"flushes" poems
I scream until my throat aches and ignites.
I scream until my face flushes.
I've been screaming all day,
But nobody has heard me.
Dec 9, 2014
Dec 9, 2014 at 10:26 PM UTC
The sounding alarm starts the frenzy
I hurry myself to shower and dress
Slowing just for a moment
To strategically place fragrant surprises
For later explorations.
Accelerating with all urgency
I weave through the blockade of traffic
Risking it all to preserve
Each second, each minute, every moment of time
For my waiting infatuation
Flushes of excitement consume me
As I near my destination
I am overwhelmed with pulsating urges
As I search for a way to impress you
Show advanced appreciation
Welcomed with a sensual eagerness
Each of us knowing and wanting
I ask "Can I play you a tune?"
A Love song plays to a faintness
As you bring me to satisfaction
Then,
Ascending to kiss me softly
You wish me a good day at work.
Wiping excess from your chin
You smile and say "See you tomorrow."
© Tina Thompson
Feb 16, 2012
Feb 16, 2012 at 2:46 PM UTC
i put my hands on your throat ;
veins pumping red
like little boats
inside the storm ,
your hands tangle around me ,
they grasp, tug, hit:
and this is a fight that
i am losing.
outside, it snows ,
and my pink skins flushes red
as you have burned me
from the inside out .
everything becomes white , when
you touch me
for the first time ,
and then i cry when you hit me .
.
we kiss.
Apr 3, 2018
Apr 3, 2018 at 7:49 AM UTC
As you plaited the harvest bow
You implicated the mellowed silence in you
In wheat that does not rust
But brightens as it tightens twist by twist
Into a knowable corona,
A throwaway love-knot of straw.
Hands that aged round ashplants and cane sticks
And lapped the spurs on a lifetime of game *****
Harked to their gift and worked with fine intent
Until your fingers moved somnambulant:
I tell and finger it like braille,
Gleaning the unsaid off the palpable,
And if I spy into its golden loops
I see us walk between the railway slopes
Into an evening of long grass and midges,
Blue smoke straight up, old beds and ploughs in hedges,
An auction notice on an outhouse wall--
You with a harvest bow in your lapel,
Me with the fishing rod, already homesick
For the big lift of these evenings, as your stick
Whacking the tips off weeds and bushes
Beats out of time, and beats, but flushes
Nothing: that original townland
Still tongue-tied in the straw tied by your hand.
The end of art is peace
Could be the motto of this frail device
That I have pinned up on our deal dresser--
Like a drawn snare
Slipped lately by the spirit of the corn
Yet burnished by its passage, and still warm.
7.6k
Some are laughing, some are weeping;
She is sleeping, only sleeping.
Round her rest wild flowers are creeping;
There the wind is heaping, heaping
Sweetest sweets of Summer's keeping,
By the cornfields ripe for reaping.
There are lilies, and there blushes
The deep rose, and there the thrushes
Sing till latest sunlight flushes
In the west; a fresh wind brushes
Through the leaves while evening hushes.
There by day the lark is singing
And the grass and weeds are springing:
There by night the bat is winging;
There forever winds are bringing
Far-off chimes of church-bells ringing.
Night and morning, noon and even,
Their sound fills her dreams with Heaven:
The long strife at length is striven:
Till her grave-bands shall be riven
Such is the good portion given
To her soul at rest and shriven.
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When my father was young he mowed lawns for money. He pushed a second-hand spinning blade in the hot Florida sun for spare change.
With dull coins clanging in his pocket and crumpled bills in his palm, my father fought to escape home.
To him, home was synonymous with scary southern suburbia, where late-night television was replaced with screaming matches and loud fists. Angry eyes with children's cries. Barbecues bombarded with apologetic looks from neighbors. Pretending not to hear shatters and shouts of supposed 'baseball black eyes'.
And so he pushed. Pushed the rusty lawn mower down strangers' yards, pushed away the sniggering snot-nosed kids calling him 'Spic', and pushed at his father's demons, crawling down his spine, whispering that he was no good.
Years later he kept pushing
Pushing
Pushing
Pushing towards whatever came next. Yet no matter how much he pushed, he was still the same boy with the lawn mower. Angry, mad, pushing violently ahead.
The smoke of sanity is inhaled now, as my father's blood-shot eyes try to suppress the angry boy within. The residue of stolen innocence is not left unnoticed. A touch of tone on his once sunburnt neck and the man he has made instantly flushes away, leaving his father's demons. Calmer than before, a dying star, burning bright before collapse.
Like a strong jaw, his father's anger is passed down to him, and I, his son, am now born with this seed of destruction. Smaller than before, but still seething.
Constantly reminded, I sit in a leather chair surrounded by white walls in carefully controlled climate, plastic pen perched on my palm, I push.
I'll keep pushing.
Jun 9, 2014
Jun 9, 2014 at 4:50 PM UTC
I hate your ********* skepticism.
You sit and look at me from across an
Empty expanse of blood-red tablecloth that might as well be
The divide between galaxies.
I try to stay calm when you ask if
"Alternative" pronouns are being used
As a "social experiment" in GSA.
I look away.
My heart pounds.
My face flushes.
It is only for the sake of the young kids present
That I do not mutter any obscenities.
I take a deep breath.
I tell you, slowly, carefully, that
No it isn't an experiment.
They have chosen to use plural pronouns
They, them, theirs,
Just as legitimate as the "normal" ones, male and female.
Why should anyone's name be tied to
What they were born with between their legs?
You answer back in a long drawl that is so full I skepticism
I could choke on it's ignorance.
"Okay then."
Two words, two words that make me rethink everything
I think about you, my father.
I was filled with hope when I listened to
Tales of love and life,
Freedom to marry who you want.
You support gay rights, Dad,
But I'm left wondering:
Do you support all my friends?
The pansexual and gender-fluid and bisexual and homosexual and demi-sexual and those who chose other pronouns?
What about the transsexuals and asexuals and third-gendered and pan-romantic and sapiosexual and queer?
I turn away before I reveal my hurt to you
I will not open up this can of worms again, I'm sure.
I thought I knew you.
Now I only know how much more I
Respect
Compared to you.
May 21, 2014
May 21, 2014 at 10:30 PM UTC
In the dark of night, in the middle of a storm
A dish falls, shatters
A shriek tears the relative silence
Pale pink blood blossoms in the water
While rich red blood wells up in the hand
Tears falling like a blinding waterfall
Stabs and throbs of aching stinging searing pain
Blood and pain and tears fill the mind
A flash of white tissue beneath the torrents of red
Panting sobs and hyperventilation
Panicking as victim is rushed to the ER
Mother tries to comfort daughter with story of healed,
Previously lacerated toes
Two words blurted between gasps of pain: NOT HELPING
Arrive to an empty lobby, excepting a nurse and receptionist
Focus on nothing, only the hand
The possible tendon torn, the skin shredded, the blood spilt
Dishtowel now soaking red irony fluid instead of clear soapy
The story repeated 6, 7, 8 times
A nurse asks if I smoke or drink
A radiologist asks if there is any chance for pregnancy
And for a moment I am shocked out of my pain into pondering
The corruption of the modern generations,
Such that I am asked these questions
Any friend of mine would quickly tell that
No, I'm not that kind of teenager... but how many are?
Then I am whisked from the x-ray room
Off for stitches, they say my tendon is cut
That I need stitches
The fingers no longer gush, but that triviality is soon remedied
A doctor probes the wound for shards
Nurse flushes it clean with chlorohexadine
Both renew the flow
Doctor returns, stitches both fingers and chats away
Grand tally of five stitches, a splint, blankets of guaze,
And a roll of medical tape
Prescriptions for pain meds and antibiotics, both given
A scoffing glance, but instructions are followed
Forbidden from any activity with the right hand by my mother
I struggle even to write, simple chores soon a nuisance
First time the splint and stitches are gone,
Doctor number two declares my hand usable
First time the little finger bends, the half healed skin splits
So all for a plate, a hand was rendered more useless
Nov 13, 2012
Nov 13, 2012 at 10:07 PM UTC
The voice calling me from the dark
Is quiet
Sensuous
Its melody thrums through my bones and tongue
And curls, purring in my heart
Like wine it flushes my cheek with uninhibited warmth
It calls me to action
Reckless self endangering action
Not all voices from the dark are kind.
This one glows like a black sun.
Biting back the fear of warmth and contact
In my touch starved living canvas
The voice has teeth
Teeth that set in my spine and inject courage into my marrow
That scrape ever so slightly down my neck
In wanton display
Of seductive darkness.
Its call is haunting
Sleepworn it sends me running
Through a silver forest of dusky light
Upon an unbroken path
Marked only by whispers that linger in Its wake.
I know not what I’m following
I know its power and magnitude brings summer to my throat and winter to my veins
Spring blooming warm upon my cheeks along the shivering pines
That voice of silk sheets and twisted limbs
A weight in the chest like a secondary heart’s phantom thumping
Throbbing its call of life back to that voice in the dark
Inviting it in for a taste.
May 29, 2016
May 29, 2016 at 2:33 PM UTC
How a kiss feels
It is indescribable
And yet I can explain
It in detail
Soft Lips press
Against each other
As hearts pound
Sometimes it is
Soft filled with
Love and warmth
And others are
Forceful filled with
Lust and passion
Fingers tangle in
The other's hair
Arms are wrapped
Around necks and
Waists fingers lace
Together as warm
Tongues press against
Soft Lips begging
For entrance
Mouths open
Tongues battle for
Dominance as each
Persons heart hammers
In their chest
Fingers entangle themselves
In long and short hair
body
Heat grows strong
And stronger
Until eventually shirts
Are discarded bras
Are lifted and
Moans fill the
Room
Heat fills your
Body
As his touch
Sends a shiver
Down your spine
Your face flushes
A deep shade
Of berry red
As he nibbles
And ***** on
The sensitive flesh
Of your neck
Causing your world
To go blank
This is how
A kiss feels
Feb 8, 2018
Feb 8, 2018 at 1:13 PM UTC
inside an early morning
the sky flipped around
cart wheeling above
lightning bolt flashes
big thunder boomers
some clouds fostered
the rain which leaps
onto the earth just as
Zeus flushes the toilet
and the entire world
stops to listen for
him to zip.
Sep 29, 2016
Sep 29, 2016 at 5:13 PM UTC
Shimmering sudden sanctioning
Surfaces right in front of me
Twisting tomorrow’s tongue-tied testimony
Leaving my heart soaked in surrender
Colossal comb tethering in the hair of my offender
I wallowed in things to come while my whole life was spinning undone
Soothe thyself day to day so I won’t fade away
Internal clock knocks on my heartthrob
I am slipping into each moment
Oh I won’t hold it
I let go and slowly slip, swallowing every drip
This is just the tip of all there is
Reawaken each moment in this
Love lapses through me and I collapse into infinity
Struck by my own understanding
Preparing for divinity’s landing
I fall for it again and again
My dreams melting madness motion me onward
Tangible tussles through thick throats turning toward tomorrow
Sorrow leaks and seeps into the eyes of the blind
While they wait in their own mind
Suckling savage frolics as mankind slips into grayness
And blue lips use so much to say so little
Breaking our fiddle over our knees
Longing for hope hitched pleads
As our craze bleeds onto eternity, spun up into me
Creeping carefully so as not to spill this drill yet again
Letting it crack through the incomplete
Flushes back into the see
Finally, once again we arrive and float away with the breeze
Nov 5, 2012
Nov 5, 2012 at 2:10 PM UTC
Under my bowels, yellow with smoke,
it waits.
Under my eyes, those milk bunnies,
it waits.
It is waiting.
It is waiting.
Mr. Doppelganger. My brother. My spouse.
Mr. Doppelganger. My enemy. My lover.
When truth comes spilling out like peas
it hangs up the phone.
When the child is soothed and resting on the breast
it is my other who swallows Lysol.
When someone kisses someone or flushes the toilet
it is my other who sits in a ball and cries.
My other beats a tin drum in my heart.
My other hangs up laundry as I try to sleep.
My other cries and cries and cries
when I put on a cocktail dress.
It cries when I ***** a potato.
It cries when I kiss someone hello.
It cries and cries and cries
until I put on a painted mask
and leer at Jesus in His passion.
Then it giggles.
It is a thumbscrew.
Its hatred makes it clairvoyant.
I can only sign over everything,
the house, the dog, the ladders, the jewels,
the soul, the family tree, the mailbox.
Then I can sleep.
Maybe.
3.3k
Feel the chains change in me tonight
Condense me to evaporate in want
The long of a bounce to another world
Light the fire to burn deep and fervour
A belly roasts in repetitive embers flushes
Hearts tied connate as the essence flashes
A tangle ribboned to last after the dawn
Testify as our sparks infinitely ignite dances
Titaniums of our tectonic plates merge motions
A convergence entwined in bordered emotions
Link me in the convections of transformations
Conversations of a lasting warm benevolence
Paradisiacal chum of a past in resonance
A photographic collection of a lived long life
Unwrap the snare, unwind the erased tapes
Lay back as we hide away behind the moonlight
Apr 29, 2016
Apr 29, 2016 at 4:18 PM UTC
Trill of beak into birch. Dawn spooks
the graveyard into silence. A heart
hardens at God’s withered finger reaching
but not reached for. I trim the hedges
and the whir of weed-eater disturbs
a nest of yellow jackets into tornado,
dust devil, of translucent wings and sting.
I walk among the dead three times a week.
I am learning their language. They relearn
the mundanity of white noise above
and quietly forget, quietly forgive.
This hill is the crest on a wave of coffins,
each one a boat through the world below.
Submerged in a bloodshot morning
I listen to a woodpecker in its throes
of building a home out of the depths of bark.
In the chill, the soft fog rolling, it pecks
and it knocks. The doors to these lives
long closed, I hush. I do not believe God
will visit these grounds to reclaim his clay:
I plant flowers in it between the plots,
each name engraved of marble a blank stare.
The flash of red flushes from budding branches
and I return to work. No one answers.
I relearn the dead’s language, their silence,
relearn every day how to repair stillness.
Apr 22, 2016
Apr 22, 2016 at 12:38 PM UTC
The Harvest Bow
As you plaited the harvest bow
You implicated the mellowed silence in you
In wheat that does not rust
But brightens as it tightens twist by twist
Into a knowable corona,
A throwaway love-knot of straw.
Hands that aged round ashplants and cane sticks
And lapped the spurs on a lifetime of game *****
Harked to their gift and worked with fine intent
Until your fingers moved somnambulant:
I tell and finger it like braille,
Gleaning the unsaid off the palpable,
And if I spy into its golden loops
I see us walk between the railway slopes
Into an evening of long grass and midges,
Blue smoke straight up, old beds and ploughs in hedges,
An auction notice on an outhouse wall—
You with a harvest bow in your lapel,
Me with the fishing rod, already homesick
For the big lift of these evenings, as your stick
Whacking the tips off weeds and bushes
Beats out of time, and beats, but flushes
Nothing: that original townland
Still tongue-tied in the straw tied by your hand.
The end of art is peace
Could be the motto of this frail device
That I have pinned up on our deal dresser—
Like a drawn snare
Slipped lately by the spirit of the corn
Yet burnished by its passage, and still warm.
by Seamus Heaney
Aug 30, 2013
Aug 30, 2013 at 8:02 PM UTC
a stabbing shiver corrodes my limbs
goosebumps lick my heart
a fat cramp strokes my lips
and terror waves my mind
freezingly hot blood
flushes twisted nerves
sweet foul shudder makes
all memories awake
blurry visions of happiness
worm into cutting blade
hissing a haunting realization:
that it is too late.
naivety suggests
a joyful brand new start
but the naked present screams
that you grew apart
Jun 20, 2016
Jun 20, 2016 at 3:05 AM UTC
Inside of my body
Amidst death and poison
a virus lurks
in every
puddle,
pumping
blood that flushes
my tired heart
like
the river
Styx
Amidst this
battlezone
that is my
failing being
lies
a secret, sleeping
The cells swim by
They are
rarer
now like precious gems
the factories of my
fighting body
produced like
diamonds
born amidst feverish
forges within
a toxic mine
The gems,
they call them T-cells,
are now suicide bombers
converted daily
by the
whisper of
necromancy
They call
this
hex ***
a war against
your own
treasures
Yet my T-cells
are more,
runes blazing
mystic and
glowing,
antigen sorcery
that wards against
failing
Amidst
the 300,000 +sleeper
cells
that abandoned
my cause
Insurgence
bulges with
nightmare
The cells
clamour
growing with the whispers
of past victims
now roped into the
mystic chains, the wizards
call it RNA,
that bind us
An ironic family
of ghosts
who live
in each other
"junk DNA"
My body
is no junk;
instead a treasure
- what do they say
one man's trash?
My body
an
amalgamation
30 years
magic growing
twisted
like thorny vines
that must consume
their
helpless host
My
T-cells
inception
Worlds within me
the "JUNK"
of
lovers past
becomes entangled
in archives
carved in my bones.
Amidst recipes
of a poison
I cannot trace,
I am
ironically
linked
into
a
family of
ancestors
whose cries
beat in
my still
working heart
The drum
of the long fallen
crying for justice
...My blood
Our blood.
chains enmeshing
....ghosts I
will never know
Now parts of me
that lie sleeping in
Trojan horses,
all my own.
Jul 8, 2014
Jul 8, 2014 at 6:16 AM UTC
Lust, attraction.. attachment.
I'm at the mercy of biochemistry.
Cupid with his arrow, shot my soul.
In a ridiculous fashion.
It makes no sense.. is it supposed to?
Flushes cheeks, my hearts racing.. hands are clammy.
Never met a soul I was close to.
The dopamine, could be the nicotine.
I'm blinded.. such a beautiful face
The adrenalin & serotonin coursing through my veins.
I find I'm tempted, temporarily insane.
Cupids star struck victim.
Vasopressin & oxytocin in my nervous system.
Tell me are these the drugs for long term commitment?
I just had to laugh.. in my experience, good things never last.
Like the ocean, my love for you was vast.
I guess cupid missed his shot
The time has come, your love went past.
Like cocain, I'm sure there's a better way.
It was all just chemicals anyway..
Apr 17, 2018
Apr 17, 2018 at 10:59 PM UTC
lucid
reclusive
aint a job in this world
so i do this
i choose it.
abusive
inclusive
lyrics with no music
slowly comin down
from the roof its
abysmal
noctural
medical
spewing from my heart
internal
infernal
eternal.
words to an ancient lullaby
that only i can hear (and i don't know why)
flushes upon
my cheeky cheeks
it feels so queer
when i speak my speak.
hipsters and goblins
spokes from their mouths
i wanna rob them
mob them
sob them
sounds from the ether
i wanna shock them
out.
sell my soul for a dime full of emotions
peddle my heart for a little bit of potions
twist my tongue
and dab my eyes
room full of tears
but i got no cries
land full of ears
but i got no lies
body full of flesh
but i got no tries
elephant
irrelevant
beating my head
for the hell of it
chandelier
another beer
sleep thru the night
wake to the same fear
i don't know you
and you don't know me
there is no us
so there aint no we
just let me live
i'll let you be
i'll stay clear
but there is no free
toes toes
into the sand
wish upon a star
that i conquer this land
hoes hoes
i cannot stand
to nowhere i lead
place out your hand
Jul 16, 2013
Jul 16, 2013 at 3:13 AM UTC
Alice stands
in the room
by the stairs,
at the end
of the house;
the low end,
servant's end,
Father said,
don't go there,
but she does.
She goes down
the back stairs,
down long dark
passageways,
watching staff
in their world,
the kitchen,
scullery,
the wash room,
other rooms.
And this room.
She watches
the thin maid
called Mary
ironing.
Why're you here?
Mary asks.
To see you,
Alice says.
Why see me?
Mary asks.
I love you,
Alice says.
Mary frowns.
You shouldn't
use those words,
Mary says
turning round.
Alice stands
her small hands
in pockets
of her blue
pinafore.
But I do,
I love you.
Why is that?
Mary asks.
You are kind
like Mother
used to be
before she
had to leave.
Mary heard,
rumours spread,
the mother
had to leave,
had problems
in the head,
locked away
so they say,
for a year
and a day.
She'll be back,
Mary says.
Alice sighs,
I love you,
I want you
to stand in
for Mother,
between us,
Alice says.
Mary sits
on a chair,
flushes red,
between us
I can be
I suppose,
Mary says.
Uncertain
of her pledge
she gazes
at the child
standing there.
Need a hug,
Alice says,
motherly.
Mary feels
at a lost
what to do.
Can I sit
on your lap?
Alice asks.
Mary nods
and opens
her thin arms.
Alice walks
to Mary
and climbs up
on her lap,
lays her head
on Mary's
silky *******
smells apples
and green soap.
Mary hugs
her closer,
kisses on
the child's head.
Love you, too,
Mary says.
Our secret,
Alice says,
none must know.
None will know,
Mary says,
just we two.
Nanny's voice
echoes down
the passage
Best go now,
Mary says,
learn for me
at lessons,
do your best,
my daughter
adopted.
Alice nods,
kisses quick,
then goes up
the back stairs
out of sight.
Seen Alice?
Nanny asks.
Not at all,
Mary lies,
sees the dark
cruel eyes
scan the room.
She'll be pained
if she's caught
down this end,
Nanny says.
Then she gone,
her black skirt
swishing loud,
the black shoes
going click,
clack, click, clack.
Mary gives
a rude sign
with fingers
behind fat
Nanny's back.
Jan 6, 2014
Jan 6, 2014 at 3:58 AM UTC
There are times where I don't have to
carefully construct metaphorical honey glaze
I can just slide my mottled skin from out
of this tagged and tattered shell
and say, "I'm just as thirsty as any of you"
These strange dichotomies, of shyness and openness
hatred of self, and longing to lift the self up to heights
craving peace, yet seeking disorder
If my cells could vote
there would be a recount
and then another
and another
another
perpetually cyclical self-realization.
Such a frustrating way to absorb you,
through the intuitive tunnels
clogged with judgmental plaque
and grimy windows
that only allow flushes of dusty yellow
to emit.
Loneliness bites, yet I seek the wisdom
only blessed by meditation
and introspective psychedelic meanderings.
Lovers split your ribs, yet my eyes quest
endlessly for you.
These strange dichotomies,
pepper and salt my atrophic throat
until I entertain a curious gaze instead.
May 14, 2012
May 14, 2012 at 11:27 AM UTC