Long Tunnels Poems

Long Tunnels Poems. Below are the most popular long Tunnels by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Tunnels poems by poem length and keyword.


The Mage Whispers

The Mage Whispers

Do you see past your reality tunnels

Your every day to day
Safe plays

As your Geiger Counters
Ticks left to right
As it slowly sways

Do you see the struggles
Of life's many broken runners

In dire trouble
At home or worldwide 

Do you see the villains with the dirty bruised knuckles 

On television preaching or in real time

Standing in someone else's home

Their back garden
Their jungle 
As the world just watches

Engaging in endless bellicose discussions

Will you only take note
When one of the world's elected great hunters

Pushes the red nuclear button 

So I summon the power of the Four Elemental Gods

Earth, Air, Fire, and Water
To wake you up

Before that Old Fallen Power 
Grows so much stronger

That hope will no longer matter, as it will shatter

Stopping one climbing Jacob's Ladder 

The bridge one seeks at birth 
Between Heaven and Earth

So be it

What will be
Will be


(C) Copyright John Duffy
Form: Rhyme


The Park

My park to me was not see-saws nor swings
instead, a treasure chest of stranger things.
A marble grave, 1891, well kept
where 'Tiny', estate owner's dog now slept.
The long gone Manor House front Portico
and where the star struck teenage lovers go
holds carvings, some initials, from the past
though in one case someone had left their last.
Script ' E Potts joined navy 1943'
Did such detail writ mean 'remember me'?
So many times I've gazed upon his name
that plea cut deep in stone it's power retains.
His call over the years still engraved there
since boyhood I have offered up a prayer.

The culvert is a concrete tour de force
too tempting for adventurers, of course.
Amphitheatre for screaming, scary,
in heavy rain, tomb for the unwary.
Mill races, lock gates, tunnels, falls and weirs
all testing grounds for our deep darkest fears.
There was no challenge our band could resist
we cocked a snook, and nature raised a fist.
Returning home, triumphant, green with moss,
in trouble, but we didn't give a toss.
The moment was our game and joy the prize,
such treasure blind to all but children's eyes.
Seek us out, the park was where you found us,
Green fields of innocence,  it's magic bound us.

Feb 14th 2016
For contest 'The Park', sponsored by Craig Cornish.
© Viv Wigley  Create an image from this poem.
Form: Rhyme

Premium Member KNOWN JUST TO GOD AND ME

KNOWN JUST TO GOD AND ME
                              The Unknown Soldier

Rows and rows of snow white stones, no names upon their face.
Thousands more who went to war and left no earthly trace.
One unknown for all unknowns, Canada for thee,
I am the unknown soldier, known just to God and me.

Mother country’s call to war awakes a young man’s dream.
Escape from toil on barren soil to a uniform’s esteem.
No thoughts of mothers losing sons, just of a chance to roam,
A year to spare, go over there, defeat the Hun - come home!

Dark train rolling through the night toward the eastern sea.
Young soldiers seeking glory, not knowing what will be.
Last sight of home, across  the foam, where the unleashed dogs of war
Will soon declare no glory there, just mud and blood and gore.

In Vimy’s tunnels warriors stand awaiting dreaded dawn,
Each one a knight in someone’s eyes, each one a front row pawn.
The hand of fate soon to decide the minutes or the years
Left to the souls who leave dark holes to face their greatest fears.

Comrades  all around me fall, each fought his private war.
With will and might we take the height where others failed before.
Amid the sleet, the roar, the heat, the chaos all around,
I do not feel the bullet strike that drives me to the ground.

Buried in a blanket shroud, forgotten and alone,
“A Soldier of the Great War” inscribed upon my stone.
But then I’m chosen to return, across the same grey sea,
Back from my hell of shock and shell, back from the Ridge Vimy.

I lie in state and share my fate with mourners passing by.
A moment spared  for one who dared, a tear in every eye.
From where I came and my own name known just to God and me,
In a hallowed space in a state of grace, I will spend eternity.

And once a year again I hear the cadenced cannons boom,
And feel the love from those above, the poppies on my tomb.
A country’s grief for her lost sons who kept her strong and free,
The Canada I died for upon the Ridge Vimy.

Rows and rows of snow white stones, no names upon their face.
Thousands more who went to war and left no earthly trace.
One unknown for all unknowns, Canada for thee,
I am the unknown soldier, known just to God and me.

I am the unknown soldier, known just to God and me.

Ellis Pringle Craig
June, 2019
Form: Rhyme

Premium Member The Velvet Beach

Let me walk along the velvet beach,
collecting shells upon crushed stretch.
Sun rearing-up a nine year old — teach 
her to be happy, care-free, an oceanic sketch.

Eyes wide open, examine the gifts of the sea.
Brunette hair cascading over the shoulders.
Her bare feet stride through shifting sands free.
The past warms me in this present colder.

With curiosity in seaswept zephyr-ease,
each open shell would land a nesting place.
Her caress of lovely fingerlings, bent knees,
behold a prize...the shellac of time and space.

Piece by piece, a plan from Auntie’s coving.
We’d dip into the shapes, shades, and whispering,
pleasure and pleasantries ensconced in loving
of the sea through the inner ear of offerings.

Tunnels of God—great in mercy and grace.
Small but cared for, this daughter and niece,
sister and friend — so much ancestry to trace
in each universe of person, place and the deceased.

5/17/2021
Form: Quatrain

Premium Member Dystopia Now

Through the mire, lie rows of houses,
in fact there all around, 
This is suburbia the sprawl, 
Spreading in all directions,
Concrete and steel surge upwards, 
Indigenous trees bulldozed down,
Roads dark alleyways fester, 
Behold this was once my town. 

Weaving through leaky tunnels, 
Stench permeates foul air,
Organization of the multitude,
Rats in a Rubik’s cube maze,
Where else can we go,
peasants of urban growth,
Incognito behind our masks,
Eyes burning, smog chokes,

A caveman of bricks and mortar,
Blind man who doesn’t need light, 
Awoken from my life of slumber,
Searching for the high ground, 
Find a weird monstrosity, 
Towering above my head,
A ski slope, shopping mall,
I only seek, milk and bread, 

Never seen the future coming,
Perhaps looked, the other way,
I helped create this Frankenstein,
To call it civilized would be a mistake,
Once reaped what was sewn,
Now concrete over everything we see, 
Where in hell, has the sky gone,
Dystopia now, Can this really be?


COMPLETELY YOUR CHOICE (43)
Sponsored by Brian Strand 18/02/2021
Form: Quatrain


Premium Member Biographies

Artists are not so different,
at times glossing over truth,
hiding beneath a sheen -- 
some extra linseed goes
a long way...

What is this cry for realism?!

Picasso sought deeper meaning
via grotesque breasts~ elongated
elephant snout limbs -- perhaps believing that 
the human tale needed elevation, himself
turned off by surface vistas; his squares and 
points dulled by well turned chips, projected
missile-scraps flying from Leonardo's festive lathe of 
tantalizing symmetries -- 

We marvel equally at
Dali's vaulted extremes, teetering balance --  
a bleeding martyr of old Faith; despite all his
fiend distortions, imagined glorification~ 
dear, yet mere echoes, stills from the sable of
an unrequited Christian brush -- 

So...is the poet so different?
The Metaphysical digs, tunnels,
(anthropomorphic God)
chambers and catacombs to romp
about -- secretly displacing what
would otherwise be a straightforward
pleasant lyrical walk -- We

confound paint and words

presenting two types of portrait

of the same elusive image

the greater decipher, if there is
one to be had, will never be the
product of personal tribulation, 
but the spirit behind, within, carefully
feathering, dotting and dashing
each of man's extended biographies -- 

a dance of human veils....

The Chain Letters Road Trip

"The Chain Letters Road Trip" 

Freedom Fall 8 
removed 
her Ray Bans

The Light 
was blinding 
on the other side

dark tunnels 
lead to highways 
unrealised 

goin’ gangsta 
driven 
to distraction

hell bent along the 
Road to the Lotus Eaters
at Loon Junction

chain letters 
flying in the breeze
let loose

out the driver’s side
window, 
to the past 

like bugs
sticking  
to other’s windshields

behind the wheel
terror forming 
smiles

one hand steering
the other
retrieves

her android,
voice 
activating

Mojo
dials

(LadyLabyrinth / 2022) 



“Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger” / Pomplamoose
https://youtu.be/z3IGoniElrE





"The Dilettante Diaries: Goin' Gangsta on the Road to The Lotus Eaters at Loon Junction" 
https://www.poetrysoup.com/poem/the_dilettante_diaries_goin_gangsta_on_the_road_to_the_lotus_eaters_at_loon_junction_1059240

Miners Turn To Face the Cold

The mass production of coal is dead,
Buried infer lamps carried on the head,
Halogen miners sang the unforgiving dirge,
With fragments of flaky particles emerge,
Drilling hammers that smote the ground,
Never again to hear its rumbling sound.
Voices roar like dragons in damp vapour,
Highlighted the dangerous drudgery caper.
Its miners turn to face the cold idle breeze
Lusty diggers of cave brought to their knees.
Dust off running tears in nocturnal eyes
Sparkled pay in dissonant redundancies.
Tipping poison pouring out of their coat,
Coals brightly burn diamonds in the heat.
Hem and skirt tossed away in good wave,
The blockade collapsing stairs of the brave.
Sad hearts dramatically ending the way of life,
Kiss the face pioneers abandon with cheek.
Dirty power of bygone industrial revolution,
The demise ends centuries of veiled tradition.
Looks that is lost on the cloudy grey glare,
Tunnels bearing signature of the slender tear.
Tattoo rippled down on jagged wall mirrors,
Romantic fires to stare at the mantle towers. 
Underground roads in loops of fuel suspended,
Prison row of tombs lay silently on the cold bed.
Rock fractals calling from cold depth of earth,
Snuffed out the foggy union in oblivious wrath.
Dripping tar brooms lay on the dormant floor,
Once supplied daily ration meals for the poor.
Now the pit is shut leaving the empty trucks,
Pulling the souvenirs bearing burden buckets.
Into the nostril part of murky breath exhale,
Indifference steps crystallised among the stubble.
Can we face climate change of clean living?
In the beautiful candescent global warming.
Form: Ballad

Premium Member Winter Sonata

In the landscape 
of melancholy, 
where arctic 
heartbeats linger, 
I long for withered 
willows to blossom 
like speckled 
diamond petals, 
while your crystalline 
silhouette strolls 
through tangled tunnels 
of my weathered mind.

And I question 
the highest choir 
orchestrating 
  ethereal anthems: 
What if there’s no right key 
to harmonize this 
    undying yearning? 
What if love had a voice? 
Would it be an 
  echo of melting snow— 
thawing glacier hearts 
to stream upon 
silver lakes, 
mirroring drifting 
clouds of memories 
that drizzle 
rose-tinted flakes? 
There, the crisp 
air whispers 
magical tales 
chauffeured in 
cashmere cadence.

But, like the golden 
tendrils of 
  winter jasmine,
my fingers 
 stretch beyond 
fogs of frozen rainbows, 
sketching 
 sweet-scented dreams 
across skies 
 in porcelain pigments, 
as your voice 
  glimmers and 
glows amidst 
   poetic pearls 
resting on 
your lyrical lips, 
shifting through 
colors of the 
     seasonal breeze, 
serenading 
    symphonies 
for soulmates. 

So let me 
 undress the 
wintry wisps of vanilla, 
cloaking the 
 citrine threads
of sunrise in your eyes,
listening to 
 the song of the 
wind that shrouds 
our unsung sonatas 
when we were undone.

For you and I, 
    we are like 
jewels in the azure, 
ruminating in rhymes, 
quilted in a 
 secluded igloo, 
as chickadees 
    of the night 
chirp in sync 
    with the moon, 
mimicking hymns 
from the 
hypnotic lyre of Orpheus,
to which Eurydice waltzed, 
even the waning stars 
would unravel 
  a sequined staircase 
   to the gardens 
above the highest spheres.

For I would die 
a million 
deaths to 
rewind and replay 
the dulcet chorus 
of this 
immortal romance.

Premium Member Pillaged Poet

I heard echoes of scurrilous snarls, 
from my conscience as it spoke
contemptible remarks aimed at me.
What shame those words delivered.

"Fatuous one, why does your hand quiver,
mimicking the trembling lips of a child in fear?
You dare call yourself a poet, 
but you're nothing more than a joke."

Guilt is the culprit that tunnels my mind
as my passion for poetry shrivels on its vine.
Withering like a flower, my empty heart 
has stripped my soul of its craving to write.

It's my own foolish notion
that causes me to shiver.
I weep over my planted seedlings.
They thirst, and their mournful cries I hear.
Abandoned by their mother who begot them, 
and for this I'm filled with remorse and regret.

That mocking voice invaded my aching breast,
when again, it ridiculed me as a fool... 
"A self-proclaimed bard who gives up the task.
You should put down the quill and live in disgrace."

There is no saving grace for me. 
No nourishment for my verses to thrive.
My heart is broken, drowning in memories.
Without the will to live, how will it survive?
It only drums in rhythm to keep me alive.

Rows of sprouted thoughts have withered.
Parched and dying, drying up in a field of grief.
While I, their neglectful sower, helplessly sit 
as time elapses and I watch them expire.
I’ve fallen between the gaps of missing lines
into an abyss, my fingers charred in a fire.

I can only water the seeds of self doubt
with salty sweat from my furrowed brow
and over fertilize them with tears of frustration.
I do not seek salvation or redemption. 
Damnation will out.

My ink well of impetus has sprung a leak
or maybe it's a new watering hole I seek.
I have not a drop to quench their thirst
no morning dew, nor afternoon shower 
to give my wilting buds reprieve, a relief.
I've tried to save them all, or was it just
a half-hearted attempt made in vain?

Not one more rhyme can I rescue from pain.
I'm suffering from loss. All hope is gone.
My fear is that I cannot express myself 
in what was once an emotional voice.

No wonder my pages remain barren and blank,
except for the blotches of spilled ink.
My parchment lies in a state of immortal decay. 
I relinquish my quill to a better hand than mine,
setting it free and praying that I be forgiven.
For the folly, I've only myself to blame, 
this pillaged poet.
© Lin Lane  Create an image from this poem.

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