Long Toilers Poems
Long Toilers Poems. Below are the most popular long Toilers by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Toilers poems by poem length and keyword.
The Swallows
Like dotted foreheads of women, our land was dotted with swallows;
They had rap dances on the farmers’ ploughs and bulls’ yokes in the field
With feathery steps to the toilers’ footsteps till the land was filled with yield.
The harvest saw them fluttering about in mirth, mating and birthing new fellows.
When fields became housing colonies and farmers became paupers, the swallows
Too became refugees like humans without legs; their nakedness had no shield;
Their songs had no listeners; past pulled their todays as the future feared to yield
And stood still; droves and droves migrated towards pastures new with few fellows.
Gone were our dreams when mobile tower antennas began lynching us so much;
Much horror followed when fatal ‘hellos’ just snapped our lives like winged sparks;
Magnets and rays radiated fatwas to our stagnant gen; we flew away and away
Searching for abodes to perch safely and to have a rap once again, but a touch
On the tout corporate wires across fields make us cuddle our legs like fail marks
And fold our wings like feather blazers; fear of life drives us, to die, away, and away.
Tenebrous night steals autumn days,
Invading ink subtracts the breath of light,
With tarnished mingling edge,
With dusty dusk’s laments.
Tenebrous night of immutable grave,
Infiltrating melanin loots the golden glow,
Where criminal and crucifix sink,
Where dream and delirium drown.
We are merely complexions of being
With frivolous hearts,
Chalking pigment lines to cleave
The cloak of skin we all share,
Chasing the encasing that divides us.
Across the planet, lines of disparity,
Lines of uneven imparity,
Across the globe, lines of ruling class,
Lines of the toilers and indigent class.
We are merely complexions of being
Carving rich from poor,
Along lines of race and class.
We dread what may come to pass.
Tenebrous night our final gasp,
The tenuous squandered
Dwindling light we grasp.
Published in Dissident Voice: November 28th, 2021
Plunging, lifting, plunging -as wind blew ashes all around -
the shovels' blades incised the cold and black encrusted ground.
Attached to shovel handles were the arms of skeletons - of men,
who pausing, hacked and wheezed; then bent and smote the dirt again.
With bruised decrepit bodies - and coerced - they struggled on
beneath a sky from which the sun for them had long withdrawn.
And seeping into nostrils came that too familiar stench
when shrieking had died out, and still - they toiled at the trench.
Perhaps they dreamed of tunnels; that the cracks within the earth
inflicted by their shovels formed a path to their rebirth.
What horror in the knowing there were no more tears to cry
or that their bodies - shoeless - might, in graves they’d dug, soon lie.
First posted 5/6/10
Entered in the '2022 Poetry Marathon Mile 8' Poetry Contest of Mark Toney
Entered Feb. 5, 2023
for 2022 Poetry Marathon Qualifiers' Final Placement Poetry Contest
Sponsor: Mark Toney
Verd meadow yon shadowed sequoias,
Patterns has lent the scope neath the petals,
Pixies wake on the tips of true choices,
Heightens an ochered sun amidst voices,
Looms about a faint trace of pink mettles,
Verd meadow yon shadowed sequoias,
Tattered remnants of coral sprays joyous,
Whilst they'd be assets in blossom vessels,
Pixies wake on the tips of true choices,
Grooves a pass graced with nectarous noises,
Virtuous domain sprung through laced specials,
Verd meadow yon shadowed sequoias,
Noble claims dotes a wishing well deploys,
Nigh, not far they'd be for all our revels,
Pixies wake on the tips of true choices,
Submit the crush much, us the true toilers,
Sparkled dusk fades long lives of their fettles,
Verd meadow yon shadowed sequoias,
Pixies wake on the tips of true choices.
Date: 06/10/2019
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(In the late 1300's, veteran painter Barna of Siena
was killed when he fell from the scaffolding whilst
working on "The Crucifixion", the final panel of his
fresco cycle in the Church of the Collegiata, in San
Gimignano, central Italy.)
I'll mount the scaffold first, sir. Mind the rail -
at one point there, it's not reliable.
Oh, careful, sir. I'm flattered you should come
from - Monteriggione, is it? - here
to view the work in progress. As you see,
- that rail, sir - the scheme is an ambitious one.
You have the standard scriptural episodes
arranged before you. Here, my Crucifixion
- unfinished, need I say? - in pride of place.
The pinnacle, and culminating piece!
Oh sir, you're kind. You like the cobalt ground?
I know my limitations. No, it's true.
I'm past the time in life when confident morn
returns upon the awareness, like a song
remembered. See my hair? Once chestnut-gold,
where now it is not knotted with hard paint,
the years have slowly snowed the color off.
I'll never go to Florence now. No, no,
I mean it. I'm no longer sure I want to.
We work on this commission - there's my son
below, mixing the plaster - which is fine.
I'm not an angel. God chose not to shower
astounding gifts on me - no, hear me, sir! -
as on his Chosen Ones. I don't resent it
- not now. For man, there's no escape from work.
Our ambit was determined by The Fall.
And if I do this task, and do it well,
do I not please my God? And think again -
a thousand toilers in December mud
in earshot of these bells would switch with me
tomorrow, counting themselves blessed. Here
I'm quiet, I direct the work, and if
not warm, I'm neither rained nor spat upon -
that's something. No, I can't say that I'm happy.
It seems to me that few are born to that,
lead lucky lives, have touched the Savior's hem.
Who of the rest of us, if honest, can
claim to be happy? Well, I certainly can't.
Gleeful roses turn to sullen churls,
And virgin smiles of shyest brides
Soonest morph into widowed furls;
Sad victims of your ill-bladed tides.
Swearing lovers of staunchest troth
Must sample your bitterest swill too,
And forfeit bonds of grandest worth,
As you gaily gloat like vilest foes do.
Most ardent toilers all hours round
In shady hands fattest gains leave,
Mowed to abysses dark worlds far;
To aliens you their ripe labors give.
And not even sure-shooting hunters still,
Can with all probity wait to taste their kill.
Bards of sharpest wits and niftiest tropes,
Thus must bow and trim ink’s wild hopes.
Your dial’s dual fangs envenom all matter,
And you’re Joy’s most culpable Saboteur!
Wedding Kermesse
Common folk with few wants
(Toilers reaping earth’s bounty)
Enjoy life’s pleasantries
By escaping the harsh realities
Of day-to-day existence,
Expressed in a kermesse dance
To the tune of simple instruments.
With joy in their hearts
And freedom unfettered,
They fling each other
Around in circles,
Indulging in feasting,
Drinking, and singing
In the celebratory ritual
Of carefree merriment
(Partakers as witnesses)
Toasting the wedding couple.
With the ground as their stage
And exposed to the elements,
The day wears thin,
But not their jubilance.
***
Note:
“Wedding Kermesse” is an ekphrastic poem based on the painting "Peasant Wedding Dance" (1607) by Pieter Brueghel the Younger (1564–1638).
The “Kermesse” was any special village or town celebration originating in Europe during the late medieval period (1250–1500 AD) and was introduced to America by Dutch and Flemish immigrants.
Slaves of wages for generations
long forgotten in history’s screenplay.
Each hand for a moment has held
the torch.
The people are waiting in lines.
All toilers have resisted.
All skins have felt the blaze of blood.
The people are waiting in lines.
While trash still clutters the streets,
while starving stomachs
roam like rabid dogs.
The people are waiting in lines.
Our tears have been cleaved
and parceled,
sold like floodplain to the blind
by corporate politicians,
while the people are waiting in lines.
We are lured to live among the cushions,
to rest here where the river rises.
No markets can be called free
while hosting inequality.
The people are waiting in lines.
We medicate to escape,
numbing to the barbarization.
No economy can be called just
without democracy.
The people are waiting in lines.
We shall watch for clues.
We will know the signs.
Every torch shall rise.
The people are waiting in lines.
Published: Dissident Voice, August 2, 2020
A feast of eye-catching hues swirl midair,
stoic fragile leaf a chill whisper,
overt orange, deep vein red,
pallid yellow, scaly amber,
jumble upon bright clad jumble,
earthbound mattress on a grey mud plot,
bald cypress, Norway maple,
crepe myrtle, pin oak,
shed their raw-hewn splintered twig,
amid the waning sun in bleak morph,
late August and September tread,
damp weather bashful pilgrimage,
acorn mulch stuck between the grooves,
of rugged footwear on limp moss,
along harvest ripened pastures,
hardy toilers lay their white ash scythe,
they reap, gather and proudly stack,
turnips, pumpkins, squash, beet, zucchini,
lifeblood to thriving market square,
rustic idyl diet, whetstone oven backdrop,
whiffs of healthful soup simmering,
bowls scraped, hunger sated,
red ember coal fire glows,
aromatic haze taunt the frozen nose,
symbolic fall eon meter pending,
still a buoyant risen spirit
Nights of flying dream world,
who might chase a raucous laugh,
or seek indeed mirthful excitement,
the sort that has embroidered twists,
as is generally perceived by intention,
but epic hurdles formed in still frame,
city snores past midnight bell clang,
dare one ever risk a robust venture,
should I have said pursuit instead,
sleep is diversion in that steel crib,
that modern crib pillow we fostered,
an idiom that has it’s silken source,
on foot of rainbow studded home run,
as denizens of driven blissful sprint,
with that palette city life concocts,
waiting to arise from brainwave surge,
but toilers so content at last wonder,
can still find that extra zestful yen,
nocturnal misnamed down tool free time,
energizing hour filler may arouse,
around the ink drape walkways,
quite surrogate and surreptitious,
character one may mold from time,
spent as a regal rhombic chaser,
boundary scuppered plot by strolling fleet,
as creatively imagining might edge,
vast supply has penchant without dent,
zeitgeist flower of a fluorescent flag,
warning mask so deft but visible,
canopy laid beauteous black fringe,
alliance in shade infused etch front,
squeaky noising trickle eardrum muffin,
hear full dose of ripple muttering,
clued on obscurantist thin,
taut code evasive decipher ask,
float of urban mirror pool by pattern,
reflection, mirage, cocoon,
after midnight curtain draws,
to protracted claps evinced from,
squinting imp coterie on foot,
ricochet off Moroccan spice tint,
outside vivid haunt so frequented,
perchance, perforce, pertaining patois,
little seen scatter mice squeak,
analogy horizontal spurt funk,
if only these dart and dash clan,
midgets metaphorical so jubilant,
in sonic meddle near edge encounter,
it would be strictly beyond a dazzling cast,
from other daylight theater staunch queue,
when aiming for parallel experience,
performance nocturne wise deep art,
even rich fantasy has upper boundaries,
some grating gulley flake debris awash