Long Tine Poems
Long Tine Poems. Below are the most popular long Tine by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Tine poems by poem length and keyword.
Armchair Warriors are watching
Ever ready to react and criticise.
They know all the theory but not
Looked through a soldier’e eyes.
Young people who were,
For various reasons, willing
To sign away years of life
And take the Queens Shilling.
The training’s hard and tough
But it’s not quite the same,
Deep down inside they know
It’s just a dangerous game,
Preparation for deployment
Out into a combat zone
One of a field unit
Never ever on their own.
Part of that team
Reliant on each other
Shared experience turning
Each member into a brother.
And, until that first action
Not quite sure what they’ll do,
Will that training kick in
And see them safely through.
A tense situation whether
They see action or not.
Training and comradeship
Are all that each has got,
Until, safely back at base,
Until back on safer ground
It’s tine to unwind and
The unit can stand down.
Kit checking and kipping,
Just waiting for the call, then
It’s back out on patrol
And they’ll do it all again.
Decisions made in split seconds
Can later be held to be wrong
But out there at the sharp end
A split second’s not so very long.
And the watchers are watching
That no win no fee legal bunch
Waxing fat on litigation and
The expense account lunch.
Watching and calculating
Just how much they might make
When a frightened soldier
Makes a stress driven mistake.
Out in combat situations
Where the danger is live
And the natural reaction is
Just to want to survive
And those guardians of society
Judge things they’ve not known
And, with hands on their wallets
Calmly cast that first stone.
.
A creature pinned under glass,
stitched into silence with silver thread.
A doll with eyes too wide,
stuffed with fear and feathers,
posed just right for praise that felt like poison,
frozen in a smile you carved into me
with a voice too loud to be questioned.
I was your cracked reflection,
the hollow echo of your bitterness
shamed into stillness,
taught that love meant obedience,
meant shrinking beneath your thunder
and calling the storm “discipline.”
But I came undone.
Clawed out of the display case
with fingernails grown jagged in the dark,
tore each stitch loose with my teeth,
peeled your name from my skin
like paint from rotting walls.
I wear my trauma like antlers
blood-slick, brutal,
curved with history and hunger.
Each tine a chapter
of things you swore I imagined:
the slamming doors,
the names hissed like hexes,
the way your love
felt more like war.
I carry the ghosts of the men before you
stone-fisted and salt-tongued
who taught their daughters
to fear their own fire,
to swallow their voices
like rusted nails.
But I grew fangs
and fed on the rot.
I named the monster,
even when it shared my blood.
Even when it wore your face
and said it was protecting me.
Now I am not still.
I am storm and skin and sacred howl.
I am not nice. I am not quiet.
I am not your legacy.
I am the daughter
of a woman who grew gardens
in broken places,
who showed me music in the wind
and beauty in old bones.
I am the one who crawled
out of a family tree
and set the roots ablaze
just enough
to see what could bloom
in the soot.
He stands against the old barn door
relaxed not a confrontational bone,
thin as a pitchfork's tine.
Farmhand, hunter, true-shooter,
the lens flatters him.
A ring of white T-shirt gives a reverse
halo to his lantern-jaw.
Loose fitting pants rumple
just right atop his kick ass boots.
He stands against an old barn door
who held up who the real question—
a bit of James Dean in pocket pressed hands,
Paul Newman in his eyes.
Flannel hugs him. (When the woman aren’t.)
Capped by a bent brimmed hat,
he's rolled to perfection.
I’m sure the name tag on his shirt
didn’t do him justice—
Are you being serious
Your making me delirious
With your mood swings all off stride
Like Dr. Jeckyll --Mr. Hyde
One day your up , next day down
You are going all around
Keeping up is hard to do
Sometimes happy, sometimes blue
Never knowing where I stand
Your emotions are a rubber band
Keep on stretching to the limit
You could snap at any minute
Smacking me right in the face
I'm always prepared to brace
Myself for this inner storm
That's been going on too long
This roller coaster ride your living
Is going to end up splitting
Your personality and divide
Your good and bad on different sides
Soon one will be taking over
Then its tine to run and cover
I've been watching and can tell
Your bad sides taking you to hell
As your good side disappears
Making all of my worst fears
Coming true-- there is no way
To get your evil side to stray
It is here and wants control
Your good side will take a stroll
Kicked out by this two horned beast
A million friends could not defeat
So exhausted slap fed up with the game
Looking around i see only one to blame
No need to point or say a name
My time has left not long after it came
Time chances and memories wasted away
Not once did i simply cherish the day
Never taking the tine to frolick and play
Not once did i stop to cherish it is all i can say
So the wee hours at the beginning of yet another time
Where i fell short before the clock even chimed
Days weeks even months have flew by
A glimpse of the moment was never in these eyes.
This mistake almost makes me cry
As i give up trying my breath leaves and i sigh
Today marks the beginning of the very end
No more is love something on which i can depend
Now instead of strong i bend
The wind blows and i bend again
Limp from all these endless battles
My nerves shake and rattle
Today as the time starts once again
My life could be different if fear wasnt locked within
I remember back when...
A small lake
There was a lake not far from the white-washed hamlet
in the interior of the Algarve; on hot summer days, witnessed
by my dog, which shuddered at the thought.
It was a small lake surrounded by hillsides, modest
almost unobstructed, just water, no big deal
One day when driving past the lake had disappeared
a dent in the ground full of thistles and tine of tunny
Oh, come think of it, a rowing boat that once had been
optimistically blue, but now sad dried teardrops.
The plane between the hill where the lake lived
is a center for helicopter services; not that much I mind
but I would rather see the lake again in the moonlight.
I don’t know
If I like
The mood
I am currently in
I want to write
The urge
Is trembling
At the top
Of my pen
But what
I don’t know
Should it be
Those many days
That life
Presented me
A fork
Or how I missed
Those opportunities
By walking
The wrong tine
Be it fate
To lay down
With wife
Work
Sedentarism
Or
Many a day
When death
Was just before me
Would have been
So easy
To brush his hand
Drop that mic
And walk
Do I grasp
That urge
To break out
And write
In a new style
Punk
Would be it
With outrageous hair
An F U to fashion
And a finger
To the Queen
(Not Kate)
Am sure
I hear
London calling
But Punk
Is not that poetic
More brutal
Would end up
In the Gutter poets
Class
Bless his honesty
Or do I write
Mournfully
That unattainable
Vision
Where I know
Life will last
Or write about
A porcelain throne
That’s accompanied by
A porcelain Flute
As sometimes
That’s
How I feel
What I write
OPEN
Each
chiselled
line
enamel
images
to float
upon
sounds
sans
rime
staccato
syntax
align
symmetry
as
iambics
beat
the
drum
of
vers
liber...
....tine
crosswise MATISSE
Your art your notes your style
So varied so wise so true
Opened then drew close to
My eye my mind my heart
My eye my mind my heart
To love to learn to know
Your craft your theory your technique
Forever you made so unique
crosswise-GRAND-DAUGHTERS FAIR
Your innocence your purity your smile
So open so natural so wide
Charms enchants awakes
My spirit my eyes my pride
My spirit my eyes my pride
Inside in wonder in youth
To pray to gaze to praise
In love in awe of thee
quintile-SWEET VERSE
words too
familiar
or too remote
defeat the purpose of which,
he wrote
was his
hidden
enigma
a step too far,
if no-one could open
his jar
Inspired by Johnson's famous dictum
sequence-THE COUNSELLOR
He
opens
hearts and minds
in sickness and
health-
He
draws us
to himself
a quiet voice
we
hear
prompts
and reminds-
until peace we
find-
Then
fills us
with His word,
so we may be
heard
Fibonacci-faith quaternion
when
I
listen
God will speak
when God speaks
my mind
will
hear
when
the
open
door closes
light begins to glow
a new way
for me
to
go
An open verse
Will
my verse
reach your ear
can
your eye
stay the course
Does
unconvention
confound
the rhythm
of your eyes
Take
a deep breath
exhale and read
between my lines
unphased
by phrase and
habitude
or human voice
The choice
is always
yours if
my poem will
be or is
not to be
a tune upon
your ear
Are you being serious
Your making me delirious
With your mood swings all off stride
Like Dr. Jeckyll --Mr. Hyde
One day your up , next day down
You are going all around
Keeping up is hard to do
Sometimes happy, sometimes blue
Never knowing where I stand
Your emotions are a rubber band
Keep on stretching to the limit
You could snap at any minute
Smacking me right in the face
I'm always prepared to brace
Myself for this inner storm
That's been going on too long
This roller coaster ride your living
Is going to end up splitting
Your personality and divide
Your good and bad on different sides
Soon one will be taking over
Then its tine to run and cover
I've been watching and can tell
Your bad sides taking you to hell
As your good side disappears
Making all of my worst fears
Coming true-- there is no way
To get your evil side to stray
It is here and wants control
Your good side will take a stroll
Kicked out by this two horned beast
A million friends could not defeat
The white rabbit died,
it was suicide,
his work had failed,
his aging tale unwound,
unbound and lost,
winter frost dreams covered,
he’d learnt his lesson,
but from his teacher’s end,
severed.
He warned of watches,
watching watches to discover,
time uncovered,
exposed and closed,
hands intombed in gold,
the pocket watch,
Pandora’s box,
now everyone has several;
and they’re still all late.
They’re late in thought,
of latent thought,
once held in ignorance,
they can’t ignore hands,
the turning tine stabs deep inside,
infecting hearts,
all turning parts,
man made of cogs,
with cogs.
At war with sunset,
refusing sunrise,
natural cycles forgotten,
of greedy madness begotten,
flawed and false;
they wither to the void of innumerable cloned tick-tocks...
©David Nickle Read 2015