Long Turnings Poems
Long Turnings Poems. Below are the most popular long Turnings by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Turnings poems by poem length and keyword.
No! I Am Not Lying To You
No! I am not lying to you.
It seems Life’s turnings here and now contain
Inauspicious shapes of endless goings and comings;
It seems Life’s headwaters of the deep waxed well,
the great steward river, of cold sinew and intractability is
rushing backward through bloody tubes and rusty spires.
It seems Life’s dead people have arisen, unbeknownst
to the living, from astonished graves in gaping graveyards.
No! I am not lying to you.
There was a time indeed when a human person like me,
could calmly sit across from a human person like you,
and the both of us could pleasurably redeem the consuming time with
eyeful silences and poised stares containing muted determinations;
something like destiny showing up and knocking on the door,
saying: “your pizza is here,” and you open the door wearing only
stupid shades while reading with an ivory looking glass.
No! I am not lying to you.
There was a time when life was peacefully secure and placid,
back when the pleased and complacent skies seemed bluer,
safer than today’s chemical shroud impregnated by ejaculating jets,
35 thousand feet above the mad wasteland of spiritual coma;
The pulling dying aimless road to wherever your body is traveling to,
Is now a long coursing road paved with the fallow stones of fear.
These bloody sunsets have a raspy roar heard only in the death pits,
The final hors d'oeuvres served with croutons and screaming dramas;
There is now no turning down the forgotten deserted side streets,
hidden by shady oleander trees wearing bonnets of poisonous fire.
No! I am not lying to you.
Awareness floods my veins
The eyes are open now
Truth fills the soul,
Rushes into the hidden corners
Revelations fall into place
Snap to attention
Like dominoes or perfect solitaire
Razors chilled to freezing
Slice my mind,
Galvanize my sight
While ice claws my lungs---
Breath slowing to a ragged rattle,
I can't think,
I can only write my reactions
To my crucifixion
At your unwitting hands---
Sometimes the pain isn't so blatant.
Sometimes it's subtle shadings,
Intricate turnings of pink---
Lace bonds that constrict
Gently, slowly about the heart...
Unnoticed until they've caused pain for some time.
By then they've cut too deeply,
Become too embedded to remove.
Don't get me wrong---
In some veiled, perverse way,
I enjoy it---
I enjoy learning nothing
From my mistakes---
Did You Learn Anything?
Go ahead.
Put your shoes on.
Walk outside and face the nervous day.
Know that your lungs will not resist you.
Know that your heart will still stir.
Put the key in the ignition.
Now turn the crank.
You are back there now.
As if in a dream so ordered.
It is 1937 on Hoover Street.
The oleanders are bleeding.
Perfumed orange trees spit white loogies.
Clean children emerge from green digs.
Mothers hang clothes on uncomplaining lines.
Your grandmother is back there.
She’s wearing black reptile oxfords.
Go ahead.
Walk down the long gravelly driveway.
Pass the back porch steps there.
Pass the red-blooming bougainvillea.
There she is, alive again as she was.
Unfurling laundry with old clothespins.
Singing an old Salvation Army song.
Go ahead.
Talk to her.
Tell her who you are.
“Baba. Baba, it’s me,
Your surviving grandson, Harry.
I wanted to tell you,
I am a poet now.
An engineer of the human soul.
A standard-bearer for the mad,
Dressed in mindful metaphor.
You look young despite the goiter,
There inside your sinewy neck.
It appears and seems as if,
The goiter is a python at sleep,
Scrunched up inside there,
All rolled up like kneaded bread.
I hope it doesn’t hurt you.
I come from the future, Baba.
I know that sounds crazy, but
I am visiting from the year 2020.”
The world of my time screams
In lockdown, like medieval Europe,
People of every nation and tongue,
Too afraid to emerge from their walls,
Too fearful of even breathing in,
Imbibing in, with lost enthusiasms,
Mountain fresh air from the antipodes;
Fearful of catching and releasing It - the
Corona Virus monster microbe moving
Silently across the terrified landscapes,
Devouring the cool mornings,
Aside the neon evenings, even
Robbing the noon day of hopeful turnings.
“Baba, can I stay here with you,
In this golden simple time of 1937?
May I remain here now,
A happy and relieved rider,
Astride this awful depression horse?”
Go ahead.
It is time to return.
Baba died in 1963 and cannot hear you.
Turn the key off in the ignition.
You are back now where you belong.
It is 2020 in the United States of America.
Baba is sleeping in the graveyard now.
You are being held hostage by a germ.
Kick your shoes off now and think.
Did you learn anything?
Cozy and snug
with a book by the fire
and with candlesticks lit
a cup of tea at the ready
the deep-cushioned chair
is my refuge tonight
a purring cat
and crackling logs
a mantel clock
ticking away
marking the moments
that I sit here and read
and dream through my book
as words come and go
weaving their printed spells
calling me deeper
into a world somewhere far
a world I once knew
and want to know
again and again
the lamp on the table
shines upon pages
yellowed with age
worn with thousands
of constant turnings
with eager hands
wanting to get
to the next chapter
and the next adventure
and the next moment
of comforting satisfaction
as I sit here and read
hours pass like minutes
and minutes like hours
time is useless
and numbers on clocks
have lost their effect
for the stories
bound in gilded leather
and printed on presses
of yesteryear
have tales to tell
memories to share
secrets to reveal
to those who listen
and listen carefully
with their eyes
and from the depths
of their being
as I sit here and read
consumed by
carefully crafted
sentences
and paragraphs
that lead onward
like a journey
that has no end
for it is the pleasure
of exploring
and eking out
the hidden gems
of syllables and words
that were conjured
eons ago as if
out of thin air
and into sounds,
shapes and meanings
that fell onto paper
and were given birth
by ink, sweat,
visions and forms
as I sit here and read
and sip from the cup
and sip from the book
that nourishes
my longings
to know about
all that is known
and unknown
between cover to cover
never noticing
the sun rising
or the sun setting
behind drawn curtains
that keep the world at bay
and my hungry,
searching soul
firmly ensconced
in this deep-cushioned chair
as I sit here and read,
as I sit here and read.
You have seen it all, the good, the bad
Handled crisis soundly for which you are glad
At an age where you can no longer do physical labour
Why not leave behind a legacy of life in all its flavour
Words of wisdom gathered from experience
Few lines of caution to aid those with inexperience
Some words on values which are depleting day by day
Some thoughts to ponder on life and its way
Some memories of mistakes and your learnings
Some memorable memories of sudden turnings
Crises and how you handled it all
Advice on how to avert a fall
One day death suddenly might come
You may not be there to mentor them
Why not leave behind a legacy for them
Many long for someone to guide them
Future generations will gain a lot
Thank you for lessons well taught
13th March 2021
Inspired by
Line Gauthier contest poetry as a legacy
Branches frosted in ice
Wonderland magic waiting in awe to thaw
Pink blossoms ready to surpass hibernation
Spring in their timeless steps
Candle wax waned
The Little Drummer boy back in his box
Wrapped in kind tinsel for resurrection
Illumination darkened
Nutcrackers remain
Shells of Christmas foreshadow and abandoned
Reality calls for beating another lonely retreat
Granny back at the nursing home
Outsourced happiness
Spoon fed dribbles ooze onto parched kerchiefs
The turnings of life confined to a wheel chair
Business fast as usual
Reindeers on holiday
Santa's temporary visa faded and expired
An immigrant nurse from foreign shores
Gives love and caresses
Crossroads once more
New Year is dawning to the spin of the earth
The token Jesus nailed and forgotten leaves
A silhouette on the wall
Another chance wasted
Forgotten resolve scripted in blood and in vain
Soldiers will march again for irreverent fortune
Guns frosted in ice
27th December 2019
Sing standing atop this rolling blue ball
little that we ever hear stays the same.
Spirits of life sound in the wind for all
there is no one else to ignite this flame.
Earth connects with each single living thing
deep within dwells the soylent shaft to strive.
So this truth can universally ring,
sing its song out loudly and feel alive.
Sense our world's center core, pent-up, stone heat;
when will it irrupt, we cannot be sure -
piercing through the crust down below our feet.
By our letting go, we shall all endure.
Learn the turnings of spirit globally
be the balance to be forever free.
108 words 14 lines Sonnet 2/7/23
Tribute to "Spirit of Life", Unitarian hymn.
References made to Buddhist principles of
"oneness", "letting go" and "impermanence"
in the text. Mention of the phrase "Soylent
Shaft" refers to the 1973 movie Soylent Green.
Illustration in colored pencil by G. Gaul
the dreaming of worlds in sympathy
carefully waltzing across the blackness
believing they rule the empty desolation
mapping the turnings and retrogrades
the warnings of lightning in crimson skies
and the accompanying sense of disaster
in the distance forms a fearful silhouette
the evil that at all costs must be avoided
but your legs feel weighted as with stones
and the darkness closes in from all around
changing to the shimmering of the stars
a loud voice asks for another two cents
for the ferris wheel in the sky if you dare
then from a light another voice was saying
time now to get up it's a beautiful morning
For generations raps, taps and table turnings were
the signs of a spirit calling; the ghoul of you trying to
deliver a message - to finish unfinished business and
sleep an everlasting slumber in the clouds above.
The presence of a loved one floated in white light,
apparitions waving at the end of a tunnel bright. Icy mists
hovered around graveyards, phantoms clawing and cawing at
sanctified earth. Spectres clinked chains with warnings dire.
Clocks stopped. Widows wore black. Families, trapped in the
amber of grief, took portraits with their beloved deceased.
A memento of the living.
Now, you just ghost me on Tinder.
Our freedom was movement, not the measure of time.
Until we gathered like slaves for Time's service.
Then imprisoned inside a narrow glass vessel,
Our wandering exchanged for Time's purpose.
We timed soft-boiled eggs on dusty kitchen shelves.
We timed governments on their parliament floors.
We served every countdown except our own release.
Forgotten between turnings, we slowly gathered dust.
Perhaps the glass will crack when our time is done. Perhaps
Father Time will trust another keeper. Perhaps
time-watchers will no longer need our service. Perhaps
they'll scatter us across forgotten beaches.
Where we can belong to wind and tide
once more. Until then we'll
skip down the
slippery
glass
walls.
We'll
squeeze right
through the dry throat
without complaint. Tumbling down
in a stream from one hollow chamber to the next.
Then, barely settling, before our whole world flips over
again. We're condemned to perform to entropy's endless bidding.
We're counting minutes and hours ~ while the hours quietly count on us.
.