Long Vertical Poems
Long Vertical Poems. Below are the most popular long Vertical by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Vertical poems by poem length and keyword.
Lo, silver strand vertical
from chest to chest
you doth go
exhale the breath of God
breath of life from His mouth
inhaled to the lungs of of human host
LO! YON SILVER STRAND OF Life-
lovely is the dawn of day
creation has be established
arise young man
go out and name every animal and mammal
Rejoice in the joys of what God gave
creation is all His
longevity of life depends on our wills
the more obedient the longer we live
LO! YON SILVER STRAND OF Life-
At best we be sinners saved by grace
To live some three score and ten
Lo, silver cord
When God cuts the tie
This is when you shall physically die
L0! yon silver strand of life
Sent back to heaven, now everything alright
2/3/20
Written words by
James Edward Lee Sr. 2020©
That rambling castle across the landscape bewitched my heart
As though divinity has signed, gorgeous is its art.
Are the cherubims relaxing, spreading out their legs and hands?
Are these archaic, ornate boulders on mountainous strands?
Cave-like, carved curvy corridors crookedly coil around
Vertical and horizontal length, width, and depth rebound
Celestially thrill-filled, airy arrays in sunlit style
Are Hephaestus and Athena spreading a sapphire smile?
Points, lines, planes, volumes, and magnitude speak tonnes of volumes.
Are these flawless frills and folds parts of angelic costumes?
Gloriously intricate, cosy carvings, and wide wings
Brim-fill with cosmically grace-filled mimetic mouldings
These sprawling, spreading, sturdy structures seem to symbolise
Incomprehensibly divine marvels that synthesise
Short, long, sharp, and blunt; straight and twisted mortal existence
That draws, from the spiritual source, its soul sustenance.
You see them parked by the base lodge,
often still in the bright of day,
big, tracked machines that will ensure
the snow is nice when you come to play.
A wide-arced plow across the front,
and broad tank-treads on either side,
large windows mounted high above
in the cabin where people drive.
A roto-tiller on the back,
or a long and carpet-like sweep,
with weight to crush through any crust,
to find the ice, then slay and reap.
Most skiers just call them groomers,
though that word has…connotations,
and every day (save powder days)
we show our appreciation.
Turning a lumpy, windblow mess
into the smoothest corduroy,
grinding blue ice to granular
so it no longer can annoy,
and crushing through the skiers bane,
the woe we call ‘breakable crust.’
These vertical Zambonis do
make it quite nice for all of us.
They started as such little things,
truck-sized with triangle tracks,
they lacked the weight and lacked the tech
to mount that much of an attack.
But they grew into behemoths
that still can turn fast, on a dime,
only once have I ridden one,
shocked by the smoothness of the ride.
Though they sometimes smell of diesel,
and come as shocks to novices,
most skiers soon are thankful for
all of the service that they give.
Be it carving out halfpipe walls,
pushing big snow piles around,
lugging skiers to back-country,
or smoothing the bunny slope down;
it’s all thanks to this big machine
bringing all the white stuff to heal,
and yes, I’ve asked, their insurance
won’t let customers take the wheel…
The sky has climbed over
its usual low cloud cover,
today it is high, blue and vertical
with no hand holds,
those places for the eye to cling to.
In the city we don't get 'big sky'
we get pencil thin shafts
that sweep the dust off ledges,
we have foot-slogging
staircases and elevations.
where the sky cannot rise beyond
one last viewless window.
Far below
upon those hemmed-in streets
some seem forced to grow
into hybrid creatures
that must suck upon
each other's fears.
There are trees, a few stretch and reach
like mountain climbers,
yet all that high air above us is not reassuring,
it creates a feeling of smallness,
our arms too paltry to grasp the infinite.
Mostly we give no thought
to the sheer narrowness of it all,
and so with only these
manmade clifftops to jump from
it's no wonder some choose to leap.
My brain spots are pastel dots
that always fight with my stripes
over who is left and who styles right.
It’s bad enough that my stripes
also argue with each other,
not over their primary color,
but vertical décor versus horizontal.
My brain top is invisible,
not even shadows of minimal.
Brain designers concur it is not fixable.
In the back, well-stashed,
is a golden memory cache
guarded by a spot named Brat.
Small Brat drags a key most tall
and selfishly guards my recall.
Floating, flying, gliding free
is a silver-toned, sprite fairy
who sparkles imagination in me.
Fairy will not argue, just avoid,
my fuzzy brain, logic droid
who climbs over my stripes
and around all my brain dots
attempting to fill and deploy
smarts into all my brain voids.
The Stained Glass of the Other Realm
On the extremely blue sky float the heavy orange globes,
through their transparency the stained glass shows maps of the unusual realm,
the almighty slowness walks us on the vast harmonious racetrack,
the explosion of sun washes our aprons thrown scattered over extinguish.
Between the stunning state of event and the light that breaks fragile
our echoes recompose themselves in air like eternal birds,
the locals panic seeing the distant gray silhouettes
that grow vertically four hundred meters like sheet metal glaciers.
The birds with bird profiles don't float but stand frozen above,
wings tightly pressed cut from thick vertical sheet metal plates,
above their crowns moves a whirl of feathers that doesn't fall,
the speed of their freezing surpasses the desperate rush of pigeons.
They swallow the flock without budging from their glacier of air,
since they never look us in the eyes they might ignore us always,
the orange globes through which we see the other transparent realm
refresh us with explosions of sun that wash the heavy aprons.
In the rest of time nature is enchanting and full of frozen,
the harmonious racetrack floats through the almighty living slowness,
the stained glass shows maps of the world where birds stand vertical motionless,
the stunning event is a fragile luminosity that never goes out.
I am a bird in space
despite not having my wings depicted
I possess strength, speed, and vigor,
coupled with delicate beauty.
I give the notion of gliding.
My hidden inner, reality, is devoid of all individual features.
I am a bird, a sleek abstraction of flight,
my form is as intrinsic as Nature itself.
It suggests grace, aspiration,
in the spirit of, potency, and yet beauty,
just as any bird does.
As suggested in my ability, I extend through soaring air,
that draws to eternity of flight through the skies.”
Smooth and polished in my reflective luminosity.
So elegant and vertical, is my subtle tapering form
and symmetrical outline,
the very essence of my creation.
Through time extended and the climax strikes, I am more than nine feet tall.
Expressing nuanced evolutions, I have grace, in the spirit of freedom.
A wave of energy vaulting up from the ground
with an inspiring upward accelerating motion.
Everything represents something, even if it only represents itself.
Our first TV, a Mullard, maybe Murphy, black and white
five minutes for it to warm up, and it smelt of Bakelite,
the back was made of hardboard punched with rows of tiny slots
which cast a reddish glow when all the valves were getting hot.
The space left at the back was there, since I was five years old
to squeeze behind and then adjust the horizontal hold.
The vertical one was a pain as Mum sat with a frown
as I twiddled the knob and watched her head move up and down.
The reward for all my efforts when I got the jumping stopped
was fifteen minutes watching 'Bill and Ben' or 'Woodentops'.
Today it's auto tuning, LCD and big flat screen
with symbols on the bottom edge, still don't know what they mean.
No local man to fix it should the thing pack up and die,
it's Mishti on the phone from a call centre in Mumbai.
The reason there's no picture and the sound quality's poor?
The thing's so light, the Cat has gone and knocked it on the floor.
Clustered cactus trees sprawling, reclining in the summer heat
where agile pollinators dart among gorgeous silky blooms.
Day by day the prickly pear fruit swell and mature.
Already the mind conjures visions of red,
magenta, pink, yellow and white.
thriving on spring rain
deep-rooted fantasy
mellifluent desires
Experience has shown that the best time to pick prickly pears
is early morning before the sun’s rays become too hot.
A steady half turn with thumb and forefinger
gently releases the ripened fruit.
The bucket soon fills up.
dewy prickly pears
at break of day
impotent thorns
Rinsed under running water, the fruit waits to be disrobed.
Both ends of each fruit are cut off with a sharp knife,
followed by a long vertical slice along its body.
The thick skin is then peeled back, the
fleshy coloured fruit revealed.
prickly pears
in a glass bowl
naked temptation
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Contest: “Haibun”
Sponsor: Cecelia Hopkins-Drewer
©17th July, 2017
ALL ABOUT THE LIPS
He has seen her before
But today he saw her for the first time.
She walked his way
Her smile and laugh carried across the field
The field was freshly cut
The aroma of fresh-cut spring grass,
Frisbee throwers jumping, catching, laughing
Light breeze and warm sun,
Everybody smiles with happiness.
Beautiful day as she bounced up the stairs.
Getting warmer by the minute
Her bright glossed lips show their luscious fullness.
Like Heinz ketchup out of a bottle
Slow with anticipation, he fantasized about her.
They locked lips. Oh, those horizontal lips!
Lips finding each other repeatedly
Tongues started flicking
He stopped to breathe.
Imagining her full natural mounds,
Her moist vertical silky covered lips.
Man’s desirable dreams.
She walked by bringing him back to reality
As he watched her walk away
He smiled, going back to reading his Nook.