Long Shoves Poems
Long Shoves Poems. Below are the most popular long Shoves by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Shoves poems by poem length and keyword.
Back straight, shoulders down. Straighten the computer. Stop staring at the purple walls.
Light the candle once, twice, three times -- why won’t it light? --
before the flame finally catches,
filling the room with the scent of pine.
Breathe in, breathe out. Start typing.
Sunlight slants across my fingertips, and I turn to face the source
impossibly far from the window.
The clouds are tinged the golden white of times flown by,
of the yarn of the Fates that winds tighter and tighter and tighter and tighter in your chest until you’re suffocating, asphyxiating, gasping for breath, panic turning your body to crumbling stone.
The mushrooms know this process well. It’s been inscribed in their DNA since well before humans were graced with the knowledge of how to care for their dead.
Over the eons, they’ve befriended Time and Death alike.
What would I give to have such an intimate connection with the two?
To sit back amongst shadows that drape me like a blanket rather than grip me like a vise?
Too much time has passed. Too many seconds lost. Time, time, time, slipping away from my scrambling fingers.
Can’t grip the yarn; too silky, too precious. The Fates wove quality too fine for mortals to grasp.
Clear thoughts like an etch-a-sketch, sending fireglow hair flying. Breathe in, breathe out.
Start typing.
The words that appear are damn near incomprehensible, shrouded and hidden by
ghosts of memories that weave themselves through my thoughts.
A dark lake house lit by candles and the fire in my eye as I take my grandma “exploring”
over forest-colored carpet and around oak tables,
a land she’s already familiar with.
How do I rectify that vision with what’s facing now?
112 feather-light pounds of gray hair and fading eyes,
reality’s cruel reward for a life of purpose and love.
I’m scrambling to keep up with all the changes, but my grasp is slipping.
Suddenly she’s falling faster than we thought.
The heater’s white noise is the only constant,
the handfuls of M&Ms the only distraction.
I’m all too aware of the bills I’m racking up,
too cognizant that synthetic dopamine only shoves away what’s real,
but I’m crumbling too fast to care.
Shaky breath in. Straighten the computer. Stop staring blankly at the purple walls.
There’s too much to do; the future’s jumping down your throat and running away.
Start typing.
Now, my story is not a fun one
Nor does it make much sense
For, at times, it’s quite confusing
But it goes a little like this:
I feel in love at a young age
When I was just fifteen
I didn’t listen to my friends’ advice;
My boyfriend, I continued to see.
He was cold and hateful towards me
And could always throw a good punch
We’d viciously fight before school
But he’d apologize before lunch.
I tried not to believe it
And just listen to my heart
But it landed me in a bad place
And here’s where my story really gets its start.
I though that I was ready for the commitment
Because we didn’t act as wild
But I was wrong to trust him
And soon, I was pregnant with his child.
I felt so alone and saddened
Like I had no other choice
I needed my future, needed my life
And so, this child, I chose to destroy.
I couldn’t take care of a baby
I knew that would never do
And I sat down and thought it out
And said, “What would Jesus do?”
I prayed about it all one night
And cried my eyes out too
I asked God to give me an answer
Tell me what to do.
I spent one night crying
And then the deciding was done
I made my choice, that was it,
My inner battle was won.
Nine months slowly crawled by
As I kept up with my grades
And whenever it just got too hard,
I feel to my knees and prayed.
At first, I wanted to give her up
She only reminded me of her father’s shoves
But the moment I looked in her baby blue eyes,
My eyes filled with love.
And that was twenty years ago
I am now thirty-six
With a beautiful young daughter
Who’s had her own problems I helped fix.
Though her life has never been easy
And money is always tight
To know that she’s happy and healthy
Lets me sleep with a smile at night.
I speak on behalf of women
All around the world
So that they believe they can find the strength
To take care of their little boys and girls.
‘So,’ I tell them in confidence,
‘If you need help, come to me
For I will never turn you away
Just trust in your strength and see.’
‘Though America will frown on you
And refuse your searching hand,
Just never give up and it’ll pay off
Because, really, girls, you were never bad.’
And when I’ve finished talking,
I turn to my daughter again
And think to myself, if I had a choice,
I’d make the same one again.
It's easy to set the goal, and even put the process in motion, but continuing to push forward through struggles and frustration can require a shove to help draw out that emotional leverage. ~ Leigh Wilson
Emotional happiness is a goal everyone would like to reach
but attaining that destination is not something anyone can teach.
The use of leverage is a viable solution to ignite the flames of fire,
ones to use as sparks to light the way to have the life we desire
There are several emotional concepts that I label after reflection
that can motivate us and others to live life without objection
Pride is usually thought of as a trait for which we shouldn't strive
but it can also prove to be a useful tool that can keep hope alive
for it can take a look at goals that were achieved or things done right.
A point worth making; it opens a window giving slivers of foresight
Joy is an emotion everyone feels when a goal is accomplished
Any lever can be used to amplify an advantage that can be wished
Something as simple as talking with others can make joy a reality
It's a resource to change a behavior or attitude; not a hyperbole
Hope allows us to have expectations of a life that we find fulfilling
But life often pushes back with frustrations that could use distilling
That's when we pivot, as a lever to make struggles less intimidating
By facing problems head on, seeking solutions, instead of placating
The fear factor dwells inside everyone when feeling uncertainty
or an immediate threat, but it can be levered with a bit of diversity,
a change in some areas of our lives where we experience less stress
The more advantages we can obtain, we'll feel threats much less
Anger is perhaps the biggest obstacle to having emotional well-being
but used as a leverage, it can be used as a key that allows the freeing
from threats that we experience, disrupting our sense of independency,
enabling us to feel self-compassion and toward others with clemency
Then there is the prospect of shame, used to encourage and persuade
ourselves and others to avoid an action or a decision, wrongly made
when we, or others might find out about a socially undesirable action.
Leveraging devices give gentle shoves that lead to emotional satisfaction.
A game of musical chairs has just begun in earnest. A pot and kettle band arrives
through the dining rooms’ French doors following the Valentine Queen. A putrid pink
flamingo with a croquet ball stuck in its beak settles it’s derrière onto a fine caramel
leather seat. His humor is short lived. A snort echoes from each of the six bullhorns
forming his head. “Got him that time, you really did, Matilda!” laughed Lucky, the
horn-backed chair. A single, rose-pink, button pops off Matilda’s back and lands in
the hatless brigands’ teapot, just as he is placing a silver tea ball inside. “Ou a le
petite fille?” Matilda groans. Around the far end of the table chasing a set of
disembodied eyes with a cat tail, a girl child runs screeching. “She looks familiar,
don’t she?” Windy whistles beneath the lacy tablecloth, tickling Mattie’s fancy. “Her
name ain’t Louise,” as with a plop, a brigand crushes Laddie’s rushes. The windsor
replies. “Geeeeeeeeez Louise!” the ladder-back mutters, between its back straps. A
top hat flies through the air and landed on the top knob of the lanky ladder backed
chair. The child righted herself, wiping her nose on the errant apron string. She lisps
through the spider web pattern of her seat. “Awww now what a shame,” Mary
whispers to Tex. The loose tails of her apron caught beneath Mary’s rocker and the
child tumbled face forward into a full cup of Assam tea. A girl child resplendent in
golden locks and white pinafore tore into the room planting herself on the caned
ladies rocker Mary. “Mon Dieu” She moans. “Ya’ll see that nasty monster splatter
chocolate icing on my skirt?” A knob kneed, potbellied prig, holding a cupcake,
shoves his way onto Matilda, the little ladies slipper chair. Tex the horned back chair
at the tables girdle chortles. “Do you know who’s been invited to this soiree?” The
rabbit topples over backward, his watch bashing his delicate pink nose. Windy
sneezes.“Aahhh chhhooo!” Tufts of fanny fur tickled between his spokes.
“Good golly Miss Molly,” shrieks Windy the windsor chair at the far end of the table,
as a wild-eyed, white rabbit with a gold watch plunked into his well-worn seat.
*Refer to "The Chairs Have it"
This poem can be read from the backwards too ;)
(continued from part 1)
What is innocence
that little boy
whose pulling his toy
with it’s broken wheel
Do you think he doesn’t know that the price of that crack needle
Could buy him a meal?
Do you think he doesn’t, know
that that beer bottle
Is why he bares the bruises on his skin
Is it why he has to force himself to grin?
Is that little girl sitting with her perfectly coifed dolls
Singing to herself so she doesn’t hear the screams
Doesn’t she scream in terror
as her father bursts into her dreams.
And shoves her mom crashing into her little table.
Does she have to dream, to live her fable
And even then,
is she able?
Do you wonder what she is thinking
as she struggles to push the head back on her doll
or is it a way for her to merely, ignore it all
Are you watching with 20 million other viewers
A drone in your living room, a slave to a box
A fly in a web of airwaves
Do you think your government is doing the same
Or are they filling up
Graves
is there an agenda being played
as our minds are swayed
Is this distraction as innocent as it seems?
And that epidemic….An epidemic of having too much food
Begging someone please!
stop us from eating I cant see,
my knees
like it’s the bubonic plague
like we’re dropping like flies
An epidemic!
Could we build a memorial and carve on its stone
5 million died this year
from an this epidemic alone
we could… if we replaced obesity with
starvation
Is it ironic that the fat kids stomach looks just as big
as the starving ones.
What is innocence
Is a boy who just wants to spend time with his grandpa
He doesn’t understand
As his grandpa takes him by the, hand
And leads into the bathroom
To show him the darker side of man
That in that moment he’ll have to grow up
Faster then he planned
Faster then he can
What is innocence
Does it exist in this land
From the time were born
We stripped down, bought and torn
From violence to ****
We’re watched and mimicked
Our lives just a gimmick
To get in our little kids heads
Where innocence treads
To take away their bliss
The only thing that they were born, with
What is innocence
Does it exist anymore
Or in this day and age
Have we closed that door
Forever more?
I am who I am and that’s all I can be.
I’m sick of trying to be, someone other than me.
if you want to know who I am,take a good look.
You can’t read the story without opening the book.
On the first page,a little girl you’ll see.
A little girl that looks,quite similar to me.
She’s got chubby cheeks, brown eyes,
and two ears to soak up all the lies.
She sits atop the stairs, night after night,
Looking down below,seeing her parents fight.
Her brother is there near her side,
He tries to wipe the tears his sister has cried.
Flip the pages,skip ahead a few years,
The girl is little no more, she hangs with her peers.
She puts on her smile, day after day,
And at night she lays her head down to pray.
She prays for a time,when she doesn’t have to cry.
She looks out her window, up to the black sky.
Trapped at home, with no hope for tomorrow
Her body is filled with years of sorrow.
Halfway through the book, she’s on her own.
Her brother is gone, she is now alone.
No one to run to when she got scared,
Facing them alone, she was unprepared.
Time to grow up, no time to hide
No more tears, they have all dried.
Time to step up, time to be brave,
No more being a kid, her childhood away she gave.
Now that little girl is grown, she is strong.
This new strength she has had all along.
She’s no longer afraid to speak her mind.
The words she says aren’t always kind.
She stands her ground,getting in between,
her fighting parents, at the age of sixteen.
He shoves her down, she gets back up,
He doesn’t realize she’s no longer a young pup.
The last chapter begins, that little girl now eighteen,
Just another night, same old routine.
She pushes back, with hatred in her eyes,
“I hate you” loud and clear she cries.
So much anger built up, so much pain
All of these emotions, she just can’t contain.
She slams her fists into the back of her door.
She loses her strength as she collapse to the floor.
I’m that little girl from this story book,
You wouldn’t have known, from one little look.
Just like everyone, I am who I am,
If you don’t like me, I don’t give a damn.
My life has been rough, but don’t pity me,
This is me, and me is who I will always be.
What does it mean to be immersed in the waters of true love?
To be completely vulnerable; by her eyes willingly held captive.
I had constantly pondered this question in my inexperienced mind.
Having found my answer; what better way to show it than in rhyme.
Is it through pain that we show how much we truly love?
Or are we abuse in hopes of it, justifying the shoves?
Is love shown through the strain and struggle we bear?
Or has it hidden itself away as we pull out our hair?
Is sex the key; for it has not been often called making love?
Or have our desires corrupted it, losing sight of what it was?
Is love a lie told to take advantage of helpless romantics?
Or has it truly been lost; for we have grown to wise for its antics?
Love lies hidden; intertwined with the examples described.
But they all fall short, and are corrupted by the flesh inside.
So I hope in this poem we can final find what love really is.
Removing the fallacies and the lies and the little white fibs.
Patience is an attribute of love, for without it we become anxious.
If forbearance is lacking it we will summon chaos and undue distress.
Kindness is also need for love to be present; without it love cannot thrive.
A gentle word surpasses anything said in anger; for it bears no disguise
Love is with out the arousal of envy and does not care to boast,
For it has nothing to prove; though it be humbler than most.
Malevolence is a trait that is not of love, for love wishes malice on none.
Love is slow to anger; for anger only invokes actions that are not easily undone.
Love delights in the purity of honesty but loathes all things dishonest.
With distrust love cannot survive no matter how sweet the promise.
Distrust will leave us empty, with our hearts filled with great rue and shame.
But with love, the world has nothing that can extinguish it's most glorious flame.
So let us not construed love into a lust filled dimwitted game.
For we will be left with nothing to hope for; no untainted love to claim.
Be wise and heed these solemn words written by someone so deeply in love,
For there is no greater feeling than loving the angel meant for you from above.
A Troubled Soul
They use these three words for countless endeavors, a face with no soul and a body with no mind
Impaled by my inside thoughts, my heart and mind dueling each other for control, a civil war
My heart yearns for the smile of my past while the mind shoves me towards a future devoid of a soul
My future smile disgusts me; a place filled with the stout stench of dying souls and haunted cries
I yearn for peace within me; I yearn to soothe the cries of my weeping heart
I search for an escape; I yearn solitude, a place where the actions that stem from my thoughts offer no consequence
They call it the greater good, yet the good from such actions is hard to decipher
As I sacrifice my virtues to settle with someone beneath me, to avoid mewling over a lost love
I tell myself if you keep me distracted then my thoughts are diverted from her
I convince myself to fight on, yet the warrior within me has long been laid to rest
Heaven has shunned my romantic soul, cupid`s aim is a distant memory of what it once was
As my heart drowns in a love that betrays me, a cruel sick twisted gut-wrenching deceitful love, a false love
Stuck in limbo my essence remains fragmented and my dreams still remain tormented
Left behind to pick up the pieces of a shattered heart, left behind to reminisce the past
Dead inside my dreams are in black and white; my dreams are to leave this world behind
My lungs choked as they struggle to breathe the breath of life
Like a fishing line my soul has been reeled in and cast out into the open repeatedly
And like a game of football, my love has been kicked around far too many times
Left to meander aimlessly like the soulless creature of darkness that I am
Left to ponder on the inevitability of a demise yet to be told, yet to be unfolded
I am stuck and my emotions betray my secrets to the wind, betraying my cause of life
No love within the depths of my heart, no compassion to embrace the cold wilderness within me
I walk the path alone and see what you`ve become without me, I sink further towards the gallows
You *****, at least now I`ll see you in the misery and the hate of what you`ve become
They fled their land to find safety
instead, they found
cruel life wherever they lived
They've lost everything
because they're that way
Their aspirations crumbled
and they lost all their aspirations.
Something I strive
to be among the shattered
in honor of the broken
Thinking about all tears that would be shed
their world caves over them
their optimism turned into terror.
I wish to be with splintered people
the face-to-face challenge, people
the unseen, unheard, uninvolved
The type who strives to lurk in shadows
couldn't you trust me?
Why do they need not be alone?
Why must they weep to sleep?
All hope is lost to them
only darkness prevails
Alas, act in a purely unfazed manner
not having everything handy
They attempt to comprehend.
leaving from one paycheck to another
cheering and clapping sans graceful motions.
They weep until their eyes dry.
entirely on their own,
they can only wish for brighter days.
when they could find solace
As their emotions hardened into stones.
I am neutral about skin color
or their perceived sin
or their need to be flawless to win
I start with sight and sound
despite aspects or ground
should never be, where they're found.
Modern stupidity in innocence
stupidly that shoves them to survive
Fair pretense and pure all
illuminating blind minds
Luminousness of noble ideals
may aid the underprivileged
or bless, the broken-hearted.
To heal their wounded souls
to bestow hope to the desperate
to promise salvation
to wipe away their tears.
I am overwhelmed by such a plight
who can grasp their insight?
or even sense being near the site
they may offer love I could not bestow.
Ultimately, we are all flawed
suffocating, we stagger
costumes and snob jokes
Victims of other people's poking
no one's heart is empty.
Complexity creeps into our minds
may rush if others approach
each unspoken and broken
For the sake of finding
excluded role hiding
cruel passion ridding
Need to see well where you're sitting?
Written: October 22, 2022
The industrial hull of the SUV
Sways with the slightest wind taps
And pothole shoves. Popeye’s signs,
Golden shell displays, the lingering smell
Of Premium-grade gasoline.
The prices are Down, but our gas meter still
teeters closely, Dangerously, just inches away
from zero. Still, we push on.
We pass Targets and Walmarts,
advertising last minute holiday sales.
We pass packed churches,
Minute investment banks,
and lush green fields
Of ochre and chamomile.
We love it here, when it's like this,
swaying and moving and existing and living,
traffic lights blinking signaling malfunction,
creaky train tracks rattling under thick rubber tires,
Black faces covered in bandanas,
riding sterling White horses on cobblestone streets,
homes stuffed with joyous presents and family love.
Christmas lights line walls and corners like cobwebs,
bells jingle and chestnuts roast.
A stray dog hurtles through aqua-hued
Alleys, neighborhood convenient stores shut the
Shutters for the night. Randall’s BBQ pit sits
Idle in front of the Dollar General. We almost get
in a wreck near the intersection
outside of the neighborhood.
I cry,
my clothes dampen from stress-induced sweat.
We pass backyards,
homes,
estates.
Wired, wood, corrugated fences,
kids jumping over them,
gaining scarlet scabs on knees,
fences beautifully embroidered,
decorated with ivy from hobby lobby
and signs that read, “beware of dog!”
But still, we push on.
We move through the backyard,
inching slowly on St. Augustine grass,
slithering like scaled snakes past the
Water hose and dog cage.
The pitbull’s mouth foams with slimy goop,
but he pays no mind.
We sway smoothly like wind to the
living room window.
No one here.
We love it here, when it's like this.
We see jewelry, shoes, jackets,
petticoats, purses, monster trucks,
guitars, Barbies. We see a red light
beaming from an alarm on the wall,
meaning “armed.”
But still, we push on.