their already long playlist of useless ventures,
having spirited debates about my latitude and longitude.
They bide their time awaiting their own frenzied End
As I, afloat in the bowl of fruit, revel in my indolence.
They die in their fashion astride fictitious, snorting steeds,
Their backs bent, arms laden with Sancho Panza spears tilted downward.
And I dwell in my own painting, red-ochre in lethargy.
Their frenetic activities justify their existence.
Firehouse-red exit arrows guide their exigencies
while I, un-bored, rest in benign pleasure
Confused by an un-need for the trilling loons.
A blue, velvet drape of Victorian-prim frames the bowl.
Mindful of their confusion, I settle into my page-turning frenzy of non-activity.
Beneath a rainbow sky, cloudless, crammed with endless thoughts
painted on the rime of morning mist.
Guides my exit.
Konkas draw a blanket over the flats,
but our state live like over fed fat cats
Zuma had another great opinion,
now we must dream of a Rand reunion
People crying, life’s an uncertain fate,
but they are building another toll gate
Nkandla was built for his many wives
"Fire pool" just brings out our angry knives
All the voters wanted; a piece of bread!
Now even the family pet is dead
Zuma laughs and hands his dog some biltong
and sings another ushini kill song
We are done with this sick gravy train gang
The day has come for the biltong to hang
Konka : drum with holes for fire keeping warm makes smoke
flats: slang for cape flats…a area people stay
Rand: South African currency
Nkandla: Zuma’s estate “upgrade” used 270 million rand of taxpayer’s money
fire pool: what he called the swimming pool in upgrade scandal
Ushini: machine gun struggle song used to sweep up support
Biltong: luxury food similar to beef jerky..is hung to dry when made
Zuma : corrupt president of South Africa
#zumamustfall
original I wrote
Biltong en Brood
Konkas trek n kombers oor die vlaktes,
maar die staat luister nie meer na klagtes
Zuma het nou eers weer n opienie,
en nou hou ons vir die Rand ruinie
Ons het geen werk en tot ons honde vrek,
maar die staat beplan net nog n duur toll hek
Nkandla waar hy sy vroue huisves
maar dit bereik net vuur emmers moles
Die kiesers vra net n klien stukkie brood
maar hy se dis n leun die hongersnood!
Zuma lag en gee biltong vir sy hond
Hy smeer botter om die kiesers se mond
Ons staan op en sal ons nie weer laat vang
Die dag het gekom, dat die biltong sal hang
Residents of a Fevered Mind
By Sy Roth
I took the road more traveled--my mistake
Thought I could hide among the masses
Fully expecting that someone might pluck me out,
And I would endure in their sunlight forever.
Waesucks, to exist in shapeless entropy,
To become a mouse gnawing endlessly on their scraps
Ort left by their forebears.
To inhabit their dark cells.
Their hazy dream of self-satisfaction
Where significance raises a cheery head in the dust of calm.
Beneath the derma, secreted indelicately,
They hide with me in the gray matter of a dusky universe.
Ah, the humanity of it all , our dirigible aflame.
Our egotistical mish-mash of conflicting beliefs,
residents of a fevered brain where dreams blossom
Willy nilly n a display of Fourth of July explosions.
Lost In a smoke-filled haze of discards left behind.
We reside in Papal dreams of eternity on the lap of God
Clasped hand in hand among an interminable line of precursors
All dreaming the same, time-shared vision.
Someone will pluck us from the stream of humanity,
Someone will recognize our importance
But we Lomans will march like lemmings wrapped in this belief
Stripped of the trappings of value.
To hear the Loony King Lears wail on the marsh
Railing against the winds
That stripped them of their imaginings
We stand frozen bits of DNA.
Act three suddenly opens with a flourish
And the actor who takes the stage opines--
Perhaps, life is not supposed to be
As meaningful as we think it is.
It seems that life is but a barrel of offal
And we can only await the time
To cleanse ourselves of its scent.
Die Lewens gang
So dwaal ek rond in die lewens gang
vol van verlange en oral teen di mure
hang potrete van herineringe.
Die tyd het geloop sy eie loop
geloop. Hy het ons mee gesleep en
wys gemaak. Tyd het geleer ons
geleer dat ale wonde genees, maar
tyd was ook te kort om vergaane
geliefdes weer te groet.
Soms is ons spyt gewees, soms het
ons net n sug van verligting, tyd sal
ons weer verder vat, Die onbekende
in die lewens lange gang af en oral
sal daar weer nog potrete by kom
van vriende en geliefdes wat in die
niet verdwyn. Maar die herinepringe
sal weer trug kom waneer ons stil
raak en trug blik na tye wat verby is.
Daar loop weer 2rye spore deur my
lewe, soos in die lewens gang van
ons lewe, verskyn daar ook n potrret
van jou op my muur, en ek weet uit
eindelik is jy ook op geteken in my
lewe. My gemoed raak stil want soos
van soveel kere van tevore moet ek
woner sal die potret bly hang, want
hier in die gang van di lewe is daar
onbekende dinge, dinge wat kan
uitwis dit wat eens mooi was. Dinge
wat gedagtes kan sper en gevoelens
kan koud laat, en ek skuif die prent
weer reg want met vetroue en geloof
sal die potret ook bly hang en die
kloue van liefde sal hou en nie laat
gaan.
Want die gang van die lewe is nooit
reguit nie.
Nuwe uit dagings wag. Om elke
draai, maar as ons om ons heen kyk
is ons geliefde daar, om te help te
hou op dit wat reg en eg is.
Want die mense rondom ons sien n
masker n masker wat niemand
behalwe ons geliefdes weet wat
agter aan gaan nie