Long Tributary Poems
Long Tributary Poems. Below are the most popular long Tributary by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Tributary poems by poem length and keyword.
If the Rainman would concur, I would take all my days cloudy and
all my moments as this sodden one, but to my chagrin he does not.
Things come upon me near the moistened river. The water in the air
takes me back to a Styrofoam cup of juicy minnow bait on a drizzly day.
Countless coconuts swirl down this smelly tributary. They don’t
about each other or about why the tide takes them there it pleases.
You can’t tell me that they do not think like us, or maybe they don’t.
Either way they cannot know the sacredness of watching a ballet
of synchronized raindrops from beneath the water’s surface.
Submitted by Gary Baldwin (Jan 21, 2026)
for the Let it Rain Poetry Contest
The Shopping Cart
Upon my veritable throne I survey
subjects of sundry colors,
cans and jars, packets and bags
arrayed in reverent order before me.
I am appointed, by natural virtue
captain of this mighty ship
past denizens of the white-tiled, polished sea
steered through (a)isles by two sturdy hands.
Before me lies, in mangled letters,
a royal sanction, listing treasures from far and wide
my trained eyes decipher the cryptic codes
rendered in smudged ink,
and by my direction, mine alone
we cruise past other ships, on their missions,
seeking loot to plunder off soaring towers
like panels painted in the same color.
When at last, our voyage concludes,
our ship, weary but worthy
languidly does sail over to the fine,
bespectacled statue behind a glowing screen.
Our treasures they measure with
that beeping baton, when at last,
in the name of the King, we are charged
royal customs, each one of us a tributary.
And off we go, onto terra firma
where I shall become a child again,
and my subjects, most ungraciously packed
into suffocating little plastic bags.
Dated - 29th October 2021
You’ve been given a deposit of faith
God has given ample from His bank
Do you have interest in paying any interest
Or do you doubt that there’s credit in your account
We’ve been gifted a onetime gift
There is no tax on a gift like this
This is fiscal, Christ’s service was sacrificial
This tributary of all fiduciaries is ancillary
Aside from the debt we owed
From His side the blood and water flowed
He died and He supplied all for what we’ve denied
It’s prepaid and our savings is in His life that down He laid
We are the beneficiaries of
God’s never ending attentive love
We borrow from His sorrow, the path is narrow
His capitulate stains are our eternal gains
It is His collateral and His claim
It is in the futures of all who call on His name
It wasn’t cost effective of being lost, and by His directive
The dividend, the down payment by His enslavement
But in this life, we will suffer loss and pain
Sometimes two backwards and one forward we crane
We have earned the income of death, that’s our wage
It's ok to whirl as this retirement plan is out of this world
(So don’t be inflated or impulsive
Give and give and give, ‘til it hurts give
Live and live and live, ‘til it hurts live
Satan’s been given for a sieve)
So, what’s your goal, what’s your plan?
Do you use your deposit of faith (from this God-Man)?
Do you use it for others, even your brothers?
Or do you live a cloistered life, what are your druthers?
So what’s your long-term goal for your soul?
Is it minimum wage or a maximum pay load?
The payout is God’s policy, for you and me
If we use our deposit to help others in need
So take stock in God’s surety
Find assurance in His security
Why do you wince look to Christ’s sconce
And what God’s has already counted and surmounted
Hollow as a crooked pipe conducting waste to the corroded sewer
Vacant and obscure like a Freudian void on a cold lavatory seat
Hollow as a piper’s flute waiting for nimble charming fingers
Vacant like a comatose stare reflecting mindless nothingness
Shallow as a muddy puddle pummelled by boots from wet feet
Superficial like a scratch on a bubble conceding trivial defeat
Shallow as a trickling tributary succumbed to inarticulate drought
Superficial like a crowded scream never leaving mute fears
Fallow as unwanted seeds swirling around into darkness
Dormant like a sleepy reminder of night mares fighting for victory
Fallow as untilled soil longing for cultivated surrender
Dormant like a tired tramp homeless and halting suspense
Mellow as marsh mallows molten on deep cutting sticks
Bitter sweet like a camp fire sending smoke into nowhere
Mellow only in that as it rhymes with bellow and gallows
Sweet bitter and numb like waste in a lone piper’s dream
—Of Wings, Hooves, and the Silence That Commands—
“Begone,” the taper breathed, “ere thou be bright
within the gold that shall devour thy frame;
mine aureole is honeyed, yet o’ernight
death keeps his masque within the heart of flame.
Yet still the moth, bewitched beyond release,
did seek his pyre as though he sought for peace.
For what availeth counsel when desire
hath made the wit its tributary thrall?
He saw the pyre, yet deemed its lucent fire
more dear than life, and heeded not the call;
till, through the last, incandescent hour,
his ruin wore the regalia of power.
So with the steed—rebuke him not with scar,
nor flay the hide whereon his wild blood beats;
a whispered word may travel farther far
than iron curb or spur beneath his feet;
yet let his mistress veil her face away—
and all his thunder shall forget the day.
No rein constrains him; no imperious hand
hath mastery of his tempestuous might;
the stable yawns upon the moonlit land,
the wet leaves glimmer in the argent night;
the whole wide welkin bids the creature flee—
yet something absent hath commanded, “Be.”
What strange puissance hath silence won o’er bone,
what unseen sceptre reigneth o’er his will,
that he, whose hooves might shake the earth alone,
stands hushed where every road beyond lies still?
The moth mistakes the fire for paradise;
the steed beholds her silence in his eyes.
The moth became the ash the fire desired;
the steed grew still beside her silent door;
both gave the breath by which their love was fired,
yet heard no voice they had been waiting for;
the fire burned on; her silence answered, “Stay”—
and both obeyed it, dying, into day.
when i think of you
i think of your needs
or is it my needs?
... if you are alone or fulfilled
or is it my fulfillment i'm after?
your river of life,
turbulent ... as they are
yet waterfalls
of hope and promise
yet with banks of hardness
knots to unravel
mysteries to uncover
but are challenges
not suppose to be fun?
can i have fun?
tributaries with red herrings
little white lies
benign
yet swimming waves of beguile
besmirching the surface, veil
yet what can i do ... but smile, too
can i swim with you?
its the other tributary i yearn
you should see me ...
yet...
its your depository that snakes the river
or is it me wanting to make a deposit?
this is all alien to me
the irony here i roll my eyes ...
not the two peas in the pod
connie pachecho
3/24/17
“More Than Scribbles”
The pen does not speak—
it holds its silence in a chamber,
a reservoir where sentences
float unformed,
dark rivers stalled
before the mouth of paper.
Each droplet is a thought
waiting for gravity’s compunction,
a poem in liquid pause,
its capillary compression
held at the narrow throat of the nib.
The pipeline presses with pressure,
yet nothing escapes—
until the hand inclines,
and gravity leans through the hinge,
drawing futures downward
onto a waiting page.
There, a stained tributary
eddies downstream,
curling into margins,
its current carrying fragments
toward the widening mouth of breath.
A single line spills,
a thought becomes visible,
the poem begins to breathe.
.
TRIBUTARY according to Merriam-Webster:
1 : a stream feeding a larger stream or a lake
2 : a ruler or state that pays tribute to a conqueror
Revival under the big tent,
a paradigm of revelation,
a simple message:
death’s but an open eye for life.
A candlelight service
that goes on and on with friends,
new ones made unto the great by and by.
Burning bright ever bright!
Billy Graham sees God’s work
that was placed in his hands
for a very long season, in mortal years.
Many young now learn his name.
Who now shall race the eternal flame?
God looks upon earth
for a willing soul —
a jewel in the making,
to toil in this tattered tapestry,
spurring on its loveliness.
Billy Graham must be eulogized,
but not for his name’s sake,
but for the kingdom to come —
the one of His Father.
Ears open wide for a snuff?
Or will the ears of your heart ring
in anticipation, remain
in the open arms of love?
3/2/2018
John 3:16 NIV — For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.
The first thing I learned was that even stone remembers its root,
and the forest,
hearing my hesitation,
offered me its voice
not one voice but a thousand,
braided loose as a river,
each syllable arriving dressed in leaf and light.
A barbet corrected a hornbill mid-sentence,
wing brushing wing,
while termites conferred low along the ground.
I knelt to that murmuring parliament of ground,
and felt, beneath my palms, the old committee of root
debating slowly what the rain had meant.
A wing grazed my shoulder not fear,
just courtesy and a voice,
mossy and unhurried,
asked to borrow my light
for a poem she'd been composing
since before the river
had a name.
I said yes, and watched the whole river
lean in to listen,
its current pooling like held light at my feet.
Somewhere close, a fig tree's ancient root shifted,
made room,
the way an elder makes ground
for a newcomer at table.
I had never used my voice
so gently,
or been answered by so many kinds of wing.
A kingfisher settled its blue accounting of wing
and told me the local word for joy was river
agreeing with a stone.
I gave the moss my voice
back, changed, and she thanked me,
returned it to the ground
gently as compost,
gently as a root
released at last from wanting nothing but light.
Evening came down in long coins of light,
and every creature folded its particular wing
the way a sentence settles after its last root
has been spoken.
I understood then: this river,
this whole exuberant congress of ground,
had never once withheld its voice
only waited for mine.
I raised my voice
into that generous,
undivided light
and felt it taken up by branch and ground,
by moss and moth,
by every migratory wing,
until I was only one more tributary of the river,
one more grateful,
ordinary root.
Now when I speak,
some small green voice answers on the wing;
I carry that forest's light home like water carries a river;
and gladly, gladly,
I give my ground back to its root.
We love when we have the chance…to experience something earthshaking…
like sitting beside a waterfall…listening to the music she is making.
Each waterfall is made up of endless individual streams of water…
blending into one graceful symphony…
as they cascade over the edge…on their way to lakes or rivers or seas.
We love the harmony of a waterfall…each tiny tributary adding to the theme..
but when listening to a large waterfall…
it is impossible to isolate the music of each stream.
The other day we were lucky…when we noticed on a rock wall….
flowing by itself…the littlest waterfall.
We almost missed her at first…there on the rock face…all alone…
one tiny stream of water…cascading on her own.
But when we finally spotted her…and listened to the music she was making
we realized even the littlest waterfall could also be earthshaking.
We definitely heard a flute…emanating from the water flow
in the background…the rhythm of a drumbeat…and at times…a piccolo.
For a little while we listened to her music…to her melody ebb and flow…
then thanked her for her concert…when it was time to go.
We rolled our windows down…so we could listen to her play
until we drove around a bend…and her music faded away
We were quiet as we drove…still feeling enchanted and enthralled
for having been blessed to experience the music…
of the littlest waterfall..