Long Telephoned Poems
Long Telephoned Poems. Below are the most popular long Telephoned by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Telephoned poems by poem length and keyword.
For many years I have realized that our hearts are very deceptive and unreliable. I cannot imagine how many times my heart has let me down and exposed the dark and negative aspects of it. Please permit me to share just one experience with you.
Thumbing through some old material a few days ago, I came across something that I experienced over 40 years ago and more than 2000 miles away. When I read the notes which had been in my possession for more than 35 years, my soul was enriched because I was sharing about the need for dedicating our lives to God which often demands that we take the initiative to say, "I'm Sorry", not only to God but also to fellow humans, even if we think that we are right.
On January 2, 1983, I referred to an encounter I had with a nurse in or about 1975 in Memphis, Tn. Now, 40 plus years later, I remember being in Memphis, but I don't even remember such an encounter. Had I not recorded the incident, I would not be speaking of it today. My notes reveal that a point was being made about changing our minds and taking the initiative to apologize. My notes also revealed that I was indignant toward the nurse, after which I left the scene and was heading home. Somewhere between that nurse and my home, The Holy Spirit convicted me of my actions and attitude.
Again, presently, I do not remember what really happened, but not only was I convicted by The Holy Spirit, I was compelled by Him to find a public telephone. Before I reached home, I telephoned the nurse and apologized for my behavior.
God knows every detail of what happened that day in Memphis, and I suspect if shown a video of my behavior, I would be embarrassed, to say the least, and perhaps surprised by the anger released from my heart. For many a year, we have heard it said, "Follow your heart". Technically, I do not follow my heart, but I lead my heart. And but for the grace of God, the cleansing blood of Christ, and the compelling forces of The Holy Spirit, I would be forever lost.
02162019PoSpMTFB
I have a horrible secret my 13-year-old best friend confided to me one day at school.
We were between class, and we had two minutes to sprint to our next class, as per the rule.
In opposite directions off course.
I did not hear anything the teacher said that day,
I had wanted to hear my friend, not hear him drool, or look at his hair of fuzz.
He called on me once, and everyone laughed. I had no idea what the question was.
Leukemia? Cancer? My mind was in overdrive.
After school I caught up with her right before she dove into her mother’s car.
What is it? I demanded, eyes big and wide. “Not here,” she told me. “Maybe inside.”
I tried again after I climbed in the car, but she shook her head ‘no’, hushing me.
My mind was going haywire, with the things it could be. Drugs? Her? Could not be.
I telephoned her the second I got inside my house.
What is it? I hollered. “Are you okay?” I was thinking thief, convict, killer, by now.
My imagination was going absolutely a hundred percent berserk as only it knows how.
“I’m a…..”
I pressed my ear harder to the phone. A what?
“A sleepwalker,” she whispered.
I thought I had heard wrong.
A what?
“A sleepwalker,” she hissed.
And I began to laugh.
Sleepwalking is so common in my family, we thought we had invented it.
We sometimes bump heads in our family before we wake up, and I told her this too.
“Sleep walking is nothing,” I shared. “Wait until you have what I have, then you can really boo hoo.
I’m a sleep fighter.”
Ever since I was little if anyone tried to pick me up and carry me to bed,
I would come up swinging fists, straight toward their head.
My dad got a black eye once, when I was about eight,
Because he tried to pick me up in full sleep mode.
Mom tried to signal him, give him a code.
But by the time he caught on, he had a shiner from me.
I have been sleep fighting since the age of three.
We began laughing hysterically, my friend and I.
Sleepwalking is nothing when you are a sleep fighter.
If you do not believe me, you should give it a try.
Written July 19, 2018
Entered Sleepwalking Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: John Hamilton
Luke* and Frank* were my cousins from two of my father’s sisters.
Luke and Frank lived in the same city, and I joined them for an important family event. I had not seen nor spoken to either of them for more than 40 years. When I arrived, I telephoned Luke.
Luke was a year older than me and having grown up together, we were well acquainted with each other. Luke and his family moved 2000 miles away when I was 13. Frank and I knew each other as young kids but were not well acquainted. When I saw them again after 40 years, their response to me was a vast story in contrast. I have shared this story with other members of the family. Where appropriate, I have not revealed their identity, desiring not to be offensive in any way.
Upon arriving in their city, I spoke with Luke over the phone. I was excited in my voice tone and very delighted to finally renew our acquaintances. However, I was stunningly surprised by the response from Luke on the other end. I was quickly mistaken to think that I would at least be warmly welcomed with a sense of anticipation of him seeing me again. Instead, Luke was rather indifferent, tamed, and subdued. His tone was so disconnected from mine that I was forced to calm my emotions toward him. It felt so very awkward to me.
On the occasion of the event with everyone gathered, Frank was among the crowd and not at all recognizable by me. As kids, we saw each other only occasionally when my father took us to visit them several miles away. Nevertheless, Frank walked straight up to me, and in spite of the years, my full beard, and eyeglasses, he said, “Hi Michael!” I was 55 years of age, and could not have been more than 10 or 12 when we last saw each other.
Although a little disappointed, I was really okay.
And I would never tell Luke how he made me feel.
Frank was the kind of guy that made up for guys like Luke.
But “Not all cousins are created equal”, is what I wanted to say.
02182016PS
*True story; Names have been changed
Tell Them What You See
Proverbs 25:11 KJV
There once lived a son who at the age of 30, telephoned his 58 year old father.
The son was distraught, dismayed, and depressed. He was unhappy, unable, and unsure.
He said to his father, “Dad, this world is an awful place and so messed up”. He was figuratively seeing dark clouds through dark glasses, and was surely disenchanted and disillusioned.
As he was describing to his father how he felt, and what he saw from where he sat, his father said to him, in a manner to offer a little hope, “That’s not what I’m seeing”.
In figurative terms, what was it that the father saw that the son could not see? The father continued to give him comfort and advice. After they were off the phone, these words came to the father:
“I see rain falling in season, filling all available reservoirs.
I see snow capped mountains, retaining snow in Winter, to be released in Spring, sending water to all”.
The father knew that he could not always rescue his son from bad decisions made, nor even shield him from life’s stinging bees. But he could always be there providing, a “fitly spoken word”, just to tell him “what he sees”.
The father was then refreshed with the understanding, that when a father has done all that he can do to help his sons and his daughters, and there is little else or anything left that he can do, he can always “tell them what he sees”.
022608
CELEBRATED HEADACHE.
This Ota farmer recognized as
Africans kobo
Copper coin with a fluctuating photo,
You load tomorrow’s volt into this
Over sized portfolio,
Debit, wearing materials stitched from
Tattered pillows
Only a goat perambulates and forgets
His ancestral home.
I size this situation on a scale to measure
His kilo,
Plural of the ring road is all you
Telephoned
Till my fathers became old.
After ruling far away from Heath-row,
You beg for additional white robe
To continue your cataract legacy infected
With disfigured quotes.
II
I learnt from you, that power is fragile
Like flower,
Today you sit on the highest tower
Few minutes later, dry wind blew your
Sanctuary like this meaningless brown powder.
When I hit you on the road,
As Yoruba always told
The Culture with a symbolic throne.
I must fall to prostrate, because
Elder’s own the stronger bone.
Remember your convoy of hope,
You spoke to my people in a gentle
Tone,
See the gazed land of unlimited scope
Although we die befriending cold
My journey is satisfied with this
Ordinary biscuit bone.
Now you cant walk the streets
Without been stoned.
The logo for any hero,
Is to eradicate zero’s and communicate
Growth.
III
I know you will live long
And remain strong, so you have a
Taste of this rotten corn shared on this
Decayed road,
You served on a plater of fading gold.
Even as your interesting biography
Is purposely clothed with apologies
Your lungs will rust like metal in this
Liquid cup.
Listen to the bold voice from the
Nigerian soil,
Dedicated to the logo my unknown
Hero.
HABIB AKEWUSOLA.
Are you ready?
Picture eighty-seven children, practicing for a Christmas show
in a sales barn that does not have heat or a sound system.
A skunk died somewhere in here a few hours ago.
Many are screaming.
Some are crying.
Many do not know me.
I am new in town, and obviously crazy.
It is freezing cold.
I had unwisely told all the mommies
to do their Christmas shopping
and leave all eighty-seven children with me
without any other adult chaperones.
I could be a killer. I guess no one understood that
because they did.
We were all sobbing when they returned to pick up their
children. I did not show it on the outside. I was too "nice".
I was sobbing on the inside, trying to figure out how to save
face when it failed, flopped, and was the worst show they had ever
seen.
It came to me a few hours later after I had my heart attack and died twice. I called six mommies and gave them parts. One was the narrator, because she knew the children's names. Which was
a much better start than I had. Two others would get them on and off the stage.
Did I mention I telephoned every number in the church directory to see if anyone could figure out how to rig up a star that lit up on the back of a pick up that we could all follow from the church to the manger (aka sales barn) the night of the program? The man who could do it was named Ziegwier. The last name in the book, so I called them all.
It was the best Sunday School Christmas play in the history of the world because I was the last car to get there, due to me orchestrating so much stuff at the church, and the six women had it all going beautifully and well by the time I parked clear in the back and ran in there. I sat back and relaxed, knowing God was in the house.
My Kung Fu Chop Suey Present
On my thirty-fourth birthday off to China's best; traveled I went
So very uneventful and unaware I blithely lost all my well-earned money and spent,
As I entered into a Chinese restaurant and telephoned Connie Chang's
Alas, I'd decided to relinquish my yearnings and fill my hunger pangs.
On an undecided moment, I ordered chop suey and plate of spring rolls,
Also, a bottle of plonk to keep out the shivering unwanted cold
I ate so fast and drunk like a half drowned starved human sprinkler,
Putting my calloused hands in my pockets, found my frozen fingers.
Then found out I didn't have enough money to pay the restaurant bill
Then decided to leave and dash; when all was quiet and very still,
Once I was outside, to my eyes, I was shocked with angst and surprise,
All the waiters were waiting there with ugliness in their piercing eyes!
All at once they did many Kung Fu Chops unto my veiled eyes and stamped on my head
Their contempt in their eyes was to leave me so bruised and brutally dead,
They violently attacked me like a raging tiger in heat, then all at once I was still and all alone,
My blood had been spread apart and muscles were strung out and splintered right to my very bone.
They surely unraveled me, quite inadequately because back then I was very sure
This adventure of mine was an espionage of a birthday present for me to remember much of violence and gore,
I callously lay in a hospital bed for six or seven long endless months or weeks
I'm telling you all this had happened for a simple plate of chop suey and fresh steaks and leaks,
You do a great many of silly things when you are young and adventurous--haha! And that was all in a blurr.
Strolling along through Gumgulli Park
where shadows of trees made it quite dark.
Absorbing birdsong filling the air,
taking in beauty with barely a care.
Some people were out walking their dog,
others were passing me out on a jog.
Quite a few kids were kicking a ball,
and noisy miners were having a brawl.
And there on a seat alone in the park
I saw the figure of one Basil Clarke,
sitting alone and just staring ahead
with a look so forlorn and nothing said.
So I thought it best to comfort the man.
I sat beside Basil to help how I can.
The first question I asked to ease the bumps -
“How come you’re looking down in the dumps?”
Basil declared that on three weeks ago,
an uncle died that he barely did know,
but in uncle’s will it opened his eyes,
for ten thousand dollars was a surprise.
I gave my condolence for Basil’s loss,
even though I’m sure he don’t give a toss,
so I wished him well for his good luck,
but Basil’s reply left me dumbstruck.
“I’m just getting started” Basil bemoaned,
“Just two weeks ago I was telephoned;
a cousin I barely knew curled up his toes.
His twenty thousand helped with my woes.”
You must have been over the moon I said.
Basil shrugged and just nodded his head.
I was slightly shocked at Basils’ reaction -
his depression was just gaining traction.
“And just last week my grandpa passed away,
and they read out his will in the usual way.
I got one hundred grand from the old coot”
and all of a sudden Basil went mute.
I was quietly shocked with Basil now numb,
so I asked Basil why he’s looking glum,
and Basil’s response had a horrible ring,
“Well this week there is nothing – not a thing!”
This poem was written for my friend Sonya Mako Wong
Kung Fu Chop Suey
On my twenty-fifth birthday off to China's best travelled I went
So very unfruitful and unaware I enormously lost all my money thus spent,
Then I entered a Chinese restaurant and telephoned Tonya Chang's,
Alas, I'd aimed to relinquish my yearnings of humble hunger pangs.
In a strategic moment, I ordered chop suey and a plate full of spring rolls,
Also, a full bottle of plonk to keep out the shivering unwanted cold
I ate so fast and drank like a half drowned starved tinkler,
Putting my hands in my pockets, found nothing but frozen fingers.
Found out I did not have enough money to pay for the food bill
Right there and then decided to leave when it was quiet and so still,
But then once outside, all to my eyes was shocked with utter surprise,
Were all the waiters standing there with venom in their piercing eyes!
They all did many kungFu chops unto my veiled eyes, then stamped on my head
their obvious contempt was to leave me so bruised and so very dead,
They attacked me like a lunging tiger in heat, then I was so still and prone,
For my blood had rippled and muscles were strung out and splintered right to the bone.
They surely unravelled me, inadequately back then that was so very sure,
A quite eventful birthday present to remember full of much violence and gore
I lay in a hospital for an extended six or seven long months or weeks,
All this had happened for a simple plate of chop suey and fresh leaks.
You do plenty of silly things when your young-ha ha! And that was all a blur!!
Remember the children’s book,
“Alexander and the Terrible,
Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day”?
Well, yesterday was mine.
Started off okay, got up late,
Got our breakfasts, dressed, made the beds.
Cleaned the cat litter
And found that SweetiePie, 21 years old,
Had missed the box again
And dragged herself through the results.
Washed the cat, cleaned the floor.
Oh, well.
Tried to order a prescription on line.
An hour and a half later
After endless instructions
Via phone and e-mail,
Telephoned in the prescription.
Ate some ham and cheese, rolled up,
Took Andy (our Bernese mountain dog)
For a two mile walk.
Went to the grocery store.
Returned to find Andy
Throwing up breakfast on porch.
Leaves! Andromeda leaves!
Many, many Andromeda leaves!
How could he have reached the bush
From the porch?
Never mind. Out to the vet.
Another barf in the car.
Medicine and many barfs at the vet’s
IV for dehydration.
Two bottles of charcoal.
Home again.
Covered furniture with cotton blankets,
Sat down.
Immediately Andy
Ran through the living room
And dining room, leaving a wake
Of liquid charcoal puddles.
Got him out on the porch,
Where he deposited lots more
Liquid charcoal.
Mopped up the rugs, threw
Pails of water on the porch,
Left Andy outside for a while.
Let him in and fed the cats,
After washing SweetiePie
For a second time that day.
Today, wash the porch,
Vacuum and shampoo the rugs.
Alexander has nothing on me!