Long Updraft Poems
Long Updraft Poems. Below are the most popular long Updraft by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Updraft poems by poem length and keyword.
POETRY…
Poetry – two sticks with which to interrogate a frog, hold up a cardboard box in quest of pigeon’s freedom. A petal-less flower weeping in an early frost, a squirrel hiding acorns he will never find but his offspring will climb. Solitary footprints erased in a sadly silent surf, a seagull screeching at the howling wind. Words elevated on the updraft of unfathomed emotions, falling helplessly into an ever darkening void. A voice scratching across a vast expanse of unshadowed doubt,
forming the shape and soul of a moment. Two hands venturing into the realm of words, reaching ever closer to the thrill of touch, the pain of separation, the ecstasy
of eternity’s now. A flint possessing the power of a conflagration scorching the edges of imagination. A child kissing the wings of a butterfly, laughing at fluttering snowflakes. A lonely street lost in the clutter of windblown debris,
shimmering in the light of swaying street lights, its history clinging to withered branches. The soft grip of an infant telling you “it will be ok”. The sound of a pen confessing, a lover repenting, the laughter of life – crying out. A tepid intimacy shared by unmet lovers – alone yet somehow together.
John G. Lawless
©2/23/2019
Eternal love is considerate, in its presence ~ gliders grace with elegance—Poet
All true and deep love is a sacrifice—Carl Jung
*
As winter’s snow drifts upon the meadows
I await the thaw, *
and the caw of the cockatoo
perched on the magnolia tree branch
White icy avalanche melting, *
nourishing the soil ‘neath the brittle bush
*
As the first cherry blossom blooms
An umbra of blushing pink
A white parrot whistles his tunes
Spring dissipates dark ink laden clouds
Left behind are the remnants
of snow squall shrouds, *
*
Fall's
* cascading
eminence
*
A new moon dawns
To defy autumnal of March
would be to deny
the swans of their elegant arch
Of their everlasting love
for each other, fidelities peace
As peaceful as the dove,
As loyal as geese
*
They roam, lead bird navigator,
social dominance his experience
Holds sway as an avian aviator
Riverboat pilot steering the helm
Like the migratory birds with no homes
find comfort on the majestic elm
In serene and bluest of skies
flocks fly in V forms *
Trailing birds ride an updraft effortlessly
glide along the breeze
While other birds fly aimlessly
Swanning over the hillside with ease
*
Gliding above the oceanside
are the seagulls without any destination
Robins let their tails
just brush the ground
To spat isn’t the mountain quail’s thing
Just charming chit chat *
Or a love song he’ll sing
The parrot in the cherry blossom tree
Elegant, considerate feathered friend so free
The whole world belongs to you
In warmer weathered early Spring
Enslaving Love
by Odin Roark
An eagle rides the updraft
Peering down at the happenings
Man's best friend wags his tail
Hesitantly
A bouquet of flowers seeks the sun
Amidst relationship's cold-draft unrest
A baby simply close its eyes
Rejecting intrusion on innocence
So goes the conspiracy of the have-nots
Guised in sanguine images of love
How few fight back
Accepting the status quo
As contemporary truth
Families
The worst offenders
Politicians strong second
Bossdom at work, close third
Reality dictates
Agendas rule
And agendas are allegiant
To only their own moi
How insipid grows this weed of mind
A torturous maintenance
Made defeatist by default
Rendering but mulch as offspring
Yet
Some of dumb luck
Persevere
Finding somewhere
Antidotes for poison
Perhaps it's the unpolluted glass of water
The walk along a pristine forest path
Sitting on ancient sand
Ocean waters lapping one's feet
Willingness to drink in nature again
Disallowing today's misanthropic trend
To seduce what's left
For some
The echo is fierce
**** me
**** you
Staying Out of Reach-The Siren’s Story
She was a fish out of water, only in the metaphorical sense, for the sea was her song and her home, where she played, where she laid her head, and where she was taught to bite with the most melodic twang, but she loved humanity, and her sisters hated her most excellent voice. They longed to steal it, but it was sealed upon her lips, protected by water nymphs, forever elated.
So, Lydia, stayed away from ships and her murderous sisters.
Her hymn, so poisonous but sublime, poured out like wine upon the salty waters. The great tug and pull of water seemed to work its magic, as it changed tension, oscillation and vibrato. “Bravo!” the waves clapped.
At nightfall, she felt a strong undertow, a manned ship. With a faroff glance, she could see the muscular and tanned crew coming her way. They found her somehow in the deepest sea, supposedly lost to humanity, where Atlantis is submerged.
Lydia lies on her back, stretches her arms to the air, succumbs to the wind and the brutal rain, training her voice upwards, very high.
“The stars beckoned her song to reach the crescent moon.” Her arms become angel wings, white and light; a dove. She sings gently, but immersed, believing that she can reach the heights of heaven and be blessed with broken shackles. Her seashells drop, a maddening medley of updraft is caught.
The moon, like a lover, grabbed her hand, welcomed her aboard. “Why, she wondered, was she born a siren…” The brilliant stars surrounded her, a siren who was tested to her heart’s content. She was at peace, as she was spent.
Each luminary kissed her on the hand or lips or cheek. Her voice stayed sweet, but it was now heavenly and safe from vicious attacks of her sisters, and of herself. Handsome men in fair seas. They smile and cheer the unchartered waters; star-studded skies.
It is a daunting task they ask of me,
Brittle as I am,
A lovely mustard color,
Flitting in the autumn breeze,
Like some Marilyn Monroe of leaves.
They expect me to jump.
The one's that haven't jumped yet.
I've seen they others that have jumped.
Once they hit the ground
They just flop about at best.
Not a good look!
Okay, okay I'm going!
My destiny, they say it is.
There are theories of an updraft.
Shoot you up to higher branch-CHAS!
It happened. I'm falling. Like a leaf.
Cuz I am one.
Oof! Great now I'll flop about like the rest.
This is humiliat-oh here comes a worm
Sliding up my stem in a real
Don't mind if I do manner.
Trying to burrow through
Mmmm--now I get it.
We're all connected.
It's all connected.
I'm not just me.
I'm the whole planet.
What a funny time to learn.
Boisterous clouds are churning, roiling air-mass in warm updraft
Declaring on callous inhabitants of earth, a dark ferocious war
Manifesting malevolent force, imposing anger on spatial norms,
Conspiring with anguished winds to invigorate violent storms.
Colossal is their expanse that threatens the rise of new dawn
Offering a preview of what face of death would encompass
When enraged nature punishes humans for irresponsible acts:
Burning dirty fossil fuels, and decapitating vast forest lands.
Atmospheric inferno defies galactic harmony of equilibrium
Suppressing sun’s orange glow striving to uplift amber horizon,
Shrouding advent of nascent day to teach humanity a lesson
Collaborating with mighty oceans, stirring hurricanes and cyclones.
Overshadowed by the reckless commotion of ghastly gray,
Emerging marigold expression of ascendant tangerine daybreak
Grieves for the lost vegetation and deserted parched terrains,
Thundering a warning to foretell why the birds have already left.
March 28, 2020
Placed 1st: Gif #2 contest by William Kekaula
The air hung swimming with dust motes,
throbbing with heat, wringing the sweat form our pores.
We walked forward through the soup of ages
over trampled grass marked by the passage of buck and doe.
The mounds rose above us massive, looming,
spirit hands brush our cheeks and pull my hair.
The Shaman shushes and shooes.
Enfolded in his arms with prayerful hearts;
following the parted, knee high grass;
moving tentatively upward.
Twin hawks fly overhead, spiraling in the tepid updraft.
An oval depression appears at the crest of the burial mound.
The Kings Mound. Dragon flies buzz
through the static charged ether.
“Naked, naked, do not profane”.
“Naked, naked," the hungry, curious, spirits chant.
“So long have we waited for a vessel of knowing.
So, long, so, long.”
She lay where the doe had lain. He sat as the buck sat vigil.
The Shaman’s eyes scanned the horizon.
The hawks continued their scout.
The sound of the Shaman's flute pierces the atmosphere.
Her pulse races to the cries of Kings.
“So, long, so long.”
Muffled moans melted with the whir of cicada.
With the final throbbing note of the flute
the distant memory of drums;
homage is paid.
She arose the bride of Kings;
blessed by the ancestors
Dawn Flower.
From within the frost frozen bare boarded shed
with its loosely hung zee braced door agape,
the spring light peeked.
Warming the woodsheds King pine planks,
toasting the ten penny nails,
popping the planks to a toe-stubbing height.
Door slamming dashes barefoot
through the obstacle course of cord, tinder, rake and hoe,
to the semi attached outhouse.
Drawers half down, butt bitten by March’s wind,
the two holer waits, lye bucket at the base.
Curled, yellow-brown, newspaper pages from 1890,
the shade of Uncle George’s pipe stained teeth, wiggle in the wind;
as do I when an updraft attempts to speed dry my bottom.
I make a half-assed mad dash to the kitchen door.
Half way there I stop awestruck
at the gapping door to the kitchen garden.
Raspberry red, tit tipped rhubarb buds and stalks,
warmed by the sheltered spring sun set my mouth to drool.
So stands, a waylaid girl child in transit.
The silence in this house has developed a physical weight, settling into the corners where your backpack used to lean against the wall. I find myself standing in the center of your bedroom, the room that once held the chaotic geography of your childhood—the scattered books, the restless energy, the door constantly clicking shut against the world. Now, it is a pristine, clinical space. It feels less like a home and more like a carefully curated exhibit of a person who has already moved on.
I see the robin’s nest in the eaves outside your window, a fragile architectural feat of mud and dry grass. I have watched the mother bird for weeks, her devotion absolute and rhythmic. This morning, the fledglings took their turn. It was not a graceful soaring; it was a desperate, thrashing tumble into the abyss of the garden, a frantic beating of wings against the heavy reality of gravity. I held my breath, terrified they would not catch the wind, that the safety of the nest would be traded for the cruelty of the pavement.
But they caught the updraft. They climbed the air, turning their backs on the only shelter they had ever known to claim a horizon that was never built for them.
The instinct to protect is a tether, but the instinct to fly is a law of nature. I am learning that the most profound act of parenting is the moment you stop being the harbor and start being the shore—watching the vessel pull away until it is nothing more than a dot on the vast, indifferent blue of the distance.
The porch is quiet,
Empty shells left in the eaves,
You are the wide sky.
Butterfly Wing Man
OH …. would I……could I……should I…..????
Write about the butterfly…….and why?
Awakens from his past ---full fledged
while beneath I stand ---still pledged
To hold my ground – on sacred soil
watch his translucent wings uncoil
A gentle breeze his birth ….. updraft
first touch of joy ‘neath fragile craft
Duty bound in ancestry
I envy him his being free
Watch him praise the rising sun
bathe in the heat that I must shun
Nestled in his petaled bed
I see him slowly dip his head
Promises to nature kept
tears for those who never wept
Wings that change the course of time
Wings – that sadly – are not mine.
12/3/2015
submitted to – Write About Butterflies – Poetry contest
sponsor – SKAT A