the short life of some long poems

the short life of some long poems

 

long, long poems

lack of restraint

the poet expands, extends

pretends

 

to engage the reader

while boasting in a blatant

barrage

of words, words, words

 

long, long poems

combust after two stanzas

the farce is booed

the audience untraceable 

 

the poet needled

for nodding off

while still writing

 

sleepy drummers

have no beat

or one extinguished 

for lack of activity

for 4 hours

like Smart TV

 

sharp lines of congestion

impatiently

signify almost endings

thrice happened upon

with no solution

 

long, long poems

need lots of punctuation

many periods for rest

and a few dashes

just to bring the reader back to life.

 

 

erin-cilberto

10/31/24

Reviews

[Chris Shaw]

My attention span these days isn’t good when it comes to long and drawn out poetry. Too wordy and I find it a turn off. I want to remain awake. There was humour here, as well J.

[jacob erin-cilberto]

Thanks Chris....
I know most of mine are excrutiatingly long...I will try to be more concise in future. thanks for the reading...and your words.
:)))
j.

[Desert Knave]

I like this. I often find myself shredding those poems of mine that are way too wordy, as they usually are so because the message was lost before I left the first verse. ~Jim

[jacob erin-cilberto]

yes, sometimes we have to go to lost and found to get that message back. Thank you, Jim.

[Lorry]

My favouring of shorter poems has absolutely nothing to do with disliking longer form poetry, but by the time I get to the third verse, I run into a wall of forgetlyness and distactiialation. So much so that I even forget what I should be doing and go for a nap to think about what I have forgotten and next thing you know the police are at the door wondering why you didn't pick the kids up from school and they request you come with them, not for being arrested but the kids mother has issued threats on your life!
Oh, and could you bring me one of those viennese swirly cakes too with my mochafrappalattecino please waiter? 😃

[jacob erin-cilberto]

Depends if the tip is big enough!
Thank you, Lorry.
j.

[Sapphus]

I'm thankful for this as I nod off after my 5 lines. Never could write longer than.

[jacob erin-cilberto]

Thank you, Sapphus....my attention span will never let me finish a novel....for sure. I tried four of them.

[Patricia Wedel]

dear Jacob... a Blanket on a chilly night will bring Comfort to the lonely Heart. The warmth of a Kindred Soul that touches the boundaries of a Starry Sky will always bring a Full Moon of peace and goodwill. tenderly... Pat

[jacob erin-cilberto]

thank you, dear Pat,
j.

[Relic]

I've written some long ones and got away with it. I was lucky. ha
Like this one. It really is true sometimes.

[jacob erin-cilberto]

Yes, we do get away with one every so often.
thanks, relic,
j

[Eilis]

This is great, Jacob. I love the dry humor. The irony that this poem deriding long poems is itself a longish poem. Especially for your style. The need to know what we want to say as writers (what we want to say not what we want others to hear) is an integral part of writing a poem. Sometimes a few words can fill an ocean’s worth of emotion. Then again, some times we just need a beefy Eliot or Whitman poem to speak to a generation. Poetry has so many beautiful faces. I enjoyed this.

[jacob erin-cilberto]

I like that, "beefy"....and yes, so many beautiful faces.
thank you, Eilis...and it is so good to see you around here again,
j.

[John the Baptist]

I certainly hope a lot of people on the site read this one, especially those who write long poems about their relationships. You can say how great or how sorry your lover is in ten verses, but that's just the start for some of them.

[jacob erin-cilberto]

Yes, that is true....long does not make it good or readable....and often too much is expressed in very long poems...thanks, John.
j.

[redzone]

I loved that part:

"the poet needled
for nodding off
while still writing"

one of the virtues (if that is the right word to use) of haiku, senryu, or cinquain, is that with very few words, a whole world is seen. Like the world of the frog and lily pad in Basho's famous haiku.

Of course some would argue that there were some really good "long poems", like the epic poems: 'The Iliad", 'Gilgamesh', 'Beowulf', 'Dante's Inferno', or more recently, 'The Wasteland'.

For me, it doesn't matter, long, long or short, either can be boring and you need a LOT of STIMULANTS to get through them.
Curt

[jacob erin-cilberto]

stimulants...Amen.
thank you, Curt...
november is the cruelest month...oh wait, that is April....oops.

[redzone]

november to april, Jacob you must have used a lot of stimulants for this thought... lol ;0)

[Zoa]

This is honestly speaking about the facts. Although I am not very known to poetry, I still think alot before using even a single word for my poems. I sometimes wonder, whether the reader will even understand what the poetry is trying to say or whether it even brings any interest in them to read my poems. But eventually, I have learnt alot from writing and I find it very comforting when I am writing about a certain topic.
Well anyways, I loved your poem.✨️✨️
😁