Long Tern Poems

Long Tern Poems. Below are the most popular long Tern by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Tern poems by poem length and keyword.


Ode To Joy

Like morning light break forth of eastern skies
And astound with beauty the waking eyes
So did my heart before you rose to praise
A seraph in the nectar of flesh, May's
Brightest bloom in the garden of gladness
The purest form of earth's bare loveliness.
To you, O joy, O let me sing
Let me tell of love first coming.

Cho.
Awake the woodland choir for my song
Awake the primal hour of spring's soft throng
Awake the lark not yet on wing
Awake the world, an anthem bring
Of praise, of praise to beauty, praise
To the sweet rainbow of our days

Sweet fragments make the rainbow bloom aloft
Light splintered is yet in beauty so soft
And whole, the healing balm of my parched soul
Each little wonder a stair a bright stair
A garden of glory on heaven's scroll
I climb to suck the breast of worship here
I seek your worth and find God there
Uplifting me from mortal care

Inside the tabernacle of the soul
Wild and dusty, the dry harmattans roll
And every tender tree gasping for rain
Beheld sapphire arid sky and pray in vain
The pearly cumulus would sable turn
Where on the eye pivots the graceful tern
And then so suddenly you came
The phoenix of another name

Too deaf the deft pianist fingers toll
His litany your virtue to extol
You the image's bone transformed, transcend
All that desire loves and love declares right
Eden's broken wings yet make praise ascend
As prayers in the fluid light, a flight
Of rapture, leaving silent stars
And earth's tumult to jealous wars

Nothing but you, and you alone exist
O sacred symphony of heaven's bliss
And all earth shambles fore you fall again
To rise in your glory a better tale
The joy of beggining the end of pain
Lighthouse eternal, love that cannot fail
Sweet still the night aglow parades
Yet star like flowers morning fades  

Morning melted into mist, grass perspired
In the cool, leaves transpired droplets of bliss
The rainbow my thoughts like heaven attired
Beauty its providence hasten to kiss
Time had divinity at its leafed door
And seas and rivers in long triumph roar
The rhythm of earth so to begin
To break the carnal rule of sin.
Form: Ode


Premium Member Georgie

Georgie

His was a pudgy boyish countenance,
With rounded river eyes and an Alfalfa smile.
He wheezed like a sick tern with repeated asthma attacks, 
Playing hard at the various outdoor games and chases,
Of our fleeting childhood years in the inhaling sun.
He perspired profusely in 1964 as he sat with beads of sweat which
Gathered like a water pox above his lips, all in a wheezing row.
Bespectacled Georgie was the curlicued, black-haired boy 
who lived two houses up from ours; the one with the green hedge.
He wore converse sneakers, a white tee and blue denim, with
Thick black-framed glasses astride his chubby white face.

His was a temper not sought by anyone, including Elsie his mother.
Georgie was her little boy, but when angered, baseball bats went flying.
Curse words were screamed loudly with one’s birth name questioned intensely.
Stones and large rocks were heaved at innocent windows and nearby statuary.
Baseballs were hurled at the heads of other little boys, with misses near and far.
Toy darts were skipped across baking sidewalks to the bare feet of his playmates,
Producing more loud voices shrieking in pain when the darts impaled their feet.
Oranges and lemons were rabidly picked for the purpose of pummeling one’s nose;
But gentle mother Elsie loved her little Georgie, and his little blue inhaler.

Years and decades sailed by like lost boats in a starless harbor.
Little Georgie grew into a pudgy man with nothing changed except, the drugs.
Marijuana odors hovered like invisible swarms of masticating locusts,
Lurking above the silent brick houses of our street, with old Georgie lighting up.
With a pipe and a baggie in his pocket, my old friend gave up on his life.
He decided not to work, but to take aimless walks down deserted avenues;
Day after empty day he took his drifting strolls into a personal oblivion.
We subsequently lost contact in the ensuing decades, and I forgot about him.

Until recently… I found out…
Georgie’s funeral took place 25 years ago at Rose Hills Cemetery.
Rest in piece old friend, old tormentor, with your little blue inhaler.

While Shuttered Up Inside

While Shuttered Up Inside... ©ozy
Snug Air Conditioned Demesne...

Analogous to my boyhood
     cosseted and bereft, I assay
to poetically elucidate how majority
     of mine years found me
     deft keeping danger at bay
only thru the pour substitute
     of my imagination
     remaining safe within the causeway

of a quasi Norman Rockwell picturesque
     unblemished near utopian day,
where trumped up "FAKE" danger
     stoked courtesy of
     anticipatory anxiety didst essay
when pinhead size
     pores faux stressed
     every epidermal square inch

     populating skin oozing perspiration
     along I-59 pro Roman
     lix spittle sweaty freeway
precipitated, via illusory mailer daemons
     unavoidably pitching me
     into an inescapable fray
unlike late twenty somethings
     (Jay Austin and Lauren Geoghegan,

     whose cruel fate
     at the hands of Isis militants
     published online by Irish Times),
evinced carpe diem
     existential Great Gatsby
live life to the fullest
     created an extraordinary journey
     (now forever immortalized as

     daring adventurist trekkers)
     with ample horseplay
deliberately, egregiously, fanatically
and wantonly killed, 
     when purely exalting in zest
promulgated by indomitable spirit
     found me choked up,
     a baby boomer i.e. west

tern civilized married bloke,
     who opted to die vest
away from blatant uncertainty
     never daring to experience unrest
outside a severely circumscribed perimeter,
     exempt from a life
     and death litmus test,
where very little harm extant,

     when taking repast or rest
only ushering, venturing,
     and taking, sans
     quotidian cerebral quest
ensconced within four walls
     without nary a pest
except...pet peeves of mine
     within psyche built a nest,

nonetheless hounded by many a vicious beast
whose predatory cannibalistic feast
comprises thine psychological state greased
with until mortality expires,
     asper being temporarily lend leased.

Their Simple Beauty

Baby birds, it's said, are born not knowing 
their notes. They learn them from their mother's 
throats in the way children learn their ABCs 
at parental knees, muh muh muh becoming mother, 
da da da, daddy; cheep cheep cheep, a cantata.
That being so, do poets find a poetic ear 
in the sphere of their predecessors?

Young, with island sand and salt my milieu, 
my concerts were the calls of shorebirds, 
the forlorn foundling cries of gulls, the staccato 
siren of a tern, should you carelessly venture 
too close to her nest; the stuttering dance-step 
of  sandpipers, miniscule but mighty.  Then, 
there were the rest: foraging land birds, seeking 
fare left by the incoming tide, their darkness 
incongruous on the purity of a beach. 

There was a time, walking to my garage 
when I found a songbird dead in my driveway; 
its small body supple, still warm to the touch, 
not ready to die just yet like all of us.  I 
placed it in a box (ashes to ashes, bird to sky), 
laid it to rest under the fig tree in my backyard, 
and not knowing its persuasion, I 
fashioned a cross of sticks over the fresh 
earth, believing we shared the sanctity of 
simple beauty, the brevity of life.

Near a lake where I live now, sibling to the sea, 
briny by proximity, birdsong is rampant 
in early spring. I have heard the 'death bird', 
he of the shrill one-note filled with foreboding, 
who heralded the passage of a dying husband 
in an interminable summer of illness.  Here, 
there are the sharps and flats of ordinary 
choristers, and one whose mother was surely 
a coloratura soprano in a former life.  

This one whose concert halts me spellbound,
turns me to stone (not salt) with his serenade of
couplets, no two the same, some so comical I laugh 
out loud to the absent cars and senseless concrete 
of my parking lot.  He sings and sings, never
abated, nothing by rote, and I? I wait, heart in 
my throat, should he be the songbird from 
under the fig tree, reincarnated.
© Nola Perez  Create an image from this poem.

Premium Member John B Jackson 1880-1911

John B. Jackson
1880-1911

Norma knew.
Norma, my erstwhile friend of a thousand hunts;
Only she knew the feel of my beading thumb,
As we sought out promising locales, and
Our clever quarry, from points near and far.
From the salty marshes by the Pio Pico adobe,
To the broad summit of Sycamore Canyon,
We left tracks only the night ‘coons could find.
So, did we learn anything in life, me and Norma?

I once spied a tern furrowing in a breach.
Norma was ready and loaded for the kill,
As I drew a long bead,
Held my breath, and pulled the trigger.
She, my Winchester 1895, lever-action, 
Reduced that tern to feathers in an instant of smoke,
With white pillow plumage in complete upheaval,
Flying all about, and interspersed asunder!
That single memory was on my mind,
Before slipping eternally through the veil. 
I remember closing my eyes, and there she was!
Appearing before me as a haunting ghost, 
As she was, on the day she saw me kill the tern,
My disappointed mother, telling me I was cruel,
Cruel and heartless and mean, 
For destroying “God’s creature.”
So, it was on that same day I put Norma away, 
Lock, stock and barrel; stowed in silence,
Under the rafters of my humble bed;
I said a final goodbye and adios amiga,
To my once ballistic sweetheart, 
And the love of my wild, youthful days.
Never again did I kill any living creature,
And found an inner wisdom I could never explain.

But, truth be known,
I wish I had Norma now.
Here in this dark cold grave.
I miss the tender touch of her cold trigger.
The gentle pull of her icy hammer.
And mostly, I miss the intoxicating power, 
Of her fiery, exploding steel.
For together we traversed the canyons of Turnbull,
And the rolling vernal pastures of Workman Mill,
Tasting many a delicious quarry. 
It’s true, my friends,
Norma knew.
Only she knew the feel of my beading thumb.
Form: Epitaph


Nina Parmenter, In An Arp Me Tern

I'm flattered by Nina but need to take her to the cleaners,
and splat her inbetweeners with fluid from wieners.
Don't mock or beat down Bath when you're Bristolian,
you were all conceived in a seat in the Odeon,
and you should defuzzle that muzzle after a dozen shots
or your muzzle will rot, 
it puzzles this Bard from Bath when you say I act hard, that's daft,
I craft the first draft with regards to retards,
but I don't spar like "gangsta", more prankstar, thank ya.

Hip hop Choco-latte, 
ow the Arty Farty Party is to tarty for a starty,
this is too easy I laugh at thee, not smarty, 
Bath's beautiful with history it stores,
Bristol looks like it fell out of a horse,
we've got James Dyson and Jane Austin,
you've got Baldrick and webbed off spring.

Of course you went off course with the Bath beige bit, nit witt,
but if we are beige, Bristol... sage and onion,
If I'm rhyme goo you're rhyme ga ga,
rotating between that and blah blah,
Nina Parmenter my off par mentor turned mental,
I'm a stray away from putting this to an instrumental,
cus I think you're menstrual, coincidental  
you say my mouth before my mind, 
this is written down, no noise, 
talking out your behind.

I see you wearing glasses Bristolian,
but I'm from Bath we're different classes, I'm nearly done,
if people in Bath are strange then Bristolian DNA aint got range.
And I sense your bitter remain poke, "Bath Farage",
I'm Mr. Bath At Large, 
so LEAVE WON of your remoan votes in the garbage, that's GAR-BAAGE.

I know your only joking and fun poking 
through rhyme freedom and I sometimes free dumb, 
the outcome of a lout on one, shouting out me bum,
but you saved it in the end with a bit of innuendo,
good poke, I'm off to play Nintendo,
you're tender when you bend so I wont stick it in your endo,
I'm a good bloke.
© Nick Trim  Create an image from this poem.
Form: Rhyme

Both Mother and Daughter 2 No Heavenly End Gods Love

Once upon a time there lived
a young girl

Who eventually was to grow up
inevitably later into a young 
women

And when she did all she ever
wanted and dreamed of endlessly
then was to have a young daughter 
of her very own

And in time she surely did which
in tern made here complete and
truly happy having seemingly
had her every waking wish duely
granted

Now as the story goes just 2 
short years after having her 
beautiful baby girl

1 morning whilst in the shower 
peering down she noticed her hair
was starting to fall out

Then after booking an appointment
with her G.P in order to get it checked
out

She was later on her precluding
follow up appointment to discover
she was to be diagnosed with
terminal cancer

And what was to become of her
daughter

Well she herself no more than
2 years later to the day her very
self be diagnosed destined to
suffer the same erroneous fate

And all her family and countless medical caregivers had as cold
comfort to offer her was both
sadly and unfortunately nothing 
more and other than this

Your Mommy loves you so much
she cannot wait to see her beautiful
little baby angel again in heaven

And she left as she came into
this world with a smile beaming
across her face outwardly displaying
such joy and carefree abandonment
lust and verve for life

The likes of which this world i 
fear may never ever see once
again as it was a once in a lifetime 
as was she

Reading the deaths column in
the Echo i believe her funeral
is this coming sunday at her
local church where she will
be burried beside her mother

One can only pray and hope
that God will be there for both
her and her mother this time
if at all

Premium Member The Calling Gull Of Aquinnah

The calling gull leaves her nest
her wild magic cleaves the nimbus.
An avian aerialist suspended aloft 
she sails on tapered ribbons of cirrus silk,
ruffled sea breeze ironed ‘neath her lustrous wings.

A wind witch, she defies and defines the  w - i - n - d…
a weaver of worlds, knotting strings of stories as one wampum belt
in union with the sea’s connection to land and air.

She steals the sough from the surf and the sigh from my sinew;
my guide to a mindful haven. This nurture-maven 
glides among bouquets of pink-peony-cumulus.
She; my blue-sky-muse in celebration!
She; my compass rose, mediates my meditation.

I unfurl fresh wings, a night-to-day tern, and claim my turn with the wind
no longer a granite stone asleep on sand. I soar
from the glacial-age strand and lift through fog.. brief my tryst
with mist. Eyes blessed by the crest of a humpback’s breach.

I distill myself, my will; a droplet, tear, a sphere free of guise.
An ascendant of moon-magnet tides yet a descendant
from stratus to stratum, I settle upon the cliffs along the coast
in union with my soul’s connection to body and breath.

In the cup of my hands I hold the sun and drink its yolk,
white-cap breakers below chant a soluble sonnet.
From my inner dark, a flint-spark flares as I find what I lost.
My heart, akin to a wild cranberry, reborn from the womb of dawn.
I inhale the moment. Red clay cliffs, lifeblood, fire-skies merge.
Windswept pitch pines croon as I grow roots for my tabernacle,
cosmic beams stream through stained-glass-eyes.
The calling gull rests. A distant, silent witness to my quest.

My pulse a psalm as I emerge; a cathedral lit by sunrise.

Funny What a Difference 24 Hours Can Make Jl

It really is
As they say 

Ain't it funny that a difference

24 hour's in a person's life can make 

As 1 day and moment in time you
may just well find yourself

Standing on the prescipus of a
be that canyon , building or world's
edge

With 1 foot already off hoping and
praying for any reason at all

To stop you from taking the next step

Then somehow or other a thought
arrives at just the exact right time

Which makes you go online click
on said this here poetry soup site

And that very reason you have
been seeking forth doth finally
appear

And so surprised are you without
you thinking or prior knowledge

You are taken 3 steps back till
the very same edge is now firmly
out in front of you

So you can then safely return to writing
Part 2 of this in particular story

To thankfully and luckily enough be
once able again to sincerely thank
Jenna Logan

For the unimaginable difference she
has made to my life

From just a mere 24 hour's ago

I do not know what I have I done
or I did to deserve such a complete
360 degree turnaround

All I know is that I am ever so
eternally thankful and grateful
to you

For this is yours more than it is mine

P.O.T.D

Just deserved reward 

And when reading and scrolling
through the many comments

It becomes abundantly clear 1 hell
of a lot of people feel exactly the
same way 

And lastly may I finish off by saying
thank you to all of those of you
good kindhearted people who
took your time to comment and
reply with both love and affection for 
Jenna as well

You also in tern couldn't have made
me happier than I was before

The Road

I started toddling at seven months,
Walking the roads as from twelve
Shaping my feet from sands and mud upon bumps
Frequenting the paths to hell and into which I delve

From the spittle of the seas to the flayed clay of aging silt
It’s the same old story frequently told in tears
Moaning and mourning are kinsmen in the compound of guilt
Where ancestral rocks and whetstones gather moss in pairs

I have journeyed on, night and day, stumbling
And falling, rising and schlepping determinedly ahead,
A bag of sorrows on my back, encountering no nibling
It’s a one-man tiring journey accompanied by dread

When the road is bifurcated, I gamble on my choice of route,
Searching stars at nights to guide me on paths of clearer lineage
I borrow the gimlet eyes of crickets to seek out wedges to uproot,
Knowing well what I desire in my pilgrimage

So far, it’s been one Hell of a road
So frighteningly long and sinuous —tumultuous
Harbouring wildernesses, dens and gold,
Yet those who tread on it are serious and sensuous

It plies mountains, rugged and brutal, with sweltering breeze blown
On flat land and deserts, it hurts and fries the naked feet
On rainy, starless nights, you’re on your own.
Above restless crests of sea waves, it’s like a wet, riotous street.

Trust me, it’s one road upon which I’d hesitate to tread again,
Even if the lights of the sun and the moon promise to accompany me
Oh, no, I’d prefer to board the wings of a tern, even in rain,
And keep warm with the feathers above the knee.
Form: Rhyme

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