Long Tentatively Poems
Long Tentatively Poems. Below are the most popular long Tentatively by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Tentatively poems by poem length and keyword.
My Father’s Hand!
My father left me when I was a baby
and all that remained of him… was his hand!
The hand that edged its way
into the last photo he took of me!
As I grew, I used to study that hand
searching, rooting for details of personality;
a reflection upon my possible characteristics.
Did I see a loving hand, skinned in kindness
or a selfish one, boned and heartless?
So I aged, feeling different, aware of scarring.
Occasionally, I tried to break free from solitude
but my partner kept whispering me back
until I would try to cry
but not understanding the steps.
I was poor on love; overfed on loneliness
but sensing the tremors of isolation in others.
Thirty years later and a father’s day email!
Then gradually, slow as molasses,
I unlocked, I opened my front door,
tentatively, anxiously allowing him into my life.
Eventually a pleasure, a confidence, a warmth,
began to seep, to trickle into my soul.
The abandoned child had been found
and the next part of my life could begin.
I discovered a father, one who wanted forgiveness,
and, at last, I could part company with
the stings of rejection, the stabs of loneliness
which had serrated away at my life.
I could now think about all those memories
that I used to share with myself,
hoping that now I had rediscovered someone
I could apportion, ration them with.
I yearned for a father who would listen,
who would share…..
and in time, he did
and in time, I learnt to forgive.
Ian Souter
I got arrested!... further developments await...
By gravity said law
linkedin with physics
stating that a body at rest
will remain thus unless otherwise
acted upon by an external force,
hence I cannot wrest motion
from inert human matter
regarding nearly lifeless entity
concerning how aye barely breathe
heavily weighed down
with lugubriousness easily crushing
this seventy two inch
rusty, cowardly, creaky...
complex corporeal edifice,
thus resigning myself
watching flight of bumblebee
hopscotching from one
clover plant to another
wondrous winged warrior
unphased by human "rat race"
higglety pigglety,
pell mell, helter skelter,
how grand living off the grid
venerating native flora and fauna
simply engrossed with daily tasks
solely attending
basic inalienable rights
life, liberty, pursuit of happiness
keeping stereotypical roles intact
males species pact schedule
hunting in tandem
with brotherly comrades
females tending hearth and home
tendering, safeguarding, nesting...
homeschooling offspring
supervising fledgling,
the latter gingerly venturing
tentatively into parts unknown
unfamiliar territory brimming
trained instincts detect danger,
nonetheless plod along
blueprinted genetically
inherent migratory paths
guides where uncertainty looms
within wide whirring web
invoking, feigning camouflage,
or mimicking ("FAKE")
simulating another organism.
The first to comment
Uplifting my soul
Did anyone know
How difficult to share
My thoughts
My love
My deepest emotions
Did anyone care
As I laid my soul bare
Tentatively putting my poems out there
For all to see
For all to stare
My first time was scary
I was so unaware
if my poetry
could move
or even inspire
or was it just rubbish
to burn on the fire
Confidence restored
my poetry is now
completely diverse
a veritable smorgasbord
of joy
of sadness
of life thus far
and all because she commented
my friend
my superstar
From the Isle of Man
I’m her number one fan
She’s my sweetest friend
And her name is Jan
Written 21st September 2019
1st Place
Contest Name Pick a Friend on Soup
Sponsor Bobby May
Contest Strand Select K
Sponsor Brian Strand
HONORABLE MENTION
I got on the Roller Coaster of emotion
It started slowly
How hard could it be
I laughed in the face of danger
As it tentatively moved forward
I began to feel dread
What have I got myself into?
There before me a steep drop
The coaster stood there for a moment
My heart pounding in my chest
Fear screaming in my head
My voice silent
Downward picking up speed
I felt my stomach in my throat
Eyes closed
Butt cheeks clenched
Up the other side
Adrenilane coarsing through my veins
Excitement, feeling alive
Dropping turning twisting
Crying, screaming laughing
Exhilaration
The ride ends so soon
Dissappointment
To the back of the line
Boredom as I await my turn
Another chance to feel alive
Do it all again
Thrill is gone
No longer surprised
No more anticipation
I might as well have taken the train
I head out in search of another ride
I want to feel something
Anything
Not sure what I will find
Onlookers remarked that he was aging gracefully
His disposition so sunny, cheerful, upbeat
Making plans for the future with his sweetheart
Taking such pride in his many grandchildren
True, he moved tentatively, pausing more and more
often to rest, breathing in fits and spasms, and betimes
his sentences trailed off into the vapor of the distant past
Then too there were the conversations where you needed
to repeat and repeat yourself, again and again, before
he would finally get it --
But oh, that infectious, wide smile which broke out on his
face when he did get it! Ah, that was a smile well worth
waiting for, indeed -- a smile that brought comfort and
peace to all those around him...
...Who were all the more confounded when he turned
inward, shaking his head, mumbling to himself as
cane-aided, he shuffled and stumbled his way home
'midst the sea of disapproving faces
The old woman sat,
eyes like pools of dreams,
and imagined.
If generations of pain can be passed down
through bone and blood,
why can’t love live there as well?
She touches her face tentatively,
tracing the line of her jaw—strong,
etched with the strength of those who came before.
Her teeth bite into questions,
the kind no one wants to ask.
But she does.
She always was a bit too much,
too wild,
too free—
when she was new,
when she was open to life.
She carries constellations of freckles,
cascading and mirroring her inner universes—
of which she has many,
and somehow, not enough.
She sees beyond time and space,
as if the world were just a nestled egg.
She is the Mother Bird,
wrapping seraphic feathers—unfolded wings—
around legacies of love and light.
And tonight,
she performs the ritual passed down in whispers.
She places a bowl of salt and rosemary at her feet,
draws a circle of ash around her chair.
Lights three candles:
one for the wound,
one for the wisdom,
one for the ones not yet born.
She hums the note her mother taught her,
the one that vibrates in the spine before it is ever heard.
She slips a smooth stone into her mouth,
cool and ancient,
then spits it into the flame
and watches the smoke form shapes
only she can read.
She stirs her tea slowly—not to drink,
but to summon.
Old names rise in steam,
and memory drips down the rim.
She thinks:
What if dying is a door?
One way only. No exit. Passive.
But if we dare to enter,
perhaps we pass through sacred realms.
Purgatory is here—
on this plane, Earth—
when we mourn and are forgotten,
when we remember
and return through the doorway
into ancestral truth.
We arrive in gentle knowing,
like hands capturing snow
it settles for a breath,
then dissolves.
What if our ancestors and descendants
live there, in the borders?
What if—
she wonders,
her finger tracing the rim of the cup
like drawing down the moon—
what if?
Not long ago when the summers seemed warmer and the winters were whiter. When the trees grew crown of leaves bright, a transparent green. Then tossed them to the ground for a little while. In piles of amber, crimson and umber. Before the earth was asleep in the frosty blanket of white. The trees all barren. Brittle with ice. While above the fire place sat the greetings of a wonderful season.
As embers popped and sizzled you sat and stared at the flickering flames. You would talk of pictures that play in the dying flames. The demons you saw or other worlds you claim. Danced in the weaving flames. The tongues would lick and sway. Snap and brake. The spires of candle flames would show you kingdom's of the soul. The shadows would move in a seismic rhythmic trance. In wakening dreams you would see people walking past a bright sun dappled days, by a pond you would sit watch and sway. Not make a whisper. You would sing to yourself, long lost melodies. Staring at the bright dabbled ray of sun pooling in your hands.
Seeing something not of this plain. You would say you saw the oblivions back yard. Endless Horizons afar! Then nod into sleep. Your head would tilt. All time turns. The world swam in the hearth. You would only watch. Your hands never idle even for a little While. Those hard cracked hands. Time runs like sand through pur broken fingers. When the storms would come and gently rumble the house. You would tilt your head and look skyward, you would hear the silent drops of distant rain. Water falling on the eaves of the house.
You would nod your head in it's absent rhythm and watch it streak the window pain. While you clenched your brittle hands. Flexed there pale fingers tentatively. But that was years ago. Now you ride and play in the distance fields in the backyards of long ago. Your eyes are vacant. Your hand are hard, your arms are crossed. No more nights of watching the fire or listing to dabbling rain.
No more catching pools of sun rays. You are now grown past this world, lost to this wide universe. You are in a man's final season, his great Winter on earth. At last your hands are healed, still, resting at peace. The idle hands of Jacob. The ruined hands of humanity.
Musing Lately
Let’s just say
with my husband now having heart troubles and my
being old (& bedridden while waiting for my new prosthetic-leg) makes for on-going thinking, remembering, observing, reflecting, tentatively concluding, believing
how the ineffable ultimately rules…and one’s
language (for all its commanding need to be used with a true Love ) finds w
o
r
d
s
to be less than their expressive task f
a
i
l
(despite even some i
divine inspiration)
n
g
to cast some light brighter
than the humble votive’s flame flickering in the heart —
Or more than the one tear — felt but unseen' — in the corner of the eye, bringing along its cathartic story …ready to fall down over the cheek…
Or to realize (especially after 40 years togerther) that devotion lives well beyond a 3-word statement in heights carried there by a tried, spiritual touching of our auras in the room: lives aligned for better or worse in the profound music that our closeness creates. The poems are born in being or feeling before the written.
(c) sally young eslinger 7/13/24**
In my youth, i was a devotee of James Joyce and Samuel Beckett. (Beckett even sent me a hand-written letter in response to one i sent him.). I pretty much memorized “Waiting for Godot.” Joyce and Beckett both saw words dissolving — into the ineffable. Some powerful poems lead us there, but that there, I’ve found is in the unspeakable.
Time ticks away as a new dawn strokes your splitting heart,
with your mood swings re-writing my emphatic poetical art.
Although the fear of your demons may grip my soul
I am now immune to all the personalities you can't control.
I am lost without the warmth of your crystalline eyes,
so let your tears implode upon me under turbulent skies.
I've seen crimson and aquamarine ambers outside your tinted mists,
without boundaries or limitations, I'm one who always persists.
As I recognize the repetitive push and pull for the fearful,
you've so impulsively strained against us with forces so powerful.
I never knew there would be something sweet about a fatal kiss,
but the moment I laid my eyes upon your soul's tender bliss,
I knew no, amount of pressure could keep us apart.
despite my mind, always on an endless loop to restart,
I'll never stop trying to be by your side,
despite the havoc I will understand you tried.
There have been times you've named my trust an unfaithful land,
yet in times of turmoil you've never forgotten the future we planned.
Let me mould those wheels into emerald wrecking balls,
so we can tentatively tarnish all the forgotten falls,
as you swim from the flashbacks and triggers of satanic seas,
my arms shall always be right in-front, just as you need them to be.
Remember you'll regret loving me without maturity;
You’Il insanely struggle with immense insecurity,
because I will not let your imagination push me to insanity.
My spirit will guide me even when you feel disorientated,
as the keyholder to my chains, with you I feel liberated.
I'll constantly remind you of this forevermore,
When your fears overtake you like an irrational war.
Flowers and plants have language, they speak to us in different ways, they come in many shapes and forms, and they will meet with you just before Dawn.
They have smells that can be traced back to the thirteenth century; you can hear the world speaking through them and you can see the ligament standing up in them.
They bring light to the troubled world and keep your mind from going astray. Beautiful flowers will make your day and build your courage in practical ways.
I walked on the corridor of time to examine what is really mine, and I saw them standing tentatively in line, they were waiting for a hand shake and a passionate embrace.
I saw them running up and down the street screaming and shouting out my name as if they want to drive me insane but I stood up to it all and resist the external brawl.
It wasn’t hard to understand what was propagating on the land a bunch of bandits unfit for office, form a subsidiary group to deviate from the truth; I observed it carefully, and listened to it attentively.
A piece of paradise left on earth kept staring at me from the dirt. I gazed at it every day, least my mind goes astray. I could feel the energy radiating from it and the love that was attached to it, it moves slowly on a plane and mesmerizes my heart when I feel ashamed.
I got it for a gift and since then my mind was affixed to it. Chastity or love? Abstinence or the dove, sexuality or infidelity? You will understand when you reach full maturity.
I have stood up to all of them and weathered through many storms. I walked through the flood and stood up to the blood.
My motto is longevity, resistance and endurance, my strength is unmatched and my spirit cannot be stopped.
I can survive in any environment for a considerable period of time. I can live in the desert and need little rain but when it comes, I enjoy it just the same.
My cactus and I will always be alive and we will be there to expose all the lies; flowers have meaning that can be so revealing. The fabric in the sea is searching for you and me.