Long Shift Poems
Long Shift Poems. Below are the most popular long Shift by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Shift poems by poem length and keyword.
Her skin holds light differently, not borrowed, not reflected.
But absorbed, kept, deepened.
Her hair rechase upward,
Curling towards something ancient but still.
Hands hover near it as if curiosity attains more rights than her.
Her lips full of language, hesitate sporadically.
Not for the lack of words, but the careful knowing of how they will be received.
The knowing that every word must survive the distance between meaning and reception.
She entered with a practiced ease, but her presence was announced and judged long before she was ever allowed to arrive.
She rearranges herself daily, a chair pushed back here.
A mirror turned just slightly away there.
So the quiet fault line within her remains undisturbed, unnamed.
And still she moves as though none of this is spectacle.
Yet, the room recalibrates.
Subtly.
Precisely.
A shift so fine it evades accusation,
yet palpable enough to settle
against her skin like a second climate.
She, weary of being atmosphere, of being something reacted to.
Interpreted, forecasted. Weary of existing as the weather.
Discussed.
Rarely understood.
She desires the gravity of Earth instead.
To be unremarked in her permanence.
To hold weight without spectacle.
To exist without translation
Without the constant labor of being legible.
To be assumed, as mountains are assumed,
As soil is trusted, the ground is never questioned for holding.
And perhaps she will arrive as the sun arrives
not interrogated, not exceptionalized,
not a rendered anomaly
but inevitable, integral,
and entirely her own.
Our hosts were attentive, yet displayed fear
in their demeanour, noticed by our soul,
so emoting love, we let hearts draw near,
that thus invoking grace, they may feel whole.
They spoke of dark fate, caused by black magic,
of demons they needed to exorcise,
that future life by joyous, not tragic,
for which they asked for help from a priest wise.
Cajoling them to shift into silence,
we asked our hosts to be still and observe
vibrance of stillness sans thought violence,
reclaiming soul’s light with gusto and verve.
Affirming God’s light shines within each heart,
we smiled as we saw their demons depart.
Let's start early, let's get this done
Let's walk down the street, we're not afraid of the sun
Though they despise our kind we must set this straight
It's not us or our kind who brought hell to their gates
Humans must live and humans must die, it's the nature of earth, don't ask us why
You think that your kind has the world eating out of the palm of your hand?
But we were here first, long before the age of man.
Vampires we are and through the ages we've seen
Many attempts to live on this spinning ball of green
These aliens invade and you think that your life has-been
They know who we are, they know where we've been
They expected to take your planet without a fight
But we've got to appreciate your kind and we think you're alright
So many ages of us have surfaced to be your protectors, your friends
We're the ones that you need. We won't let this be your end.
We can shape-shift and fly, we can see in the night.
We can feel their heat as they come in to strike
We will fight and win this war for your ball of green
Because we think that you have the ability to be the best species we've ever seen.
I rip and chew at my edges
Trying to eradicate
Placate
Eleviate
My pain
The anxiety
The part of me that threatens to freeze
My mental disease
The part I hope no one sees
The inner demons I wish to appease
The tattoos that your artistry
Injected
Under my skin
With invisible ink
Yet I feel it there with the words I think
As I claw and bite into my pink
I wish to be smoothed out
Cared about
As the blood appears it calms my shout
Exquisite pleasure wrapped in the pain
With it, some level of relief I attain
I tell myself
I can't
I won't
do it again
Yet with chewing
I feel my inner turmoil wane
The weaker bits
The inner head stitches
It helps me scratch, those indiscernible itches
Stopping the soul twitches
In shame I hide my hands
Fingers and things
The evidence my body sings
Strategicly placed
My problems kind of erased
In fabric bandages encased
Still desperation has a taste
Inner turmoil only temporarily chased
Was I designed for this
Some kind of inner sickness
Expressed in a serpent's kiss
As I'm hypnotized by it's hiss
I wonder
Is there a way
to fix this
I wish to be
a fully healed
Calmer witness
Perhaps this is my litmus
Another test I fail
For I'm a blind man
Who can't read braille
I'm bound by ropes
That help me cope
Evidence I can't wash away with soap
I wanted your yes
But always got your nope
Became an inner pauper
Surrounded by hope
Still deep down I feel like a dope
I know I have much to be thankful for
Greatly blessed I can't ask for more
Still I fear what might be waiting for me
An imaginary enemy
Hidden behind the next door
Threatening my hope for a peaceful shore
Still I know this inner tension is a gift
It's a wave on which, I've been given a lift
It helps me travel far and swift
As within life's currents I hear the music shift.
There is a tune I wish to sing
Above the maddening ring
A new place from which I wish to begin
Beyond tattoos
And cracked and bleeding skin.
Peaceful rivers
Flowing from within.
Please read Njeri Unjeri's poem Tattoo's, after reading her
poem I got to thinking of the tattoos that all of us wear.
For Nathan's Mental Illness contest.
Form:
In the ostensible show of life’s drama,
enactments perfected with the labor of passion,
aureate the sequel created by metamorphic alchemy.
The surreptitious shift from one actor to another,
is a designed axiomatic drive.
For the schematic inducement of compulsive being,
the transmuting tenet of uniqueness,
the personified indented identity,
changes in the self-devised palette of color mélange.
Unshackled from the abyss of craving,
introspection shows the way for inward travel
through the layers of consciousness,
where the soul perceives the radiance of divine glow,
illumining the contrived cauldron of bilocated living.
The soul then shines with astral aura,
glowing in the brilliance of thousand suns.
In self-searching odyssey at the edge of eternity,
the internal galaxy turns dark desire into lighted love.
The alchemy of metamorphic divine intervention
unveils the real façade of basic transformation.
In the halcyon horizon of the life born anew,
the nascent sun of adoration rises with hue,
paints passionately the pining heart
with the color of love designing the perceptive art.
The cadence of contrived acuity
splits the mirror of delusion,
the shards of shattered pretence
scatter as discarded debris forgettable.
Shape shift creates an illumined being,
an alien in its own transformed domain,
completes the contrasting paradigm of metamorphosis.
Sometimes I think i should try,
Should spread my wings and fly
Soar through a cloud as a spirit so free
With land below, all the sights I see
Diving towards the earth below
Spread my wings out catching air causing me to slow
Leveling out and quickly shooting away barely above ground
Wind whistling as I flew a soul unbound
Over a lake I trail fingers through crystal clear waters so cold
Feeling freedom in untold
A slight shift of wings back up so high I flew
Wings soaring damp with the morning Dew
Catching up with an eagle, together we rode the updrafts so high
My whole being was one with the sky
Back through another cloud we flew just for luck
So high we went coming to float just briefly then the wings we tuck
Falling back to earth trusting to luck
Closed my eyes free falling from the heavens I plunged gathering speed
Faster and faster I felt the need
Reaching for the feeling of fearlessly falling so free
Then catching an updraft I carelessly began barrel rolling across the sunlit sky
So full of the joy I did cry
Freedoms ultimate glory floating across skies so
blue
That eagle and I racing going going cloud to cloud as if it were a thrilling game of hide and go seek
The eagle took a peek
Screeched his good bye he went on his way
Catching a jet wave I had spread out my wings just resting in flight
Saw cities so far below glistening from the morning light
Time catches up I feel so
Free
No beautiful a sight did I ever see
Watching the set of the days sun
Just telling of the day now done
Announcing the arrival of night
With the coming of evening came the end of my glorious flight
Flying back across the evening sky
Back across the the distance that I like to fly
across area I liked to play and roam
Across the empty sky to home
Back to my chair where always did sit alone
To quietly ponder all I was shown
hello dear doctors
i am here to say i'm sorry
i am an idiot
i admit it
i feel better than i have felt in, well, LIFE
i fell one day and hit my head hard on the original hardwoods
my new lady was not having it and practically threw me in the impala
going off on me with tears in her eyes, i wisely sat and listened while staring at unexpected stars
arrived and parked, my new lady and a nurse help me in a wheelchair
i tried to complain, but my new lady just finished a double shift and was not in a mood
she helps me with the paperwork
she glares at me at my mildest complaint
when i am called, my new lady comes with me and just snitches on me to the doctor, who so happens to be a woman too
I LOSE!
good morning, my sweet, observant, and rather persistent, new lady
my love for you has only grown more after another good night's sleep
who knew that i had two blood clots on each side of my brain
i thank God for your love for me
you, and the equally sweet (questionable), observant, and rather persistent doctor, are the reason and am alive and smilin'.....(at you, and only you, of course)
In my dream,
that is my sweet meditation;
colors begin shifting and the stars gleam,
I float blissful with no destination.
I just drift,
in this delightful spiritual gift;
where clouds of dark rose pink and deep blue shift.
Oh, where am I going,
there is a whisper wind blowing;
and flowing.
I never imagined this hue and scheme,
oh, thank you spirits for this creation;
now, please aim me home swift;
slow- as we pass those stars glowing.
__________________________
February 9, 2019
Written for the contest, Tell Me What Do You See
sponsor, James Edward Lee Sr.
My mind is a dark labyrinth without torches or welcome signs
Only corridors that remember my footsteps
Better than I do
I enter thinking I am the architect
But the walls shift when I turn away
Rearranging themselves into old questions
I thought I had answered
Some rooms are locked with keys I swallowed years ago
Because I was tired of losing things I couldn’t afford to name
There are mirrors here that do not reflect my face
Only versions of me I almost became
In moments I survived poorly
I keep walking anyway
Because stillness feels like drowning
And even confusion feels like movement
If I ever find the center
I suspect it will not be an answer
Only a quieter version of the same darkness
Finally learning my name
The tears line down my face
While looking for human life I find not a trace
The creepy howls of wolves in the distance
Never have I been in something like this instance
The world got overrun by fools
With unimaginative different tools
They destroyed life's story
Before God's glory
And made us slaves of them all
While distant eyes dance along redwood trees so tall
What do we do when the world is lost?
How will we fix this expensive cost?
Who do we turn to when all faith fails?
Where do we go now when all else prevails?
Smiles of children slowly fade
We left our sweet world --- hardly anyone stayed
Secured insecurities killed us to death
Because world's support just suddenly left
Apolocaylpse comes when you least expect it
And comfort-zones uninvited begin to shift
They wiped out our world like a dead bug on the glass
As if everyone just suddenly lost their unique class
No more churches or temples, religion or law
Still no one more powerful than God --- so it's a draw
Now we work hard to restore our genuine Earth
And still celebrate The Christ Jesus' birth
Nothing will stop this sweet world from growing
No one will stop us from constantly knowing
Nothing will take from us what we earned
Nothing can wipe out what we've already learned
See faith is a strong weapon, the strongest of them all
Even when all else begins to just fall
You have to have it regardless of what you do
But nowadays, there seems very few
Study your religion and growth to the max
And analyze closely at your wonderful facts
Because life is not lost unless you take it yourself
Never be scared of any faith you have --- don't hide it on a shelf
There is more support here then you'd ever know
Listen and watch as our young generations begin to grow
So please take my advice for my advice is true
And stop everyday, kneel, and say to Him, "thank you"
Thank Him for giving you life
Thank Him for saving you from world's little strife
Thank Him for walking beside you everyday
Thank Him for everything in any possible way
Thank Him for dying on that cross
Thank Him for creating Earth --- the trees, oceans, wildlife --- even moss
And you will find yourself in front of a gold gate
Because throughout your life you stuck to your faith
Dedicated to: Anyone who has a Religion