Lumbering Poems | Examples

Trumpfoolery Skullduggery

You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all the people all of the time—Lincoln

Truth’s a slow lumbering giant
As his fools remain compliant
Lies bite and scurry
To a clueless jury
Nurtured to be spoiled and defiant

THE HEAVYWEIGHT AND THE FEATHERWEIGHT

THE HEAVYWEIGHT AND THE FEATHERWEIGHT
Poem written for Ridiculous Comparisons Poetry Contest, Miranda Hawley, sponsor, July 23, 2025
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There’s the elephant, a lumbering titan, 
a true heavy weight with a heart that beats like thunder,
each footfall a seismic event,
a gentle giant, who with the grace of a ballet dancer
could crush a car if ballet were performed in slow motion
and involved a lot of mud.

Then there’s the hummingbird—a blur of iridescence,
a caffeine- sugar- fueled acrobat, a featherweight warrior
who sips nectar like a drunken poet,
lost in a world of fleeting moments.
It’s a tiny, feathered daredevil,
with the attention span of a gnat.

ice cream is delivered in the park

ice cream cones will be delivered by the gazebo in the park.
We saw a large lumbering thing coming at us in the dark.
It was an ice cream cone delivery man in form of a red dragon.
Carrying four ices at the same time, his tail never dragg’n.

You need a wagon, we told him, a Red Flyer wagon.
Thank you for the tip, he said. He was a super polite dragon.
We had ice cream cones delivered the next night too.
But this time they were delivered by squirrels, we counted sixty-two.

Ode to a Lost Wonder - Apr 3

Crepuscule creeps along the cusp of daylight, 
encroaching duly on the day’s blond glow.
As lumbering dusk steps upon its foe,
Flowing forth spills the wine of sanguine twilight. 

Behind the ruby blush, with runaway light,
a dazzled sky, baffled by the overflow
of effervescent stars, begins to show
the milky way’s great triumph, it’s broad highlight.

And now that night has firmly settled down, 
the radiant band that proudly streaks bright 
across the midnight plains shines grandiose,
adorning heaven’s glorious mane, a crown
of speckled jewels, in its brilliant might,
Pouring out its resplendence, saccharose.

meeting the new guy

Ed is a beast, a bruiser, a big baboon
We expected a lumbering oaf, a goon
Her description had much jocundity
He was quite lovely, as we would soon see
Why did you set us up thinking he was a clown?
I knew when you met him, there’d be no letdown.

SELF PROTRAIT

SELF PORTRAIT
(Apropos Of An Ebon Flashback)

I’m a dark-hued poetic mind,
        Writing mine;
Often inking seemingly empty words
     Bled from pregnant
          Thoughts:-

But even these I want to share;
     Sharing is caring:
	About love;
	 About peace;
	  About freedom;
	   About unborn babes;
	    About the bomb;
And about lumbering shadows of life
         Silhouetting hungry death: 

        YES...

I’m a dark-hued poetic mind,
        Writing mine;
A cranial reservoir dripping
     Spear-tipped words
Dripping long cognitive flows
       Conjuring
         Cosmic
           Consciousness
Defying the cryptic void of silence:-

The inexplicable why

I watched a lorry
coming down the Route de Lesterps.
One of those rumbling lumbering lorries 
that so disturbed your morning sleep
and for an instant, a moment’s thought,
I wanted 
to dash out between our cars
to run into its onrushing path
to come to you
to leave behind the pain
the need to know
to know not the how
but the inexplicable why.
In the end, I stood there
and watched it pass,
I counted the raindrops as they fell
and as time restarted
turned and returned to our home.

Kim Helen James
9:29
7th October 2024

The Scenic View

falling rain, droplet by droplet
pane pain pane
sipping on leaves
fall falling
failing to see

leaves livestock
lumbering, conceited
between the pages
their veins throbbing
as a moppet scribbles

over their bones
with primary colors
heavy-fisted, fat crayons
that melt

into the whirligig
cheek flames
and bright eyes
follow the track

jump into the raked
leaves piled high
aww, rains leaking
inside…pane…pain

child leaves it all behind
the grown kid rounds
Louisiana, not impressed
until Autumn leaves

remind and reminisce
stopping the automobile
in real time…real smooth
New Orleans beckons

but the scenic view
having said, howdy-do
is left behind with the pain
of slippery rain

Ralph - You Are Behind Schedule

Before the marathon began,
I walked First Avenue,
Aware 100,000 feet
Would soon come pounding through.

The do-not-cross tape waited
And the police were getting set
To control the hordes of cheering fans
Who hadn’t gathered yet.

Since some apartments face the street,
Their balconies supply
A place for friends to stand and shout
As runners hurry by.

From one such place, I saw a sign
To jokingly remind
A guy named Ralph, despite his plans,
He’s lumbering behind.

I wish I could have witnessed Ralph
As, passing, he took note,
Of the presence of his buddies
And the message that they wrote.

(The title is what the sign actually said.)

SELF PORTRAIT: APROPOS OF A FLASHBACK

I'm a dark-hued poetic mind
           Writing mine:
Inking navel keloid words
            Water-broken
           From pregnant
               Thoughts 
          
                   YES

But even these I want to share
       For sharing is caring:
         About love
           About peace
             About freedom 
                About babes
                  About bombs
And about lumbering shadows of life
       Silhouetting hungry death

                YES 

I'm a dark-hued poetic mind
          Writing mine
 A cranial reservoir dripping
      Spear-tipped words 
   Dripping cognitive flows
           Conjuring
             Cosmic
         Consciousness
            Defying
        The cryptic
      Void of silence

We didn't have much stuff

We didn’t have much stuff
We weren’t poor
Or so we were told
Ya got one pair of shoes
Maybe sneakers in the summer
A few “hand-me-downs”
A “cold water flat” in the city
An old black cast iron stove
For warming feet in the winter
Had a baseball glove
Which I protected
Treated with oils
A favorite shirt
Which my sister hated
Probably why I liked it so much
We were fed, clothed, warm(?)
In my early twenties
All, and I mean ALL
Of my “stuff”
Fit into my VW bug
Including the black and white TV.
Today, I have a truck
All my stuff will fit into it
(if I leave my wife at home)
The cuffs and collars
Of my flannel shirts are frayed
My jeans faded in mysteries
I have a lot of NEW stuff
Y’know, like memories
Of kids and grandkids
Stealing my flannel shirts
Lumbering around in my work boots
So, I guess I have a lot of stuff now
It will still fit into a VW bug
For I carry it in my heart
And dream of it at night.

Replaced

Lumbering bulldozers grind 
and rip trees and shrubs
from the empty lots, competing
with gas fumes, the noise 
of trucks, and honking horns 
on the busy thoroughfare.

Two gracious houses,
once precious home to families, 
but long abandoned 
and fallen into disrepair,
smashed to kindling,  
hauled away for scrap

Just up the grassy hill
behind our senior residence,
we’ll watch another
commercial business go up.
Recent car wash on the corner,
now another bank? Fast food?

Alongside our apartments, 
in the past, a Christmas tree farm,
sweet smelling pines replaced
with roads and new homes,
manicured lawns and two-,
sometimes three-car garages.

Countryside eaten away
by ever-increasing population
with insatiable desire for the 
shiny, new, bigger and better,
for the quick and easy, 
immediate convenience.

Afternoon teas exchanged for
socially beneficial cocktail parties.
Casual-, even sports-wear, in
the finest restaurants, rudeness
and boorish comments the norm, 
“Gracious” suffering a slow death.

The Deceased Man

The false apparatuses are presented on the tiny stage,
The surgeons want to shape up your archaic days.
The larger your poisons are,
The more lethal is their care.

You only care for the austere suggestions,
I want to undergo your sweeping portions.
I want to shake your hand in between infinity,
You want to pull me through this lumbering calamity.

I am another deceased man in this war,
Can you recall the black October?
There is so much rapture in the grave,
You only yearn to be brave.

You are now in a favoured hell,
I want to conjure you back and well.
I want to bring back my old salvation,
Where you were the most cataclysmic passion.

I beg you to wait for me in the uninhabited cave,
I will converge with you soon where you are already paved.
You are situated in your befitting place,
There is awaiting you the perpetual grace.

Halloween Sidewalk

The world had gone mad, all the people had flipped
I glared at a window where blood and gore dripped
Folk wandered blindly, their eyes hanging out
And bats big as rats seemed to flit all about

Two nuns and a vicar with vampire fangs
Lurked under the tree where a skeleton hangs
A haggard old hunchback went lumbering by
A rat riding high on the stake in his eye

Green men with stitches and bolts through their necks
Gargoyles enduring some terrible hex
A madman was strutting the strut of the dead
While clutching the arrow that’s right through his head

A witch reached out for me and that’s when I fled
I ran to my house and cried out, “They’re all dead!”
The door opened wide and my dad’s hair was red
“Look Son, I’ve got a big axe in my head.”

Earth Was My First Breath of Air

Earth was my first breath of air
My spirit crashed, I landed there

I gasped and took my first deep breath
Bursting from the watery depths

Lumbering up in flames I raged
And sucked the oxygen from air

Then plunged into a lake of fire
To quench the thirst of my desire – 

Oh, battered spirit, bruised and burned!
You never knew, you never learned!

Earth was your first breath of air
Your spirit lives, is living there –

• Short Lumbering Poems
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