Long Unready Poems

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


Premium Member The Chair Peddler

A man reached me at the market that day.
He lifted two handcrafted seats on his head.
He urged, "Won't you buy my chairs?" Today.
Nobody took my chairs. All moved instead.

I recall helping others with daily duties in life.
If you find a poor partner, avail him in strife.
None are so flush that they might not borrow.
The fate of the poor may be our lot tomorrow.

Look, these are the best things I have made.
Please buy my seats. I slum my children frayed.
He seems gloomy. This person is my age.
Words nag me. I gave him cash and change.

I echo helping others, even when being mean.
Do not judge your pal's deep suspicions, lean.
No fine, people can avoid shame or misery.
Lift others in the race for a swathe of glittery.

I replied, "I need one seat, but sell the rest."
Kids are waiting, and I wish you all the best.
Thrusting his hands to pray, I was unready.
For me, it was an incomer with tears already.

I never lost the venting of the chair salesman.
It may not be a lot to exalt others when we can.
If it turns on a brother, do not let envy ruin it.
We pray for each other's rightness, joy, and grit.

Written: November 28, 2022
© Sotto Poet  Create an image from this poem.
Form: Rhyme


Premium Member Life's Timeless Driftwood

Life’s Timeless Driftwood

Peering back at the shadow stretching,
continuance knows well the peaceful silhouettes from horizon's light,
ancestral sequences having frequented one’s shore many times.

All is as it has been.

One’s longevity holds firm,
like isolated fingers protruding in protest
from sequestered driftwood blanketed by sand,
unready to move on,
just yet.

Just as sandpipers scavenge wet bubbles along the beach,
furtively running zigs and zags,
avoiding swooping wings overhead,
we too avoid termination,
with luck.

Destiny continues to lap the shore,
its gentle hands tugging
into tomorrow’s warm waters.
man’s stubborn endurance.

So mighty…

This evolving limbed-strength,
accepting of journey’s tempest,
willing to ready again for the next leg of one’s odyssey.

Even as…

White caps thunder applause,
at the elongated shadow of remaining branches
fading into the day's dusk,
signaling a tide ready to lift
to carry to the next shoreline and beyond.

Roots have withered,
growth's ever changing leaves and bark
have become morsels of love and loss,
an existence mixing peacefully toward ghostly remnants.

At some point…

The water rises,
the fiber and strands of resistance soften,
dissolving into a new connection
as birth's salt and brine prepare the next iteration,
the next surge upward,
another tenacious wave of purpose
exploding its final power
into a mist imploring remembrance
before the oneness of completion
cycles again into its new existence.

Such is the gift of time and space,
the requisite condition for permanence,
where presence once created
evolves unfettered in perpetuity.
© Odin Roark  Create an image from this poem.

Fly Home to Our Nest

In time an arms length away

I flew into the bird cage

Seeking a nest, following the others

As we connected and made it homely

The bars changed into windows

And doors 

Then a place where we were all happy, together

Now, after two years of friendships, new and old

The cage-turned-community, near-sighted

Closed its eyes and turning away from the inevitable 

Then the day hit 25 

Everyone, dressed up

Dancing our hearts away

Turning blind eyes to the looming warmth of hottest season

Then the lights turned on

And the music stopped

Our hearts stopped too

Our eyes losing their lids, forced to witness the end

Our hearts, reminiscing 

One by one, each bird left the nest, heavy-hearted

All unready, some with resignation, some with acceptance, to migrate so soon

Some flapping off together in search of new things

Others flying off to new nests

Even some soaring off alone

Leaving the hollowed nest

For the next generation to find and transform

So even if we meet new birds and find a new nest

We will never forget Our Nest

Premium Member In the Moments - 2

There are moments
When I don’t know how to pray
There are moments
When I don’t know what to say
There are moments 
When doubt and worry get in the way
There are moments
When I can’t see the light of day

These quiet moments
When silence echoes on my soul
These dark moments
When despair forms a sinkhole
These pensive moments
When worries seem to control
These sober moments 
When love is the only thing to console

That is the time – the moments
When I feel like my heart is greedy
For the love and joy and peace
That colors me in hues that are so needy
For the light that falls on my spirit
Pulling me through all those unready
Things that bring my heart strife
Like a garden who is flourishing but weedy

These are the moments when I cry
Because my heart is so filled with doubt
That I linger in the temptation to strive
For the comfort and relief poured out
From a heavenly Father who knows my sorrow
And fills me with inspiration all about
The wonder and beauty of His love and peace
The light that lingers inside with a shout
Of joy that comes from finally knowing
God is alive, pouring out rain across the drought

These moments come to remind me why
I have a peace amid the worry I can’t deny
That is the reason why I always try
To hold onto the One who always will supply
Hope, faith and unending grace that will dry
All of my tears with a love on which I can rely
Form: Rhyme

The Homeless

The homeless are not unskilled.  
The homeless are not unlearned.  
The homeless are not indolent.  
The homeless are not lackluster.  
The homeless are not those unready to embrace the dawn.  
The homeless are not hesitant to walk into the daylight.  
The homeless are not feeble or sleep-drunk.  
They are not oblivious to the voice that speaks in the tranquil night.  
The homeless are not afraid to journey into the unknown.  
They are not uncalled or undesirous of a new beginning.  
They are not frail-gifted.
They are the unprivileged.  
They are those who have faced unfortunate circumstances.  
They are the voiceless.  
They are armed but unshielded.  
They are a dim light waiting to shine.  
They are those in the depths of the stygian night.  
They are those seeking the stars to illuminate their long night.


December 31, 2025.


Premium Member Richard Wilbur

I found Richard today -
November the Third.
Isn’t that just like Richard?

I don’t know.
I can’t say.
He died a fortnight-plus ago.
I never knew him.
I never gave him time.
To know me.
To show me.
How to know me.
And by him, through me,
perhaps to know him.
And you.

He is no longer a Thing of This World.

Our second laureate,
my latest regret.
And I’m late to even this:  coming to regret
my being late to come to him.
To come to his.
And now it's come to this.
It’s come to he’s gone.

I’m settled into the far-back;
into a window seat,
of my own making
on a love airline,
not of my own making -
or buying.
Though, its true, we don’t buy our seats.
We lease our place.
And when another pays
the costs are borne by all,
all the same.
Everyone pays for their place,
And their time in their place.

I finally sorted my self into a sort of place -
this seat; but also this head-space to write
to Richard.
I’ve no connection to the far below world,
despite the gregarious partygoers strewn all around 
the nearby seats.
I’m thirty-three thousand feet up and I’m up above the Sandia 
which is another mile up.
So, call it 40 K.

No signal and its days after I began this poem,
which was begun a remorseful dozen few years
after I might’ve opened myself to whatever this
obit. writer wrote.  What he lent the world.
No, what he gave.  He lent the world his place in it.
He left his poetry.  A sole Lasting in the Everlasting
Never Lasts.  Nothing Lasts, they say.
So, now that I am ready  (Itself an insult to the man.)
I fly, in joy, through skies and find I am yet again
Unready.  Remorse is the microscopic stress fracture in
the airplane wing.
Enough distance, enough disconnect, enough stress.
and the Whole Thing comes apart.

I already regret what I never once met.

Vocabulist Nonalcoholic Punchdrunk Stupor January 1st 2020

Vocabulist nonalcoholic punchdrunk stupor January 1st, 2020

Unlike the vast population swath,
with painful hangover
average celebrant merely
doth confusedly blink,
who devoutly pledge
new year resolution
to give up drink
immediately fall off wagon

as he/she eagerly downs
shot after fermented shot
while forearms link
with family, friends,
strangers, et cetera
and immediately rethink
alcoholics anonymous pledge
gamely nod and playful wink.

Yours truly (me) never found
wasted, soused, besotted,
et cetera alone
and/or with round
of best buddies real,
and/or imaginary

nor got stone drunk crowned,
(cuz never did I make
friends - no lie),
plus never felt compunction
to quaff hard inebriant
(think booze hound)
life as extremely gawky introvert

(think long haired
pencil necked geek)
preferred company of books
with cute button nose bound
between pages, this theme
I could expound

till cows come home to roost
after bovines well rested
from their sound
sleep unready and unwilling
to confront battleground
(think slaughterhouse five),

thus beef rendered me, we clowned
and hoofed up memories
promising each other pound
for pound, we would stand our ground
never freeload, mooch, sponge...

nor EVER succumb to the bottle
no matter how hardbound,
especially when attaining rough-age
older not necessarily wiser
if necessary resorting and astound

ding farmer in the dell
to Diet of Worms smellbound
while reenacting Holy
Roman Empire called
back in the hay day -1521
courtesy Emperor Charles V

offering sobering admission
lips ne'er taste amber and/or clear
liquids of the gods, no matter
believe me you reader hopefully
aforesaid confession doth not dumbfound.

Premium Member Who Are You

Who Are You

What is your name?
Is it a crime to speak it out, loud?

Will someone come, 
from somewhere to here…
because we are too piercing, 
even as we whisper? 

The name of God. 
The holy name of the Lord. 
Places they kill you just to breathe,
the air of a new idea.

Love over hate, 
Weapon-ized by deceivers that draw out, 
those they can beat on, in front of others.
The world watches, as many are marched away. 
Cells waiting, what else is in store?
Death surely. 

Silence the voice, 
of truth, before others hear.
Keep it in a box, 
so all will fear.

You are foolish. 
It is like water and finds a way. 
You can not stop the living stream. 
It moves across the land, 
one soul to another, 
Until “He” comes.

Those unready,
will drown.


Written, thinking of Hong Kong. 
Prayers for those that were marched off into the darkness. 
China ... all eyes are upon you... 
You rose on the backs of others, 
now we will see, 
if you mean to break them, 
or thank them?
© Ann Foster  Create an image from this poem.

Awaiting My Modified Pea Nile Sent Tense

No way to dodge fiat decreeing death sentence 
for this rambling man
cheesy alias con commit tented mouse élan
Who felt unready to kick the can
On account of violating ban

Against abominable illegal mandate
With no way to commute death sentence
For the simple act of voicing opinion 
against exist of heavenly gate
Of hellish underworld 

despite religious opiate decreeing penance
Spurious pedagogical poetic rant
dialed up x telephonic times
Not the ravings of some half mad lunatic

Carefully plotted recitation 
that springs from combined teachings of Kant
And jolly old Saint Nick
Charges trumped up per this average trump petting don

Purportedly blaspheming judeo-christian paradigm
Upending blind faith equated with hill of beans upon
Which dogma erected epitomized
by complex edifices via grime

Sweat and tears from slave labor 
where usurpation of freedom won
Until outspoken spokes persons risked life and limb
To invalidate the existence 

of supreme deity who created life
Whether for extra credit or perhaps on a whim
Adam from whose rib cage 
without anesthesia but razor sharp knife

Sported eve with a physique quite pleasing and trim
But rather than get lost in the Garden of Eden myth
Final seconds of existence tick away
Without intent to recant statements 
?
solely acceptable to b’ni brith
Prompting last words of mine as oye vay
With no regrets - deeming heart of religion flimsy as pith
Thing in the wind or house of cards 
vulnerable to blow away!

There Is Honey

Butter the toast, butter knife, bread.
blue plate, no sunlight, short-sighted blue night,
electric rings of silence.

Breakfast is slow,
not that hungry but there is honey
and I am lonesome in a tired body.

Soon, hands will press the tabletop,
will rise up, push up to lace-up walking shoes,
enter the coming light
that unsteady, unready light
with its slippery yo-yo gleams,

enter it all; the concrete hills,
the leaf and branch, the cast-up legs
of the still twitching,
the buoyant tumbling of the living,
the pumped-up throats
of the starry-eyed singers,

enter it fully, growing less unlikely,
enter myself as an unrepentant prodigal son
returning home.

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