Long Shifts Poems
Long Shifts Poems. Below are the most popular long Shifts by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Shifts poems by poem length and keyword.
How can we not have this conversation
where footprints of the poor vanish
beneath the boots of investors,
and the river sings only
to those who can afford its luxury?
In Chobe, the elephants roam free,
but people walk caged in poverty.
We call it coexistence
when tusks are protected,
but mothers bury their sons
gored near neglected kraals.
And no one comes
unless it's a game drive
and the victim is not black.
How can we not speak
when the lion's roar is louder
than a widow's cry for compensation?
When leopards eat goats
and ministries write reports not cheques?
Let's talk about the five-star smiles
that greet foreign tongues
while the Batswana mop floors, serve beer, and sleep on concrete after ten-hour shifts.
Let's talk about uniforms and pay slips
that smell like servitude,
contracts folded into silence
in offices lined with antelope heads.
And let's speak of the racism
how a Black woman was shot by a white woman
who said, "I thought it was a monkey."
As if her body was a silhouette of threat.
As if Blackness is always a blur
on the edge of someone else's comfort.
The river bore witness, but the law shrugged,
and headlines softened the bullet.
Let's talk of fishermen
banished from their birthright,
told their canoes spoil the view,
that their laughter scares the tourists,
that their presence is pollution.
Let's speak of lodge owners
who toss insults like breadcrumbs
to those who clean their sheets
lazy, slow, replaceable.
No chains, but contracts.
No slurs, just smiles
with knives beneath them.
We cannot be quiet
when the sun sets
behind lodges built on lies,
and the river is fenced
not for safety, but exclusion.
How can we not speak
of the politics of permits,
where land is leased
like livestock,
and council seats are auctioned
to the highest foreign bidder?
Corruption blooms like water hyacinth,
choking life from the roots
of communal trust.
The sand knows.
The baobabs know.
Even the crocodiles know
how long we've swallowed
our own tongues
to protect the myth of peace.
So let us talk.
Let us gather in the heat
of midday truth,
where no luxury air-con hums.
Let us speak until the sky listens,
until justice stalks this land
as fiercely as the wild.
Because silence, here,
is complicity.
And we have been quiet
for far too long.
Form:
I chuckle soft when people fume,
And blame the lot in suits and gloom.
“You see those leaders? All a scam!”
But who’s still selling free yarn?
Was it not your own cousin’s name,
On that campaign with matching frame?
The nurse who sighs, “This ward’s a zoo,”
Still checks her brows in selfie view.
She posts, “On duty, Lord be praised,”
While someone’s gasping, soul half-raised.
Yet when they moan the state’s unwell,
She nods, “It’s true,” then rings the bell.
The lecturer, with paunch and tie,
Reads ancient notes with weary sigh.
He shares some grades with knowing nod,
Then says, “This country’s truly flawed.”
He blames the youth for lack of grit—
While half his class just pays to sit.
The copper parked on potholed street,
Asks, “Where’s your licence? Papers neat?”
He grins, “Let’s talk,” with greasy grin,
While tucking morning bribes within.
By noon he’s shouting on the news—
“Society’s gone down the loos!”
We roast the system every day,
With memes and gifs in strong array.
Yet scroll past queues to dodge the vote,
Then mourn when goats are running boats.
We ask for change, yet shift no ground—
Just echo tweets that spin around.
The tailor swears, “Your cloth’s near done,”
But dances at his niece’s fun.
The mechanic says your car’s in queue,
But joyrides round like Fast & Few.
Then tells his mates, “This land’s a mess!”
While wearing shoes you just redressed.
The market lady shifts her scale,
And bags your rice with hidden shale.
The youth who screams, “We must rebel!”
Still ghosts his friend to chase one belle.
We all want justice, loud and bold—
But sow deceit like coins of old.
The pastor thunders, “Give and live!”
Then buys a Benz you helped to give.
He claims the Lord approves his flight,
While dodging tax in holy light.
He’s not alone—we’re in this stew,
From deacon’s pew to bus queue too.
So when next time you curse “the throne,”
Recall—it doesn’t stand alone.
That golden seat’s not self-assigned,
It’s built from all we’ve undermined.
To mend the roof, don’t shout and frown—
Pick up a spade, rebuild your town.
You want clear roads? Then drive with sense.
You want fair rules? Then stop the fence.
It’s not by screaming, “God will run it!”
While jumping queues with cheek and sonnet.
The mirror’s clear, it doesn’t bluff—
We are the system. That’s enough.
Where is your love is gone, my Dear? Where is your beloved
My beloved is gone done into his garden to the bed of spices to feed in the
garden and pick lilies of a different me and us the secret of our life he knows he found the loss and gains he respects in exploration and of course enjoying what clean air mist the sweet aroma skies taking notice of what is his high above the tattered bleeding soul hurt depress tears misunderstood blood pain blood bath unorthodox you see everlasting and eternal earthly propositions and other love gains we made that request down by the highest tower peak just look up and I will lift my eyes too unto the hill for where my help comes from helpmate status rose to my soulmate a kiss of two souls completely engrossed tantalizing in and out waves blowing truth in the wind and of waves soaring searching in and where this Alpha and Omega the beginning the end wind is amorous our of my existence it came from the Lord of lords I am my beloved and my beloved is mine he continues to feed among the lilies
Around the cornerstones and he tells me to turn away my eyes from him for
The beautiful wonderful feeling is blowing in the wind The fragrant rosed across the valley stream sweet mist was across the field! I- All the way to the firmament! the fire burned out doubt and destroyed fear my beloved came home And the corner we turned. But!
Sprinkled raindrops appear upsprings emotions And with a little smile up the road, we roam all up and down the space mountain stone walls
open gates over the place we call home. Shifts high we could not believe the next-level gratitude gripped our hearts with tears of joy flew and kissed the nectar that connects soul to soul
The brain vein kissed my breast the connect the thread of the veil
blood flowed but the vein pulsated love is just what God is Love expressed a journey of no regrets The sky was blue around the milestone
Crosswalk staircase stairs way up in Glory. We do rejuvenate many hands lifted up to glory up lifted hands reached up in adoration when dreams showed signed adoration too As I gazed out my window across the rustic lawn looking up at the sky thinking what a dream I had what is the interpretation of this to me in my everyday life? I wonder about this my dream one
The sky was blue no gray clouds.!.
Its sundown, the day’s been reduced to a crack of lavender and fiery pinks along the Massif des Maures mountains. This evening we’re sipping cocktails at “Les Toits,” the Hôtel de Paris’ rooftop restaurant. The French would call this a lounge.
Les toits translates as ‘the roofs’ and its stunning view overlooks the provincial rooftops that slope down the foothills to the gulf of Saint-Tropez and it’s world-famous beaches. The well lit boats are settling down and dropping anchor for the night as we complete our orders and get our second round of drinks.
This has been the best vacation. I think we’ve all reclaimed our calm after a tense freshman year. We’ve been at the beach for 10 days. Leong and Sunny are actually tan, Lisa and my hair are half a tone lighter and Bili’s black skin has taken on gorgeous, purple-ish highlights.
I’ve known Lisa now for ten months, but we share a deep connection that seems older. Lisa’s lovely, brazen, and naturally flashy, without trying. Unfortunately, though, Lisa draws men like a keig-light draws moths - whether she’s looking for them or not - I don’t envy her that. Young men, middle aged men, old men.
Lisa said it started when she was 13. She’d be in a store or restaurant with her mom or dad and a lady would introduce herself, “Hi, I’m with the Ford, or Elite, or IMG, or DNA modeling agency, has your daughter done any modeling?” And another business card would be wasted. Her mom nodded as she recalled this sordid past.
Attention just shifts to her, the party comes to her, she can’t seem to avoid it. About every 30 minutes some man comes over and introduces himself to us (to her). This man owns a local night club, would we (she) be his guest? (He’s looking at her like desert) This guy owns a yacht - “that one, there,” he points it out, in his Russian oligarch voice - he clicks a fob on his keychain and the lights blink. Oh, sure, join a strange foreign man on his yacht, what could go wrong?
There are 8 of us girls at the table with Charles, our escort and confidant. He’s a 50-ish, red headed ex-NYC-cop who just sits there quietly and sips his drink like James Bond. He seldom says anything. I lean in to him and say, “Maybe they think you're her pimp?!” Leong coughs in her drink and Charles gives me the same, serious, “behave yourself” look I’ve gotten since I was 9.
There is an antique writing desk
in my little study
handed-me-down
from generations of would-be
writers in my family
And there are ancient creatures
from days gone by
living in this old desk still
evil, larcenous little creatures
envious of literary skill
This explains much
Lately, I have caught them unawares
aghast, thought I imagined them
but they are really there
surly, sinister, repugnant creatures
in my writing desk
There's a putrid little jerk,
called Pernishicus who lurks
behind the piles on my desk
glorying in the mess
a malevolent, grimy-mauve gremlin
Who preys on newly created works
stealthily spraying them
with foul feculence
as soon as I commence
my writing-
...Sometimes missing slightly
and tagging my hand
making it hard to stand
myself (much less my writing)
for days on end
Then there's a creepy
mesmerizing fiend
they call Spelbadger
a translucent thing, quite obscene
who shifts in the shadows and purrs
With dark eyes deep- constantly changing
like stones from mood-rings
set in his skull
he psychically bullies,
intimidates and muddles
until my poor brain
is worn and dull
And perhaps worst of all
is that one, Grumblesleaze
with pale, glowering eyes diseased
a gray-green, mangy looking thing
whose famous quirk
is that he has the gall
to grouse about my work...
As he viciously shreds it
then glunshing and munching
greedily devours it all
leaving no note
or trace of remembrance
of my past brilliance
behind
Oh, out of spite
he might leave a few
of my ill-penned
unfortunate lines
I planned to cut anyway
or pull my worst attempts
from the waste-can
and lay them out
to remind me of my failures
Yes, this explains much
For there was only one before
our one lone ancestor
who was able to write
at this desk prolifically
tapping out volumes rather heroically
'Though tiresome and tedious
dry history and drivel
which, no doubt, shrank and shriveled
and lulled these creatures off
to sleep for years
Until we woke them up
broke their hibernation
with more interesting stories
and imagination, colorfully crafted
ingenious, piece after piece
Clicking and clacking away
on typewriters, keyboards
generation after generation
of irritatingly gifted writers
disturbing their peace
it had to cease...
Wake.
Commute.
Work.
Repeat.
They call this living?
I call it the hamster wheel—
spinning faster each year
while the cage only shrinks.
Three jobs to afford one roof.
Two hours of daylight between shifts.
One life slipping through fingers
calloused from climbing ladders
that only lead to more ladders.
We've normalized exhaustion,
wear our burnout like medals of honor.
"Busy" is our battle cry.
Our worth measured in productivity units,
our time sold at wholesale prices.
We scroll through highlight reels
of lives we're too tired to pursue,
while notifications remind us
there's always more to want,
always more to owe.
They say "Rise and grind"
But never ask
what's being ground down.
It's us.
Our dreams. Our wonder.
Our capacity to stare at stars
without calculating their worth.
When did we accept that breathing
was enough to call it living?
When did we decide that survival
was something we should be grateful for?
I want more than to exist in the margins
of my own life—
stealing moments between obligations,
budgeting minutes like loose change.
Living is not this endless math
of hours versus dollars.
Living is not this constant fear
that one misstep, one illness,
one market crash
could erase everything.
To merely survive
is to be haunted by the ghost
of the life you might have lived
if you weren't always running out of time,
running out of energy,
running out of hope.
We were meant for more than this—
More than automated responses.
More than weekend recoveries.
More than counting down days
until we're free, at last,
too old to use that freedom.
So tell me,
when do we stop surviving
and start living?
When do we reclaim our heartbeats
from the timeclocks?
When do we refuse to measure our worth
by our economic output?
Because I am not a machine
designed for consumption and production.
I am flesh and blood and wonder.
And I want my life back.
I want all of our lives back.
This existence of barely making it—
it's not life.
It's a sentence.
And I'm demanding a pardon.
Right now.
Today.
Before the next alarm.
Before the next bill.
Before the next "I'll live later."
Because later keeps getting later,
until later becomes never.
And I refuse to call my one wild existence
a mere survival story.
She really wanted to see a ghost…ecstatically excited.
She heard this place had plenty, and a spooky atmosphere.
She’d have to pinch herself, ready to cheer…elated.
She’d spend a romantic weekend there with a freaking-out spouse.
He’s a scaredy-cat! He rarely finds anything funny!
He stutters. He’s bony. Of course she fibbed to him.
A mansion on the cliffs, buried behind briars and thorns.
You could hear the roar of the tide, far below, over the rocks.
Bitter thunder and lightning— oh Angela’s freaking stunned.
Couldn’t ask for a nicer day - husband’s a shivering bag of bones.
The thick, heavy door, with unrelenting ‘turn on back,’ opens
nonetheless. Angela prods and pulls her Jack, into the lair,
as the door closes and bolts. He’s crying like a baby, inside.
The romantic getaway’s bleek and dark, except for candelabra
here and there, in this statistically bad idea. Angela just knows
she’ll get a look-see at the afterlife - a welcoming sight.
Jack be nimble…Jack be quick…Jack wants to jump
over the candlestick and hit the bricks. Without a boo,
she tries to resurrect a ghost or two. “C’mon out! I’m
raring to see you. Don’t play hide’n seek. Show yourself.”
She’s so giddy with no care about her scared to death spouse.
Angela laughs as wisps of smoke take form, as snowy cotton
shifts, as the familiar “oohs” and “boos” uplift. Terrified Jack’s
in no laughing mood. He hides himself in the corners of the room.
Suddenly it gets very cold, and a very bold ghost has a hold
on a candelabra, shines over the face of Jack, “Don’t you worry,
son, this will make you crack a smile,” surprisingly reassuring.
The ghost grins, as he spins touché over to Angela, “Is this
all you were hoping for?” He bellows with his mighty flue,
turns gray-green, skeletal too, eyes out of sockets. Flames
of the candelabra catch her curls and girly-mustache too.
From the corner, a full-throttle laughter emerges from Jack
as Angela is laid out on her back. The specter adds a pillow
and a gravestone to the act. The ghost ribs Jack,
“I rather like your bones, son. Let’s see you rattle and roll.”
Welcomed out the door, Jack leaves without a wife.
10/13/2021
Chantelle Cooke’s Ghost Lace Contest
I rather watch a kestrel to see
Her swoop and swirl
The skies invisible maze
To feed the inhabitants of her nest
Her milk of gratitude
Morning begins with a bright darkness
And the beckoning beaks for food
There is a wind ruffled mood
Yawing the feathers of the breast
Dawn is a ransom for the truth
Her flight negotiates
The billowing whirlwind
Of dust
Settled in the bowl of expectation
It is the African way.
Courage cannot wear shackles
When the protest comes
This transition
Have shaken superstructures
Not roots, but leaves
Any grafted branch can bear
We did not invent this way
This democracy
Churning chaos out of selfishness
This way of bridging men's hope
This inclusion that is exclusive
This decomposition of old bargaining
Of parables under ancient trees
Strange shifts happen
When we disrobe our cloth
Baring ourselves of familiar primitives
Was not the old ways good enough
Why did we not transform it
While the time was transforming us
Into spectacles
Since we did not want to be invisible still
Will we transform what we
Have borrowed
Into a resemblance of our sense
Of equality, belonging and value?
The base fumbles into sectors
Carved by streets intersecting villages
Divided by self interests
More than any division of our origin
We who came from Jamaica
Barbadoes, Trinidad
And Guyana
Leaving Elmina, Shama, and Sekondi behind
Cattled in the coral that was not pearl
Permitted by a sympathy of the Unites states
Came here forming a new state
Out of forgotten memories
Of lost addresses and broken grief
Of kinship disillusionment
Called this Liberia
Clothing the construction of autonomy
With the identity of freedom.
Is it surprising then this tension
This fractious existence
In a dark forest of genocide
That each sit not well with self as stranger
For this group have no social memory
Beyond the coming of the ships
Until a common bond is forged
From the sorrow of years of fire
To form a new collective identity
Nothing speaks to the deep insecurity
Where there is a need for belonging
Like the suckle of the milking breast
Soft on the flesh of the tongue
With kindness
Telling us our faults
Teaching us to be brothers again
Telling us how to feel the humanity
In our forgotten hearts
Straining to build out of the pain.
So, now, you are telling me your feelings.
But you expect my concern?
Did you consider my feelings?
Each and every single time that you afflicted me,
with your knit-picking first; with your rudeness;
with your discriminatory remarks,
and while you created and allowed a hostile environment
that included two co-workers?
Or while you abused and mistreated me,
and allowed your two 2nd in commands, and your daughter, to do the same?
Did you consider my feelings?
After I shared one personal feeling with you?
Only for you to throw it in my face,
with another subject heading?
After you were demeaning to me; After your inhumane treatment,
and your continual ignoring all of my good ideas,
and my concerns within vast areas of the job?
Did you consider my feelings?
When I tried to have open communication,
only for you to hurryingly pass it all by,
and to act as though the valuable topics and advice that I raised attention to,
that you caused to be turned into complaints,
were unnoteworthy, except for your retaliation?
Did you consider my feelings?
When you socioeconomically abused me?
When you cut my needed hours many times?
The first time causing me to default on payday loans,
that I never should have had to get in the first place.
Also causing me to get behind on rent,
as you became an accomplice to the unlawful and inhumane eviction
that they wouldn't allow me to go to court on?
Did you consider my feelings?
When you cut my needed hours again?
Lying about cutting out the lunch shift, that you would work yourself,
as you then, hypocritically, had four employees cramped in that space,
after cutting my hours to three hour shifts,
causing me to get burned...
Like you actually cared that you caused me pain.
Or did you consider my children's feelings?
As you snidely told me, "Just take care of yourself".
Ever? At all?
Not to mention all the wrongs that you committed against my children...
But you have the audacity to expect my concern now?!!
When you ignored every previous concern,
only to turn around and treat me like crap,
like my feelings don't matter to you?
Obviously,
you expect from others,
what you are not willing to give in return.
People don’t think of you the way that you like
who do you think you’re conning when talking all that ite
blagging everybody you come into contact with
proud of the first opportunity to take advantage of gifts
boasting about your blagging skills as if you ain’t known as a blagger who can’t be trusted with anything always a late giver backer
when the first impression you make shifts to a shady replacement
to never reappear after that first meeting you’re different
and when debts ain’t paid you never blame yourself
you go and point incompetence at somebody else
so it’s never your fault and therefore cannot be helped
treating friends unfair
until there ain’t no one there
because you just don’t care
but in your stories you swear
that you’re selfless and prepared
to save everyone who is facing despair
after blaming the individual for their own fate
comparing the fact you made decisions that they ain’t
because you make the right choices and have superior vision
sounding authentic to those who don’t expect to hear fibbing
and when you big yourself up there’s also somebody digging
and though they helped you back up you forget that as you kick ‘em
saying you wanna help as you continue to hit ‘em
acting like it’s all their fault as you leak criticism
combined with a sad face to ensure the sympathy’s given
because you lost a mate
when they fell into this place
but last month they were fake
and it was too much to take
for now they’re nowhere to trace
as they avoid you with hate
as you remove yourself
from any involvement or blame
and act all confused
saying they must be insane
because to not like you
must mean they haven’t a brain
and then you emphasis this point
by saying they’re the slow train
who you have to help by shining
a light that explains
the simplest interactions
that they take the wrong way
in fact if you speak to your friend
they would be right as rain
as the fact they don’t like you
is their stupid mistake
The narcissist in you evident
cold twisted malevolent
suffering though you’re innocent
from someone far less intelligent
now confused by developments
believing things deemed irrelevant
a friend you’ll save cus you’re brilliant
despite the painful experience