Get Your Premium Membership

Best Poems Written by Jean Bush

Below are the all-time best Jean Bush poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

View ALL Jean Bush Poems

123
Details | Jean Bush Poem

The Call

Oh, who do you call,
My beautiful one?

Rising in iridescent splendor
In the dark side of light against the creeping dawn.

A mourning cry to follow ere the heat of day,
Dries up the velvet feathered throats of longing.

A reddened eye of patience waits and watches;
Awash in tall grass, brown eyes blink
Then more as fear leaps to flight in graceful bounds.

But a muscular coat of dusty fur and the ruby spray of death
Insures another day of life and an all too ready hunger.

Copyright © Jean Bush | Year Posted 2018



Details | Jean Bush Poem

The Curse

At the sound of the knock, Mac opened the door,
And there on the porch stood his friend LeBours.
“I came at your call as fast as I dare.”
“You’re here at last, that’s all I care.”

Mac paused to clear this throat and said:
“I think tonight I shall be dead.”
“I think what you need to clear your mind
Is a smoke and a drink of your finest wine.”

With that, his friend stepped through the door,
And what could he do but follow LeBours.
“The curse of my family is burned in the wall.
Read it, please, it will tell you all.”

“It’s really quite a simple verse.”
They slid back the panel and read the curse:
An ancient crime that reeks with mettle.
An ancient score too late to settle.
A friend had helped the life that flew
So now who dies is one and two.

“The point, I fear, I cannot see….”
“It means there’s death for you and me!”
“I asked you here so we can fight
And keep a watch throughout the night.”

“Dear Mac,” said Le Bours, “fear not your ghost.
Bring us a drink and we’ll have a toast.”
So saying, he settled himself in a chair
And watched the shadows that gathered there.

Mac walked slowly from the room
And disappeared in the musty gloom.
He carried the drinks back through the door
And couldn’t believe what he saw on the floor:

He downed a glass to clear his head,
 For across the room, LeBours lay dead.
The tray and wine crashed to the floor, 
Mac was needed in his role no more.

Now the room grew still and dim
For late last night, it had gotten him.

Copyright © Jean Bush | Year Posted 2018

Details | Jean Bush Poem

Reader

I feel your words upon me
As they race across the page.
A running sense of wonder
Even late upon this age.

The whisper flips of paper
As the pages burn and turn,
Setting me afire...
It seems I never learn.

The secrets whispered to me
As I pause and try to hear,
Are echo cries of memories
That are laden wet with tears.

The hardened cover closes
Shutting down the riot sight.
As I nod and ponder deeply
Slipping off into the night.

Copyright © Jean Bush | Year Posted 2018

Details | Jean Bush Poem

To Die of Love

Lean in, oh so close, my love, and kiss my waning cheek.
For you have taken all I have and yet your love is sweet.
Wrap me in your velvet cloak and gently lay me down;
I need not now my feathered bed but rather broken ground.

You promised that our love would last the winding centuries,
But now I know, as my blood flows, there’s nothing left to see.
I told you I would follow you as long as I had life
Now I see, that more than me, you only loved the night.

Your hurried footsteps tell me that the coming dawn is nigh
You did not stay for my last breath but left me here to die.
One day, I think, that you will tire of all that you have been,
You’ll touch the sun and call my name and love me once again.

Copyright © Jean Bush | Year Posted 2020

Details | Jean Bush Poem

The Slave Maker

You slithering obsession;
You creeping vine, wrapped round progressive centuries,
Til kings and rebels and dreaming men
Become as lackeys,
Following your trailing, withered leaves.

You visit men in midst of night.
Your comely form mirrors fates unbidden to light of day.
Rise up - - oh Men!
But you, sheathed in shimmering sensation,
Beckon them to cross the barren edge…

Dust to dust
And men pass on,
Ever trapped by your treacherous caress,
And words: “Ah, such is life,”
Fall as stones from unprotesting lips.

But as men lie on Death’s rotating rim
They quick identify you, the Victress.

Copyright © Jean Bush | Year Posted 2018



Details | Jean Bush Poem

Seascape

Oh, how you loved it, puppy,
When first you saw the beach.
“Sit, stay, don’t dig the sand.”
I had so much to teach.

You barked and rolled and chased the crabs
And snapped at flying foam.
And fell asleep within my arms
As I gently walked you home.

We took long walks together,
As you splashed and jumped on me.
And the years and tides rolled into one
At our place beside the sea.

The dimming years would stoke my fears
As you unwound from life.
And I put you away and there you stay,
So far away from me.

The tide pulls back so slowly
As I weep on bended knee;
But I can see you run forever
At our place beside the sea.

Copyright © Jean Bush | Year Posted 2018

Details | Jean Bush Poem

The Courtly Ghost

A spirit came on a moonlit night
To seek a maid to be his wife,
And there he saw her passing fair
As she was going up the stair.

“Pardon, Miss, I’d like a kiss,
Please turn your eyes to me; 
For you look sweet and we could sleep
Through all eternity.”

The lady paused and looked around
And seemed to be alone,
But a midnight wind had gotten in
And chilled her to the bone.

The days passed by, the neighbors came
And bring her back they tried.
Though she lay in the gloom of that cold, cold room,
She had left to become a bride.

Copyright © Jean Bush | Year Posted 2018

Details | Jean Bush Poem

Catfucious 2

You yank me from my curtain climb
     But I shall nap and bide my time.

             You'll pass by soon enough.

Copyright © Jean Bush | Year Posted 2018

Details | Jean Bush Poem

The Last Farewell

Winter covers all the earth
And blows both cold and strong.
But amid the group of four of us
It’s springtime all along.

Hand in hand we walked the roads
That wither we may tramp.
And in the night of deep starlight
Laid down our loads to camp.

Four elvish friends that hard and fast
To each adventure binds.
And find that we had always been
True friends throughout all time.

Together we’ve run sunlit hills
Of that called Wilderland,
And fought the dragons of the North
And all the foes of Man.

We knew one day the time would come,
As we stand to greet the dawn,
That I and every one of us
Must sing his lonely song.

Who knows if when we’ll meet again
As we go our separate ways;
And lo, here come the coaches now
To take us each away.

Copyright © Jean Bush | Year Posted 2018

Details | Jean Bush Poem

Moonlight On Satin

I raise the lid so slowly,
My hand on soft satin;
I hear the creaking hinges
As moonlight seeps within.

My bleary eyes encounter
The dank and wooden floor,
Time to appease the hunger,
Not once but ever more.

I turn the ornate doorknob
And what a sight I see,
A river of flowing forest
Down to the endless sea.

Village homes a light with candles
To push away the dark.
But they won’t see me coming
Until I leave my mark.

The moon is slowly fading
As the years roll into one.
The darkness loves to hide me
But I long to see the sun.

The pink touched dawn is coming;
Shall I burn away this sin?
But I close the lid securely
And sleep on soft satin.

Copyright © Jean Bush | Year Posted 2018

123

Book: Shattered Sighs