"quietened" poems
The forever falling devil reaches for my heart,
his talons digging deep as I am forced to sleep
in his world, for evermore
in the land of pure darkness.
The rotten wings which once resided
on his back; glorious, white, bright;
now shards of glass that cut those
who come too close.
The fire in his heart is put out
by the flood in mine; killed by the
never-ending storm inside me. Flames put out
by water; those who thrived in the soul fire
quietened by the heartless liar
who turned hell into an ocean.
Jan 1, 2016
Jan 1, 2016 at 6:42 AM UTC
Gliding through this timeless labyrinth
My sight can't pierce so thick a mist.
Alone in my vessel,
just drifting clumsily...
Anxiety wrung raw in these cold, clammy fists.
All is quiet...
save for the faint sloshing against my tired hull.
I quietened my breath...
Such peace exists now in my vessel.
Slapping gently against my side,
invisible ripples came to lull.
I cannot see what lays ahead...
I do not know of my ultimate destination...
I am alone in my vessel...
Drifting along this watery bed.
Awaiting nothing...
but elusive answers to pointless questions.
I cannot fathom what lies above
the canopy that shields me.
I'd imagine the stars...
Twinkling in codes,
whispering the secrets of the universe.
Unheard to those who will not see.
I'd imagine the ripe new moon...
Beaming down ostentatiously.
Bestowing light upon those who'd croon...
Those who'd shamelessly bask in her majesty.
But many...
Just remain in the darkness.
Submitting to the will of the currents,
getting lost in the odd calmness...
And it's ambiguous resplendence.
Looking around I realise that I'm now not alone...
There are many vessels...
Quiet silhouettes navigating boats of their own.
We all bear the same flag but our own demons we wrestle.
Overwhelming relief...
To see others by my side.
I am now alone with so many others...
In this lonesome boatride.
May 19, 2015
May 19, 2015 at 11:23 AM UTC
I notice you the moment I walk in
You, however, don't give a ****
Looking at your pretty little associates
Giggling over some inane matter
While you sit like you are
Some kind of holy,
With a shit-eating grin
On your face. Your attention
Doesn't waver from them
I walk inside, intensely tired
Gone insane with all the fake-
grins and the somewhat awkward
Fun we all had. Your attention
Doesn't waver from your papers
Your precious little papers
I note, with a sardonic grin
I close my eyes and simply
Don't care any more as I
Strip out of my clothes
Chuck off my stupid heels
And fall on the bed, letting
Out a sigh of relief, comfort
Finally, I get to relax
My spine relaxes but it tingles
With awareness of the
Audience. I open my eyes
My vision blurry from over-use
I meet his gaze across the room
He keeps staring
Disconcerted and too weary to deal
With his mood-swings, I close my eyes
And bury my face in the pillow
My head is hurting, it is pounding
And I am at the end of my rope
He comes with slow, languid strides
Makes me sit-up, hands over the flask
Filled with water, my name engraved
On the cap, and a pamphlet of Aspirin
I praise the medical wonders
As I knock it down and lie on the bed again
I can feel it acting its magic
My nerves are loosening out
My head is being quietened bit by bit
As my vision blackens, I notice his
Face, eyes, expression
Strangely, something looks
Like longing on his face
Oct 14, 2012
Oct 14, 2012 at 10:16 AM UTC
I wake in this city
This city that didn't bear me
This city that didn't raise me
And yet it's this city that i seek to find something of me
Not in the pubs or the clubs or the karaoke bars
Where revelers conspire to dream and drink to the stars
Nor the cafes where poets and artists in a foreign language create.
Pass the market stalls where secondhand books and vinyls are stacked like freight
It is to the quietened streets of the old town I go
Where i long for the walls to speak once more
To reveal their hidden histories
To help fashion some sense of a man
One unknownst to me, my fathers father whose name I share
A fine skilled seamster, thus a tailor by trade
Not arriving to this city for work on fabrics of nylon and silk
But to stitch and sew the flesh of limbs in a paramedic corps
Another pawn of the Great War under King George's command
Driven only by economic necessity from a penal homeland
Not of conscription, politics or some moral conviction at play
For the price of neutrality is one that poverty simply refuses to pay
Returning home to an Ireland of hostility or silence at best
Medals now lying deep in pockets not proudly pinned to chests
Irish heroes don't fight in a British war for a King's crown
No such stories from father to son shall ever pass down
And now, a grainy photograph, three medals for a sons son to take
A dog tag that bears my name, a number and RC to depict a faith
From a man exiled in his home as a forgotten prisoner of war
To honour a legacy i find myself in this city afar
Asking the same questions of him as to me
Is this city the last place he truly felt free?
Apr 21, 2017
Apr 21, 2017 at 7:37 AM UTC
Did you see it?
That brother can do it
oh yes indeed he can,
like a young trout at dusk,
in a sweet still lake,
like a pouncing cheetah,
from many yards out,
like Wille May in the outfield,
for a soaring high ball,
like the most monstrous of great whites
rising from the dark depths & exploding
out of the ocean seal prey all clenched
in its merciless jaws,
like a cobra after transfixing its quietened mark,
like the most glorious of lithe pole vaulters,
like the most dandy of sweet young gymnasts,
like the great bull Magic Johnson springing over all & slam
dunkin' that rocketed ball as the whole court is helpless & the
people rock & its more points on that board,
that brother did it
just tore that Southern Hate right on out
of their White Pride hands,
brother just plain did it.
Mar 2, 2017
Mar 2, 2017 at 11:04 PM UTC
If a wish could be made and
for it's magic to come true
under this Christmas eves, mistletoe
for all my blessings to be counted
for the good I try to do,
surely I'd be granted,
the one I so love
the girl in red,
with tousled hair
covering her neck,
ink marks sketching over
hands poised with gold
thighs laced covered
******* softy caressed
silk lingerie red laced
her smile dream landscapes
her laughter quietened
by her jewelled hand
covering her mouth
red lipstick marked
kisses so gentle,
the touch of a
painted lady butterfly
drinking sugary nectar
from flowers
in this, Garden of Eden
naked lovers embrace
flew away.
© Sia Jane
---
"My heart only ever had one thought, one want. One need. Despite all, in spite of all...All my heart has ever wanted is you."
Stephanie Laurens
Dec 25, 2013
Dec 25, 2013 at 7:12 AM UTC
I've read about bloodshed;
whether foreign or local by hands of same labour,
Tribalism; though something I haven't experienced,
I've felt it's affect. The very hurt of a neighbour.
History has shown us plenty, still the plenty
of hurt in our history we carry.
If these walls could talk; they'd seem lesser, and
quietened by the ground's bloodshed.
History taught us well into future, but affected the
present so badly.
Tears of loss, tears of tragedy,
tears of us, tears of brothers and sisters,
Are tears of all, us as one nation's family.
Tears of old, tears anew,
tears of past, tears of present and future,
Are the tears of another I shed too.
These tears on the grounds of present pastures;
I question how long generations we'll wait for
the tears to into laughter.
Sigh!
Jun 12, 2022
Jun 12, 2022 at 6:59 AM UTC
i wish you could be here again
i'd give anything to see
the tremors of your beating body
alive, with me
you said before you left
something so profound
and i have tried, and tried to remember it
you never wrote it down
you taught me so well
the anxiety of our life and the care
with the last of your breath, you told me again
separated the hurt with the fair
i could never foresee
and probably should admit
that i am terrified to live in a world
without you in it
the pain, it's always there
you were so accepting, could you have gotten on?
if it were me to be you...
with half of a whole heart gone
met at sixteen, parted at sixty
that's forty four cycles, forty four gallons of tears
dried out my partial body
i am already suffocated without you here
what did you say, as i bent to kiss your cheek?
as the tremors of your life quietened, and you were partially left
what did you say
in your last moments of breath?
"you're beautiful, this close"
Oct 13, 2015
Oct 13, 2015 at 6:27 AM UTC
When we lay close, touching.
Chest to Chest
Our hearts thumping and thrashing about inside
Out of sync
They sway back and forth
And it's not clear which gives in first
But soon,
they beats become methodical and uniform
Pounding at each other in a quietened drum
Until the beat becomes a deafening silence
Our chests sore
Euphoria overwhelms as it should
And our beating will never stop or slow
No matter how sore.
Jun 9, 2013
Jun 9, 2013 at 10:55 PM UTC
A dust storm blows through Kansas
Stinging, lashing shrieks
The sand blows holes through a Canvas
Who collects the words, and sleeks
The gunfire of their sound, for weeks
His brows steeled and heavy
The whirlwind quits its wails
And leaves, lily-livered in its belly
A tsunami bellows over Mastushima bay
Body slamming into townsfolk
A long-time build up lead astray
One sun-browned girl is left to choke
But then spits out the damage, in half broke
And the colossal wave recedes
Quietened, calm and apologetic
Anger fleeing as it bleeds
Snow drifts and crawls its way past Moscow
Gentle, almost alluring in its ways
Children present their tongues, and the sow
Charges, squealing, into guts and begins frays
Which twist their ears burnt, lasting for a thousand days
And eventually a conscience melts the qualm
And the damage rectified on-surface
But frostbite clings to fingers; done already is the harm
Weather will hound and scorch and spit
And eventually untether
And though people bite and kick and hit
No emotion lasts forever
Nov 3, 2015
Nov 3, 2015 at 8:44 AM UTC
I woke up late last night,
To a bright burning light,
Heard people talking,
People fighting,
the world turned upside down.
I Wake up,
Then Black out.
How many hours has it been?
3? Maybe 4?
The light is gone,
It's all dark now,
The voices have quietened,
And the fighting has stopped.
I'm alone.
I thought I was in pain when the commotion was going on,
When the fighting was all around me,
When there was fire as the sky.
But I can tell you now,
That nothing is as painful as no one being around, as there being no noise,
And nothing is worse than being lonely.
Aug 22, 2016
Aug 22, 2016 at 7:26 AM UTC
It’s darker in here than out there.
At dusk
Light fades quicker in stale air.
And screams
Of kids that are not me, or you, or goats.
At last
Are quietened with milk and night-time prayers.
It’s darker up here than down there
At home
Where streets are the reserve of far-away.
At rest.
And lights are dimming while they pray
As day
And they, go in to rest.
Jul 13, 2010
Jul 13, 2010 at 11:37 AM UTC
It's been light years since my heart strings
were touched, gently plucked
in artfully arranged cacophonies of
'I love you' and
'Come closer' and, whispering,
'baby'
sweetly, in his waning symphony.
The fade-out drags at my feet,
while I move through moments now, slowed down,
talking loud,
as though words are my only means to stretch moments out.
These are the 4am secrets I cling to most,
sunlit smokescreen memories of a spaceman still haunting me, you see
no matter how loudly I speak
smaller volumes are still volumes
and his whispers were still words
like 'baby', hurtling through moment after moment
and I wonder why it still hurts.
An asteroid of his voice ricochets through endless stretches of space
and solar flares only spit flashes of his face until even supermassive black holes seem comforting,
perhaps they would transport me to a different dimension of blanket fort dreams
where I am held again, amongst whispers wistfully meant
and this time I don't forget to contain all the stars in my eyes,
cocooned in second chances on Solaris,
the planet where lost loves come to life,
where droves of the lovesick go to die.
I couldn't escape past the moon forever
but **** I could still crash land whenever
These unearthly dreams created space for me
and in that space, I found my sanctuary
realising that with all the space that I need
the spaceman no longer had a hold on my dreams.
See, love was soaring music, elevation, no metre,
just levitation, almost timeless, but it teetered
on the finish line
to be stopped too soon by a volume dial and a frown,
I bottled up from bottle to cup and kept my voice down
but time has a way of showing you
that shutting people out isn’t profound,
but the absence of sound.
Endings quietened my universe, but
I stopped believing in the relief of silence
and since,
I have become a crushing crescendo,
I think even the cosmos could hear me screaming.
The volume turns up and I burn and I glow
feasting on feelings, wasted on whispers
I'll break waves against wistfulness,
Fling fists against fitfulness,
the spaceman can fight me for all he's worth,
I will not fade out.
Jan 29, 2016
Jan 29, 2016 at 6:32 PM UTC
I lay here every night
Talking to non-existent voices
And they always understand,
Sometimes they'd laugh along,
Other times they'd cry so long;
Sometimes they are really loud
Other times quietened by a shroud.
But sometimes I wish
There'd be this
Other bed with
Another girl or boy
Probably older than I
And ***** would be down there
Nodding or
Getting an anxious look on
The face
And when they hear me out,
They'd rush towards me and
Grab hold of me in their arms
Repeating over and over again
"It's okay, I'm here. It's over..."
And I would truly
Have felt warmth and love
And I'd really be able to have
A real shoulder
To cry on
And maybe, then I wouldn't have to
Pretend every day and every night
That I have this
Warm loving family in my head
And though they disagree quite often
They'd still stick together
No matter what
Maybe then
I wouldn't have to
Cry writing this poem
Just wishing
Once again
I had a
Somebody
Sep 22, 2013
Sep 22, 2013 at 1:13 PM UTC
The wind whistled through the trees,
An ominous warning on her lips,
The skies were ripped apart by lightning,
The dark clouds thundered calling out my child's name,
Raindrops pelted on the window pane,
Threatening to break it.
I sat huddled in a chair,
Praying for a miracle.
My child lay on his bed barely breathing with no hope,
The doctor had left,
Now it was in the hands of Allah.
Suddenly everything seemed still,
Nature had quietened,
The candle stopped flickering.
I saw a large,dark silhouette leaving the doorway,
It was saying,"My mistake, your child has long to live."
My son woke up with a smile,
"Mum,I was with the Angels,
It was beautiful there,
But they brought me back,
I was needed here to be with you."
I jumped up and hugged him tightly, tears streaming down my eyes,
What a miracle,
Allah had listened to my prayers.
Feb 25, 2019
Feb 25, 2019 at 11:38 AM UTC
Active minds quietened by alcohol,
Familiar smoke in lungs,
Anything to blur the frantic
Sentences that burn and dance
Across synapses and down
Nerve endings,
Trying to escape through
Fingertips.
"Enough, enough"-
Concerned voices trying to help
But that moment is long gone
Out the window, through the
Garden and on to the harbor
Where my inebriated soul
Could rest at last.
Jan 6, 2014
Jan 6, 2014 at 6:36 AM UTC
Nesta woke up
suddenly.
Her husband Phil
was not in bed
beside her.
She could hear
the baby crying.
She leaped
from bed
and along
the passage
into the baby's room.
Her husband
was shaking
the baby
angrily.
She grabbed
the baby
from him
held it
against her
looking to see
if it was all right.
What do you think
you are doing?
she said angrily.
He glared at her
it kept crying
I have worked
in the morning
he said viciously.
I don't care
she spat back
you do not do that
to my baby.
Your baby?
he said
he went to grab
the baby from her
thinking she'd do
as he said.
No you are not
going to touch her
Nesta said
turning away
from him holding
the baby tight.
He grabbed
her hair
but she held on
to the screaming baby.
He turned
her around
and pulled
at the baby's legs.
Nesta holding
the baby
tight against her
with one arm
grabbed a statue
of the ****** Mary
with her other hand
and hit him
over the head
with it
with all
her might.
He released
his hold
of the baby
and stood
motionless
for a moment
blood came over
his face
and he fell
to the floor.
She held
the baby closer
rocking it gently
in her arms
there there
she murmured softly.
The baby took
deep breaths.
Nesta walked
the baby
out of its room
and along
to her bedroom
and sat
on her bed
with her.
The baby latched
onto her breast
and quietened.
Nesta stared
at the wall
opposite
listening to see
if her husband
was making
any noise.
Nothing
except the baby
******* hungrily
eyes closed
the baby's little fist
holding her hand.
Nesta leaned down
to the baby's head
and kissed.
Jul 10, 2017
Jul 10, 2017 at 3:37 AM UTC
□□□□□□
Written on these walls
that constantly surround me
are words of pain and hurt
that never seem to leave
□
Tiny steps taken forward
that sometimes feel like leaps
yet I'm so quickly halted,
quietened, I stare at my feet
□
A mind that feels battered
like an exhausted, pathetic space
A heart distorted and wounded
and each time it's etched on my face
□
I feel so sure at times
that the past will no longer invade
thinking each time I'll be prepared
for another battle that's there to face
□
Still it feels like a cruel blow
that dulls and slows my senses
catching me off guard
before I can raise all defences
□
Each time I am learning
how to heal my wounds that bleed
I have a choice, I realise
and return more swiftly to my feet
□
I cannot let them hinder me
refuse to waste tears or time
through this life I'll just keep on walking
drawing on my strength that's deep inside
□□□
Jun 15, 2014
Jun 15, 2014 at 8:00 AM UTC
Mother I tempered with the forces
I became a villain in the story I've written
Mother remember me chasing pavements
The ardency of the gnaw
The absurdity
Mother remember the box of darkness
The dirt in my fingernails
When the moon fell
And my guts sat heavy on my chest
Mother remember, the sweet sun on our backs before the severing from the cradle you sang to
The wind was a lullaby
Blue stained onto my faculties
Mother impending doom sits
In the pit of my stomach still
Mother don't worry, I quietened the blood
I stitched the hem of the undone
The sunrise in the east breathed life into my body
And those hands
Mother I made a home out of a bruise
Feb 16, 2018
Feb 16, 2018 at 3:14 PM UTC
₁Peering into my eyes in a darkened room
Your dog curled up, lilliputian,
Quietened behind the wall across from us
Your hands cradle my face as if I am crumbling marble
₅Venusian statue that you've finished carving
Delicacy and care reside in your fingers
I cannot see you, your everything is blurred
You are a frustratingly unfinished masterpiece
You are an out-of-focus black and white Kodak photo
Candid snapshot a girl has taken with her camera phone
Wordless and soundless,
Silent in an equally soundless room
I hear our syncopated breathing,
Softened, pulsing rhythm, cadence of your breath
Fanning across my bottom lip
You open your mouth
A sliver of light from your window
Curtains, diaphanous, like gossamer silk
Flutter in the stream of your quiet fan
You speak
My eyelids flit like moth's wings on a Spring evening
You speak
There's approximately four striations of shades
In your irises,
Flecks of opaque peridot and ochre
God drizzled in spools of honey
Swirled in the colors of crisp autumn leaves and sun-dappled orange
Called it done
I press my face against your cheek
Leave a lasting imprint of you there
Your touch will be ghost-like
I'll feel it on my skin seven months later
“You are so pretty you know that?”
Your eyes split me open
Like a cadaver whose bones were strung
With pearls and fitted with chains
Beauty in the macabre
Beauty in a breakdown
Sep 30, 2017
Sep 30, 2017 at 1:20 PM UTC
Did you weep too?
when we put down our cups of hot tea and joy
they seemed to speak to the wavering air
some reticent secrets of themselves or us
I thought: death is like my father now
it names me, not after, for itself
and I smell the petalled incense of its security
security…
Security. Security.
I thought: we are written
you pull right, and I pull to left
and we go stumbling forward to papa
I thought: I am a cold bottle put in the day
I wipe my tears, and I smile at the beautiful sun
and then again, I wipe my tears, and I smile at the beautiful sun
Did you whimper?
sweetly like a child
I could have loved you if I wasn’t afraid
You say: I am always afraid
You say: it is my excuse for everything
You act so brave, you think I do not think
I have seen you in the velvet dark
crystalline eyed and thin,
not yet the woman that becomes my sin
You are just like me
I thought the eyes would swell and mama would know
so, I stopped and quietened
breathing like a valley, sniffing like lizards
We heard the city sing by
I thought: it is like a train
its tail hooked to the nose, it moves in a circle
and we are in it
Say, do you recall at all?
not more a nigh to pass, but the sentimentality fades,
and we ought to go
Say, stay?
Say, stay for a dance
However pained– a waltz of held-hand and shoe
I will try not to tremble
like that acrid tongue of forever time
Now your forehead gleams with the smear of gloom
and we are wont to let it dry
wont then, to become canvases
wont then, to hide them away, in slots of unlit places
(like ******* or... palm-on-palm or... in between bookshelves or lip)
with so many others
Remember that one? Then that, then that, then that
when we wore our shameless dresses of terror and shame
and we cursed the holy heavens of youth,
when we fought, when we fought, when ran like laughter
There was so much grief
I thought: it will eat us
I thought: I will never escape this
this name that papa wrote
on the paper of my breath
we will always be here, babes, fumbling in shawls
and pleasing the house
plaint and faint and so much like fear
Did you weep too?
I was astray in the street, I couldn’t quite see
I could’ve kissed you like the girls on TV
but mama was everywhere, and she was dressed in papa’s shadow
She said
She said—
She needn’t say anything at all
Say, did you weep at all?
I said I was afraid,
I said then so much of it, I forgot of you
Say, I don’t think you did.
Oct 16, 2022
Oct 16, 2022 at 1:08 PM UTC
I quietened the couple next door,
so you could sleep.
I swallowed the crackling fire,
so you could sleep.
I made the bed and
fluffed the pillows,
so you could sleep –
after burying the bodies
of the dogs who no longer yap
or the children who
no longer scream.
I absorbed the night-time freeze
and the searing warmth
so you could sleep.
And you kept sleeping.
May 15, 2021
May 15, 2021 at 11:01 PM UTC
Every thought I've had,
every desire I've felt,
every word fighting to escape,
has been shushed by
the reality of the truth.
Subdued feelings and
quietened lips hold
a strong silence that
play dangerously in my ears,
in my heart.
239 souls are lost to the sea,
but in our hearts there's hope;
the angels are guiding them ,
through stars and leading them
to You.
"Goodnight", MH370.
Mar 24, 2014
Mar 24, 2014 at 11:19 AM UTC
*Which thousandth time is this,
that my heart and soul cry out to you?
You have knocked my world senseless yet again.
rendered me incapable, unreachable, unlovable.*
I am in the space between life, death and dreams
where I can sit next to you all I want and feel home.
The rage, quietened by our tenderness,
our tenderness stoked by our synergies aligning
The shape and shadows of our love fall on the wall,
a four armed hypnotic cobra,
two twined into one
an intrinsic vibration,
a holy peace to transcend all eternity;
I could spend forever here...
-If I wasn't so captivated by his seductive hell.
Feb 28, 2014
Feb 28, 2014 at 8:18 PM UTC
O you bleak, bleak little soul
Tell me, what do you want?
The crescent shines a quiet heaven
And winds whisper on
What do you want?
Ask, and have you shall
Ask, ask, ask on
Blue fires smiling green
Or ashen papers soaring up the dark
Two nights ago
We tore an old notebook into
Rootless pages
And crumpled them into *****
One upon the other slept
As the matchstick kissed herself a flame
And shrivelled up like a worm
The papers gleamed from inside out
dragon dens, alive at last
And they smoked all the curses
We dare not utter
They burned themselves away
And fire, the fire followed
The embers remained
They twinkled on the black concrete
Daughters of the sun
Quietened beneath our shoes
Tell me, you bleak, bleak little flower
What is it you ache for?
Dawn brings forth his circus
And hues fill up the world
Why do you weep?
There are drinks that
Make the tongue dance around
Spices as lively as bees
Women prettier than stars
feather touches, and tender seas
voices that dance steady and slow
There are glories on the mountains
Waiting to be loved
Rings and rollercoasters,
Rooftops there are
Ask, ask, ask away
Bards, and beaches
Prayer mats stitched with gold
Thunder upon chirping cities
Moors, and meadows
Museums of all the futures ahead
What do you want?
Ask, ask, ask it all
O you beak, bleak little moon
Why will you not speak?
Jun 5, 2021
Jun 5, 2021 at 8:29 AM UTC