Long Thumbed Poems
Long Thumbed Poems. Below are the most popular long Thumbed by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Thumbed poems by poem length and keyword.
If I were a mountain climber,
I’d always take the time
To check out superstitious lore
When choosing where to climb.
For recently an avalanche
Took several climbers’ lives.
I’m sure they left some grieving friends
And parents, children, wives.
This avalanche occurred in France.
Mont Blanc’s the mountain range;
But here’s the part that is, to me,
More obvious than strange.
The northern face of Mont Maudit
Is where the slide began.
The meaning of that name was not
A factor in their plan.
Or possibly, those mountaineers
Thought there was some mystique
To conquering a mountain
That’s defined as “cursed peak.”
With dangers in a sport like this,
I know I’d be averse
To setting out upon a peak
That’s burdened with a curse.
They thumbed their noses at the gods
Which is the kiss of death.
I wonder if they realized that
As they took their last breath.
The end, or beginning
of the strip mall starts
at the Subway Subs
a set aside frontage overlooked
by bushes and idling traffic.
Further along, the ephemeral
Pop-up Party Shop;
when not ‘up’
that commercial space
sells T-shirts
a print for printing slogans.
Abutting is the computer game center,
pale youths enter
not to be seen again until cell phones
broadcast amber alerts.
Lastly, the hardware store,
a well-thumbed cluttered cave,
struggling to re-invent its old brands.
Abruptly
it all ends
at curbs and untrod paving.
The mall hangs on to the small change
of a larger, more changing world.
On an adjacent blacktop
drivers stay in lane
until the junction and the traffic lights
lead them somewhere else
less out of time.
Dusk comes to smear the parking lot
with its cowls and drapes,
the wingspans of an evening haze
sweep-in nocturnal tones,
chimerical forms reshape storefronts,
leave obscure echoing sinkholes.
The strip mall nightly sinks
into its less concrete reality,
a haunt woven
from the discarded wrappers and scraps;
that spill over its one solitary trash bin.
It will be days before it is emptied
or filled again - maybe weeks.
Indestructible, for Johnny Cash
by Michael R. Burch
What is a mountain, but stone?
Or a spire, but a trinket of steel?
Johnny Cash is gone,
black from his hair to his bootheels.
Can a man out-endure mountains’ stone
if his songs lift us closer to heaven?
Can the steel in his voice vibrate on
till his words are our manna and leaven?
Then sing, all you mountains of stone,
with the rasp of his voice, and the gravel.
Let the twang of thumbed steel lead us home
through these weary dark ways all men travel.
For what is a mountain, but stone?
Or a spire, but a trinket of steel?
Johnny Cash lives on—
black from his hair to his bootheels.
Originally published by Strong Verse
Lucifer laughs in their atonement.
Heckling his own cackling,
impossible to hide his unimaginable merriment.
The Anti-Saviour, savoring every last bit,
his eyes teary.
Of his satire, the play by play,
holding the pit,
of his aching stomach, adding savoir faire,
mixed with old Saint Nicks way.
Lucifer stops to sip a smoothy sarsparilla.
Savagely mocking the scene,
popping up his drink umbrella,
with eyes crossed and ablaze.
"This is neverending!" he gleams.
No remorse, for the Ultimate Sin.
To God, never a thought.
"Ever defiant to what once was, given you"
By your own venom-
You thumbed your nose, loving loves life-not.
So in venom is how you'll be,
in Hell's ice box.
It was never exactly pinpointed
for only the African Crowned Eagles knew of the twisting paths
to its misplaced place.
In that crystalline chamber, upon that gold dusted floor
were found much thumbed volumes of all Nietzsche’s
works,
a penguin in a glass bell,
a twig cut from the tree of Life one million years from now'
A windblown leaf but only the wind that blew it.
a silver cuspidor, a ancient helmet made of Pittsburgh steel,
a Neolithic moonshine still,
a copy of the illustrated Karma Sutra,
several debunked words of wisdom from Aristotle,
an Olmec Letter Opener.
and a stuffed tufted rat.
The find has been carefully transported to the Smithsonian
where neuroscientists are trying
to solder together all these missing links.
The NYT has declared these odd finds
to be ‘Russian disinformation,’
but ‘Bokonon’ the mythical poet-sage of the Republic
of Never-Never Land
has blessed each artifact and declared them
to be far too strange not to be absolutely true.
autumn shakes threadbare
spent leaves loosen from brown stems
each clings to the bough
waiting for the tug of wind
to show buds in leaf axils
one leaf lies pressed flat
between pages seldom turned
kept from rain and light
its veins mirror buried roots
grounding what the leaf recalls
wine darkens the glass
one mouthful remains untouched
thirst catches its shine
sweetness ripens when restrained
the tongue leaves a taste behind
on dust-silver shelves
each book keeps its well-thumbed leaves
spines remember hands
binding what the years recall
in their dog-eared aftermath
names fade from old cards
ink gives way to the humdrum
old contacts grow pale
what I leave for others' eyes
means nothing to their kind ghosts
leaf settles on leaf
each layer hides another
last in, first recalled
gathered from one's only life
their weight growing underneath
neither dusk nor dawn
can deceive me about leaves
I shed, keep, forgo
forget, give away, hold back—
each leaves something of a life
That’s not my elephant you see
right there in the garden.
Mine is in the prison
where he’s waiting for a pardon.
That one in the garden
is a charming one named Ella.
Mine just steals spaghetti off my plate;
Obnoxious fella!
Second graders like to come
watch Ella spray the roses.
At MY elephant those kids
just simply thumbed their noses.
Ella waters all the flowers,
helping out our town.
George (that’s mine), behind cell bars,
just sits and wears a frown.
But he’s been attending
inmates’ classes -Monday nights.
And his teacher taught him
all about the Bill of Rights.
He’s learned that his Miranda Rights
were overlooked, and so. . .
he made me find a lawyer
and I found one in the know!
So my unruly elephant
is getting out real soon.
A female has been writing him.
He’s way over the moon!
His lady likes to spray.
He told me, “Carry an umbrella
when you walk me down the aisle
with my charming bride named Ella.”
LOST in the "That's Not My Elephant" Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Matt Caliri
The Government Reopened
By Franklin Price
1/26/2019
The government reopened
After idiots made it close
Where is cooperation
All of them just thumbed their nose
Didn't care about the rank and file
House and Senate were still paid
They went home to have a party
After the shut down bed was laid
Did not care about the border
And the drugs and people there
Just blamed it on the Donald
That it's his fault is more than fair
Eight hundred thousand layed off
They were just a token few
Some continued on for no pay
On the hill, it was not you
Don't quite know how it happened
Somehow congress came to terms
Passed a budget for a few weeks
From the governmental worms
There is no class about them
If their actions make Trump fall
All the peons will keep working
And the border gets the wall
The book is red, bright red, that’s plain to me.
Okay, it’s black, but that’s just years of grime.
It is the office dictionary, see?
And when it is consulted – every time –
a new thumbprint is left to join the rest.
Across the years it’s been consulted – ooh,
let’s see now – several thousand times at least;
collects detritus from the desktop, too.
Sometimes we check reality, exact;
illusion is a well-thumbed word as well.
Oh, yes, the book’s bright red and that’s a fact;
you only have to look and you can tell.
And yet we’re startled when that colour’s seen
so brightly where my coffee cup has been.
Buttocks push; breasts boast
through non-existent crowds.
A choreographed squall
above the whir and clunk
of loaded appliances.
Hispanic girls acting out
in a Laundromat.
Hips gesture, hands stab
and tussle with unwashed issues.
I’m distracted by the overheated hum,
can’t read the print
of my paperback. Words run
naked over yellow pages,
sweat and lay down
under a fierce fluorescence.
Skimpy shorts and gang-inks.
The porous sound of feral hormones
seethes over some slight,
branded onto a Facebook page.
They flop onto the slatted bench
produce a smart phone,
scroll through pictures,
moue and glower softening
as baby shots are thumbed.
Melting smiles, then
they hold up the cell for me to see.
When they get up
the backs of their thighs
are marked by the wooden seat.
Washing spins on.