Long Thomson Poems
Long Thomson Poems. Below are the most popular long Thomson by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Thomson poems by poem length and keyword.
Hannah Crockroft has cerebral palsy from her birth,
And having CP myself, she’s kind of special to me,
Because CP is not derided anymore, much, as alien,
But is called brain damage, not your own currency.
She was born on the 30th July 1992, West Yorkshire,
In Halifax, and fought two cardiac arrests after birth,
The doctors said she’d never walk, talk, and function,
Or outlive her teens: but you just determine yourself.
She did lots of school sports and made the talent day,
By the BPA at that good old sports and tech university,
Loughborough, where she met Tanni Grey’s husband,
Dr Ian Thomson, who made her into racing authority.
She’s a wheelchair racer in the T34 class of sprints.
Her father, who she’s very close to and is a welder,
Built her first racing chair which was fast and neat:
He takes her out every morn on the Yorkshire felder.
At the Worlds 2011, in Christchurch in New Zealand,
Hannah won gold in both the 100 and the 200 metres,
And then, the Hurricane spry in 2012 London scored,
When she took gold in these two events again - litres!
She took gold at Lyon at the IPC Worlds, two, 2013,
Then in Swansea at the Euros she again took two,
And then 2015 at the Worlds in Doha she won three,
And now at Rio in the Paras she’s homed three due.
She breaks all the records with WRs, ERs and PRs,
Demolishing her personal best most times to achieve,
Ahead by 10 metres, 6, or even 4, she’s my stat hero,
And studies sports and media at university, to sleeve.
Rhoda Monihan
_________
I am extremely sad about the tragic accident which happened today in the cycling road race at Rio on a downhill stretch of the course. Iranian cyclist Bahman Golbarnezhad, aged 48, died of a cardiac arrest which he suffered in the ambulance after sustaining a brain injury when he crashed. My thoughts and love are with his family and friends. He leaves behind a wife and a son.
A 1952s
I pulled the penny from my pocket to toss it
In the change jar. All my change goes immediately
Into the jar upon arriving home. There it collects
Until I go to the bank and have it spun into paper.
Government printing presses have reduced coins
To money crumbs; pennies, more nuisance
Than value except when a clerk says, “That'll be $3.01”,
And not having a penny means 99 cents more for the jar.
Today was different. This time I looked at the date
On a coin. Why this time? The reflex of an old habit perhaps.
But I haven't collected pennies for years. My old album
Is stored away in a box with coins and bills labeled “granddaughters”
In case one of them has a curiosity about money before plastic or bitcoin.
My penny is stamped with the year 1952 and the letter “s” beneath.
“Give ‘em hell" Harry Truman was President then, the war in Korea raged
And the Red Menace grew. My ‘52s, a copper “wheat penny”, is no longer
Minted, but Abe, the Great Emancipator, now on inflation zinc, endures.
Wait, no - that would be too much! Could there be an empty
Space in the album still wanting a 1952s? I admit to feeling
Some excitement digging through the box and opening
The album titled “Lincoln Cents, 1909 - 1958.” But there it was,
The place labeled 1952s - and its empty! Oh, I'm a kid again!
But where has the penny been all these years since leaving
The San Francisco mint? How did it come to be in my “Sooner”
Pocket? How many other pockets, purses, or piggy banks have held it?
In passing from hand to hand it served to purchase satisfactions,
Give help with decisions or carry a wish. The penny gave its youthful
Gleaming to many uses now unremembered, yet the simple coin
Retains the price for my thinking:
“One’s true worth retains its luster, if in our outward dimming
We serve to brighten others”
Copyright 2017, Paul Thomson
Is the soul to a human
What the seed is to
A dandelion - a vessel
Of the continuum?
Both are readied for winging;
One swept, unknowing, clinging
Upon the vagaries of zephyrs,
One ticketed to sail the ethers.
The seed carries an embryo where’er blown
Prepared by its mother to grow where sown.
The soul by the Father sown, without misconception,
May be redeemed at will from any misdirection.
The seed may rise a weed or wine
As chance may take upon to dine,
If in lawn or vineyard find,
To its fated end resigned.
The soul may be proscribed or saved
As promised by the One who paved
The Way; choose or deny finality
And thereby spend eternity.
Copyright Paul Thomson 2021
Stephen is the most successful boccia player,
In the class BC4, he has muscular dystrophy,
He often competes alongside Peter his brother,
To do his best to succeed and secure victory.
He’s been Scottish champion seven times,
Being born in Bellshill in North Lanarkshire,
On the 18th of August in 1984, disco times,
But thru training is now an Hamilton squire.
He’s nine-times British champion, world no. 2,
And with Peter he won gold at the 2009 Euros,
In Lisbon 2010 he took silver, and Norway too,
A silver, and then gold in the 2013 Paris Euros.
Also that year in 2013 he won another gold,
At Guimaraes in Portugal at more Europeans;
2015 saw him collect another silver strolled,
And at the Worlds in 2016 he had gold eons.
He trains hard every day in his home town,
At the new University of West of Scotland;
Jacqueline Lynn and Jim Thomson, renown
In Scotland, train him to control his hand.
Stephen supports Glasgow Celtic football club,
And is proud to be an ambassador for MD UK,
“Boccia is continuing to grow, [it’s a huge hub],
especially internationally. There are now, [ok],
50-odd countries that play. [UK numbers]
have increased as well, and so there is a lot
of competition out there, [also the standards]
have improved, from when I started, a lot.“
Blue Jay
I cupped the fallen fledgling in my palm,
And unwittingly, caused the neck
To retract the mere measure as had
Raised the hand.
Lowering the foundling, the head rose.
Really? I continued. Down, up;
Extend, retract, eyes fixed
Always at the horizon.
Was it the avian gyroscope
Tacking as if to turbulence,
Or since motion can betray
Location - best feign frozen?
(Once they mused about millennia hence
But scarcely would’ve thought that whence
The confluence of Saurian and Simian roar
Could ever have writ so poorly a score
As has devolved to: cheep; rap nonsense)
I shall call you Icarus for impetuousness
Has got you to ground; like your hapless
Namesake, he from tempting high C,
You, before finding your key.
Copyright Paul Thomson 2018
Long live the USA, my native land, the birthplace
of my granddaughter, Shelby Renae.
Let's teach our grandchildren how to be kind.
To be thoughtful is a talent well-defined.
Don't wait until the Fourth, start today.
So many dynamos here keep up a steady pace
Let's say, "Thank You, USA!"
We disregard people, they feel left behind.
"Ingratitude is treason to mankind."
Say, "Thank You, USA," ev'ry day.
This Fourth honor your fellow citizens just because...
you can, Thank folks for their time,
was "Forty Hour Week", Alabama's catchy phase.
Overlooking people is an offense, a thoughtless crime.
A smile gives credit and helps to crush malaise.
Busy cheering every step, where'er your networks cross
happy is the heart that eyes the climb.
Some hearts, running on empty, are laboring in a daze.
Let's fuel them, they are drained-out pumps we can prime;
Make this holiday worth the effort; celebrate with praise.
line 9: quote by James Thomson, Scottish poet, 1700-1748
http://www.worldofquotes.com/author/James+Thomson/1/index.html
line 13: song title, http://www.lyricsdepot.com/alabama/40-hour-week.html
Ecotone
I did not plant the prairie tickseed that appeared among
The cultivated flowers of my garden and quickly dominated.
It seemed to say, “We live, still!
My house sits in a tension zone, an ecological “no man’s land” where
Tall Grass Prairie and the Cross Timbers, vie for control.
Here the vagaries of weather assure that all who enter are mistreated.
Seasons turn through the Zone as Fall, Winter, Spring,
And the Heat. The moisture-prickling Heat, like a visit from
The in-laws, comes early, stays long and wearies the endurance.
Rainfall is the fickle arbiter of the Zone. It befriends the trees
Almost; the grass too much. Legions of plants, playthings
Of climate, contending over millennia for land suitable to neither.
They were not untended. Cultivation by wild fires, twisting winds, floods
And drought, performed acts of purification and renewal; encroachers purged,
Minerals recycled, seeds scattered, and the arena reset for the endless contest.
But gone now are blades of Blue Stem and pickets of Post Oak.
Red subsoil overlaid with Bermuda sod is my “Sooner” system;
An inanity to the Zone kept on life support by irrigation and fertilizer.
Bermuda minders are hungry yet grow heavy with time
And plenty. They seek order amid uncertainty, and
Shelter from risk, yet cast their lot in a tension zone.
Their dis-ease stems from attempted breakouts of the Cultivators
Struggling to wrest free of human controls. (They who are said to have
Ears to hear a wildfire in its death throes claim it hisses, “We live, still!”)
They are not alone. Homes of the coastal naïf become
Mere tender for Chaparral fires as those of a floodplain
Are flotsam for the river.
Like mallards returning to the same pond
After each thinning by hunters, the unwitting
Rebuild as the Cultivators whisper, ”We live still”
Copyright Paul Thomson 2017
Promised Land: A Psalm of Faith
There is a kind of strength comes to a wanting land
(Where six inches of unfavored soil must withstand
A chance for rain), when rooted in the Word
That brings hope through faith.
---And a roadside sign proclaims, "Jesus is Lord"
Expand and retreat, germinate and scatter
Rhythms of nature play out no matter
How the seemingly perpetual estates of man defy.
---And an ancient Ojibwa cried, "Sometimes I go about in pity
For myself, and all the while, a great wind carries me across the sky"
I knew of a man broken by this land
Who remains unbreakable in his stand
That he and the grange are one.
When asked why he stays on in this now dead sea,
—-Says only,"This is God's country and I am his son"
Copyright Paul Thomson 2013.
Nothing for Something
What filled your footsteps cannot
Fill mine, yes, a wave does not
Break twice, but do you think
I too have not risen when lured
By the hopes of vacant promises; inured
The rage of empty shelves?
“Free beer tomorrow”, the Pols perennial tout,
"We’ll fill your still-empty mugs with stout,
Then charge it to some other sucker’s tab."
Like poachers back to the same pond
Each season for the harvest, your bond
For the count is assumed.
Do you not see their willful blind,
The guns swinging upward to find
Your range?
How many generations will comply
Before just one dares to deny
The users’ their presumption?
That fire raging from the double cross
Can cleave the element from the dross
And emancipate your art.
Copyright Paul M Thomson 2020
In life,
What calls the heart becomes the legacy
We leave behind
And those endowed will assure that its destiny
Will be manifest in kind.
Builders of
Tombs and monuments, attempts at perpetuity
By those whose vainglories feared only mortality,
(Since at least Ozymandias)
Fade to pitiless objects of curiosity
Sans a life force for continuity.
Then
Mark my end with no icon of marble or of bronze
Whose fixèd stare dons but one gaze on and on.
Rather find me in those I taught
Shared with, loved and fought,
For
I am yours as surely as when I lived.
Summon me through times remembered
(The image of our laughing renews your smile)
And I will be yours again
In ways open to us now 'ere we began.
And
When comes the Call, whether your heart
Will heed
Can a legacy live and an endowment start
In deed.
Copyright Paul Thomson 2016