Long Slouches Poems
Long Slouches Poems. Below are the most popular long Slouches by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Slouches poems by poem length and keyword.
Hare trigger instincts
always served Roger well
He had an oh, no-no lettuce nose —
a hyper-keen sense when to leave
Roger was rabbit good
at knowing when
to skip out on his responsibilities
Before bedtime stories
would end afoul, he could always tell
the impending sour cabbage signs —
The ***** scent in the air pregnant with crisis ...
rabbit feet had better odds,
than a roll of the dices
Women said he was a tricky daddy dodger,
his friends said it was in his DNA
The court affidavits said his name was Roger,
the summons said he wouldn’t pay
Those hare trigger instincts
always served Roger well
Pearl hip handles, he loved to caress
Hop aboard a bullet train,
when the bad news got belly swell
Twitchy nose rabbit hole escape
was his poker face tell
But one determined Alice
didn’t give
the baby carrot carriage subject a rest
Roger got tortoise marriage cold feet,
half-hearted turnip turtle vows
was his delay strategy best guess
Women said he was a tricky parent draft dodger,
his friends said it was in his rabbit DNA
The court affidavits all said his name was Roger,
the arrest warrant said he wouldn’t pay
Roger has good long hare instincts,
he’s Copperfield cool ... a Houdini Blondie
Angel Eyes bad you better not blink,
every time your back is turned, he gon flee
So deadbeat ugly he’s just a Tuco-hearted rat,
a kid welsher ain’t no rabbit doubt about that
The rabbit in his blood,
is simply hop-along run away DNA
He love to cabbage patch play,
but he hate to bacon lettuce pay
Women said he was a tricky daddy dodger,
his friends said it was in his DNA
The court affidavits said his name was Roger,
the summons said he wouldn’t pay
Roger don’t like
looking at paternity suits,
it just give him the Dodger blues
Rabbits don’t care
to stay in one place too long ...
in a standstill
That just ain’t how their feet DNA think
And those angry Alices kangaroo purse pouches,
holding those court-ordered papers unfriendly ...
they be pushing the Dodger to the brink
Roger’s an absentee parent wearing slipper slouches —
Hopping-mad child support check is an empty
Cassidy signature signed in invisible ink
The morning sun’s oppressive; a nasty b*tch in heat on Rizal Avenue,
Where vendors hawk their cigarettes, baloot, and dog meat barbecue.
The jeepneys buzz the intersection like a hornet’s nest,
But it’s quiet down the mountain once the stone has come to rest.
Olongapo is waking. Magsaysay Drive gives up its dreams.
It’s six AM in Subic Bay, Republic of the Philippines.
A sailor slouches back to base, hung over and depressed,
But it’s quiet down the mountain once the stone has come to rest.
His head is stuffed with sawdust. His mouth’s as dry as peanut shells.
Last night he guzzled mojo on top of all those San Miguels.
At midnight he responded to the curfew’s harsh request,
But it’s quiet down the mountain once the stone has come to rest.
Been a year since he’s been stateside, a year since he’s been home.
Just another duty station, and another port to roam.
When he hears a stand-up comic, he reacts indifferently;
He lost his sense of humor on the South China Sea.
He’d picked a girl named Cora, and booked an air-conditioned room.
He’d paid her fifty pesos to revel in her raw perfume.
He spoke a few Tagalog words, but she was not impressed,
And it’s quiet down the mountain once the stone has come to rest.
He held her like he knew her; embraced her warm skin tenderly.
His dreams were of Missouri; his nightmares, of the open sea.
He’d found a lonely refuge with his hand upon her breast,
And it’s quiet down the mountain once the stone has come to rest.
A new day brings its promise of beauty and of poverty;
Of cockfights in the province, and monkeys in the mango tree,
But Subic is a working port, and work must be addressed.
Still, it’s quiet down the mountain once the stone has come to rest.
Been a year since she divorced him; a year since she’s been gone,
Just another disappointment, and another West Pac dawn.
If he laughs, it’s nothing funny; it’s the sound of irony.
He lost his sense of humor on the South China Sea.
And that chip upon his shoulder’s like that ancient, fabled boulder;
He’s a victim of his own mythology.
His granite form against blue skies
Rippling on the bulging eye, wild waves
Of muscles the netting cloud defies
Reason in concrete, his pride raves
In self glory of athleticism, what a gem
Hard and shadowed without a diadem.
I know that man, I lived inside him
Long ago, slurping applause like a child
Incomplete in potrait, morally dim
About the treasures I often defiled.
That man is just a screen of muscled skin
A pampered fear that won't give in.
He will not cry, because he was taught
It's wrong for boys to show emotions
His destiny by a web of lies once caught
Leaves him lonely, old aspirations
Become wrinkled raisins in the callous sun
Manhood and wood subterfuge the pun.
Tired of being told he cannot become
From school to dull signs of no vacancy
I hears the sirens penning his freedom
He looked for himself, found no legacy
In history or family achievement that will
Stand up to the praise of gatekeepers ill.
He feeds his hungry urges into children
Fatherless because his woman must think
She cannot balance her budget with heaven
And for welfare cheque he's o'er the brink
Thrown, used, demonized, discarded, weak
Now, no virile glory left in love to seek.
He turns to her helpless in his helplessness
Angry with the impotence of history
Mute before her need to have forgiveness
The saddled statue slouches into misery.
You know him too, the black man, proned
Against pale paperbag of evening, stoned.
In Africa he was redeemed by mother, queen
When things fall apart, in America his old
Structures uprooted, he cannot be weaned
Of the nurture that never existed. The mold
Upon his life is history, and only the lover
Carrying the cross can be another redeemer.
Look at him like a child asleep after his spawn
Of delapidated family and garrots of dream
Only ego keeps muscle bulging under the brawn
The heart is mute, and pride wil not scream
For pain though like a white cataract it drowns
Him. How still the victim 'fore the victor frowns!
Day Mind
Night Mind
A door is open.
Through the doorway,
I see a wall weakly
illumined.
A distorted shadow slouches,
menacingly along it.
I close my eyes,
my toes grip
the carpet.
I do not want to see,
what I despairimgly
believe will be,
the cause of
my demise.
Hot exhalation flows
over my face.
I fear it.
Surely it must
be the breath
of what I am certain
will do me harm.
Human nature activates.
My toes grip?
A surface hard.
I open my eyes.
I am on
the edge of
a canyon.
The heated air
is nature’s respiration.
I feel under me,
the ground backsliding.
I see the approaching
drop off.
I cannot resist the
movement.
I am suspended in space.
My toes grip?
Nothing.
I look skyward.
My body rotates,
and I am looking
at the Canyon wall.
I close my eyes.
My only defense,
not knowing,
when I will impact.
My toes grip?
Wet sand, the earth’s
breath is ocean fresh.
Roaring waves approach,
enveloping me.
Sea creatures surround me,
swimming intently, guided,
by internal apps,
downloaded at birth.
Finny predators nudge
my swirling torso.
I am rising.
Surfacing in a bath tub,
a rubber duck,
bobs in unison
with a toy boat.
I struggle out of
my fiberglass container.
The child I was
glares at me,
from a mirrored door.
Then steps into the room,
and shoves me.
Stumbling backwards,
I grab a rope,
and swing into,
an aluminum tree forest.
All the
owls, sound like
Santa Claus.
Multi-color pine cones,
hang glistening, with
fake frost.
My logic app,
responds to challenge,
my senses.
Impossible situation alerts,
detours further
dream distortions.
In my mind,
one more apparition.
A charcoal whale,
inhales the output
of my Night Mind.
My Day Mind
exudes endorphins.
Soothes me awake,
validating it was
all a purging,
of the tensions
of the past day.
Bizarre encounters,
Carrying away,
mental poisons.
I’m toey this morning, we’re getting a test back. I was all right or all wrong. I’m early, the first one here. I’m hoping the TA will early-bird and return my test before anyone else gets here. That way, when I run and jump out the 3rd story window, no one else will be traumatized.
I’m trying to have-sac but I’m keyed-up and quivering like a junkie. My chair seems all hard angles. I didn’t sleep much. My mind is replaying the test in a loop, resisting the unreliable seduction of hope. I've decided my score depends on one variable in question 3.
This semester I feel like one of those Cirque du sloeil acrobats that spin ten plates on a pole while riding a motorcycle. I realize I’m biting my fingernails and the parental voices that live in my head spring to life. I shut them down with a shake of my head, they’ll have their say later.
Oh, great, another student’s here, Clint, I think. He’s a stengo from someplace tropical. I’ve never talked to him 1-on-1 but we were in a lab group once, where we had to synthesize a coordination complex and characterize it. He’s smart, polite, and forever chipper. He settles into his seat and slouches like he hasn’t a care in the world. I don’t like him this morning.
If he’s wrong, he’s going to have to throw himself down the stairs, I’ve got dibs on the window.
slang..
toey = nervous, edgy
early-bird = arrive early
have-sac = be brave and grow a pair
stengo = a good looking, exotic guy
The grumpy principal athwart the class
is walloping the learner ad infinitum
with his computer cable,
and screeching his lungs out
his wrath and his tranquilities;
he says she’s late for school yet again.
Madly she pulls across the desks;
pleads for pity in pigsty floors,
whilst he despite his heavy paunch
chases and corners her.
He whips and whips the weeping non-plussed
girl till the cable slips in his hand. Her tears are
like explosion of waterfall in her cheeks and her pain
still so fresh:
He picks it up and pursues the poor girl
who endeavours to escape from him. She
jumps and climbs atop the desks on her way
to the classroom door but quickly plummets to
the floor to receiving another angry wallop.
As hard as he can he strikes the poor girl till his
hairless bald is dripping wet with sweat. The
learner’s heart is a watershed of fear words
can’t even describe. His visage is sadistic and
turns into something I never liked or loved…
Well, it is over now and the poor girl is
sobbing sadly in the library,
Yet the principal plunges and slouches
over his circling chair in his office. His lips mumbling,
pooped out –In slight remorse of the cruel hiding
he’d given the poor learner; and lugubriously he envisions
the twinge she’s had to bear, but it ain’t no use
for what’s done is done.
Climb those many stairs, up to the stars.
“Cut!” Comes the child, the wee Pinkerton.
Stunt double, doubles down, with plethora of scars.
Fate is what it is, bumps, bruises...sorta fun.
Pinkerton rolls and bounces, ooches and ouches.
Then they call in the fingering ‘stache, for he smooths
the luscious hairs of his handlebar, never slouches.
Divine with his hands too, damsels-in-distress, he soothes.
Pinkerton pastes on his pastel beard, and breaks out
into a minor character. “Cut! Stunt dou—ble!”
The ‘Stache rips doppelgänger’s facial hair as Pinkerton shouts,
opens mouth, “Hey! Hey! That really hurt!” Now he’s in trouble.
Pinkerton pouts as he takes his final walk into the night.
Rubs his eyes as a werewolf runs by ready to attack.
Those mischievous stars yell, “Cut! Stunt double, fight!”
Alarmed, Pinkerton needs to know who has his back.
A werewolf snarls and twirls his whiskers with a pinky.
Suspicious and brave, the kid gives him a karate chop.
Pinkerton unzips the stinker from bottom to top.
Found out, ‘Stache grabs his blanket and binky.
11/3/2020
Once the future promised brilliance, but it never came to light
As the star I’d used to guide me dimmed and blended with the night.
The astronomy of darkness lured me farther from my goal
Till I stumbled at the crossroads where I lost my self control.
This magnificent amnesia puts the washboard to my shame.
Can’t remember where I’m headed. Don’t recall from where I came.
Empty cans amid the crossties, broken bottles by the rail,
Are the blazes and the landmarks that illuminate my trail;
Like conspicuous reminders of an unforgiving past,
Through a thousand level crossings, each more lonesome than the last.
But magnificent amnesia plays its lullaby refrain.
To memories asleep in the asylum of my brain.
Once the future wore the costume of a carefree, smiling rogue;
Now it slouches like a ragman down a narrow dead end road.
I don’t b*tch and moan, regardless; only mama’s boys complain.
I just trudge on in the darkness through a piss of pouring rain.
This magnificent amnesia is the perfect compromise,
And a cavalier expression is my everyday disguise.
911 Carousel
by Michael R. Burch
“And what rough beast ... slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”—W. B. Yeats
They laugh and do not comprehend, nor ask
which way the wind is blowing, no, nor why
the reeling azure fixture of the sky
grows pale with ash, and whispers “Holocaust.”
They think to seize the ring, life’s tinfoil prize,
and, breathless with endeavor, shriek aloud.
The voice of terror thunders from a cloud
that darkens over children adult-wise,
far less inclined to error, when a step
in any wrong direction is to fall
a JDAM short of heaven. Decoys call,
their voices plangent, honking to be shot ...
Here, childish dreams and nightmares whirl, collide,
as East and West, on slouching beasts, they ride.
Published by The Neovictorian/Cochlea, Mindful of Poetry, Gostinaya and Scholasticus/Fullosia Press. Keywords/Tags: 911, war, violence, children, visionary, surreal, power, retribution, twin towers, terror, terrorism, east, west, dream, dreams, nightmares, error
Home from a chemo session, uncle lights up
a cigarette and collapses
to the slick plastic that covers your chaise
lounge, auntie. He thumps the upholstery
with his legs and elbows for blood
to circulate again. A flake
drifts. Dehydrated lips, uncle
inadvertently kisses ash. Cushions
puff up, deflate. Uncle floats
smoke rings to prove he still has breath.
Your bulbous urn ruptures his rings
on contact where curvature
casts uncle’s warped reflection, all mouth and smoke,
as he would rise to reach your urn on the mantle.
Uncle slouches back, watches his sports channel.
I head out with his hamper
and forget to check pockets before washing clothes,
his soggy receipts - - once grocery lists? - -
and tissues, torn apart, clumped up, fake snow
I have to scoop out of washing machines.
Absent-minded tasks at the laundromat, auntie,
where you’d bend in pain. Lint trays reinstall
fluff. I snap
and snap airborne dryer-flakes off towels.