"shushes" poems
I never got the chance,
To see the outside world,
Since I was sacrificed,
For the honor of my family.
I sleep on the floor,
Right next to dogs,
I eat from the floor,
Just like a dog,
But I work for, a very honorable family.
My mother-in-law is loving,
She wants the best for me,
A daughter as a child would be bad right?
Us, being a family with honor and pride.
I was violated,
But my life was complete,
I married him,
The honor of the family wasn't tarnished at-least.
I don't want to marry,
My heart lies among the paints and brushes,
I shall marry,
My mind knows unmarried girls bring taints and shushes.
My brother gets home by 3am,
Me, 10 hours earlier,
My dreams, my life, my need for freedom?
These don't bring honor to the family.
My aunt died,
I will too,
My husband passed away,
Awaiting me are flames that flare and sway.
Our lives are a necessary sacrifice,
Our families should live, with honor and pride.
Apr 4, 2017
Apr 4, 2017 at 11:50 AM UTC
I remember nights when I was so petrified, you'd sit outside the bathroom door for me as I'd shower. I remember nights you'd climb in my bed to soothe my sobs and stop my tears from wetting my pillow. I remember when you'd hold my hand and teach me to be confident with my shoulders back. I remember the nights of endless secret telling and shushes to keep quiet. I remember it all. Yet those sweet pea memories are slowly drifting away back to sea with the memory of who you used to be. I can't seem to get you to look me in the eyes anymore, I can't get you to hold me when I have an episode. I can't get you to spend time with me, your baby sister, and maybe its a big sister thing; growing tired of being your little sister's keeper. I dont know. But I know there are no more nights of secret telling, there are no more nights of being held while I cry. There are no more nights of you sitting outside the bathroom door for me. There are none.
Feb 10, 2018
Feb 10, 2018 at 9:59 PM UTC
She's a leaping high five
with her feet planted firmly
on the ground
She is a crescendo of sound
and emotion . Puts her finger to her lips and shushes me .
She bathes in moonbeams while
tantalizing stars knowing
their touch is too far
She hides behind the clouds when
the sun burns . Capturing the rays and
hiding them in kelidoscopic jewels she wears around her ankles so she can see
where she walks on moonless nights
She teaches fairies to dance in rings
and in return becomes the dance instead
She's the Cheshire's smile that
disappears on the wings of a firefly
Mar 8, 2016
Mar 8, 2016 at 7:03 PM UTC
If she sang the way she looked,
you might expect Kate Smith
singing "God Save The Queen."
That *** Pistol's hit did not
come out, more voice pixieish,
a song unknown. Words were
bleary but delish were notes.
Complete meaning lost,
her elfin aria enchanted us. Indeed
there were whispers, "What is it
she's singing?" Then shushes
from those already spun
in her spell. We drifted into
her Mother Goose downy lullaby.
Fattened by unexpected
mellow mouthwatering coos,
her taken audience drank it in
and from beginning to end
were somehow morphed into
fuzzy waddling fans.
Nov 23, 2015
Nov 23, 2015 at 1:56 PM UTC
I walk into a hospital and the hospital is a graveyard. A doctor stands with his back to me, performing a ballet autopsy on a bluish barbarian. A single salty droplet falls from the bluish barbarian's head and there is a tremor in his hand. "He is alive" I whisper. "Stop doctor, stop," I say but the doctor doesn't listen. I keep shouting louder and louder until I am making a huge racket. A skeleton nurse shushes me. I scream and the doctor jerks, his graceful movements broken. He turns to me and his glacial eyes take over my mind, stripping away my layers until I am barren, exposed. He speaks but his voice is a wolf's voice. A wolf's voice isn't like a human voice, it is ******* harsh. "Look what you've done" he growls. "Now it's impure. It's weak." I watch as the bluish barbarian becomes dozens of tiny screaming beetles. Then he is dust and the graveyard is an urban labyrinth. "You stupid thing," says the doctor but the doctor is now an ant. I laugh and walk into the labyrinth but the doctor-ant follows me. "Shut up" I say and I laugh and I cough and I walk into the phlebotomy lab and break my skull on a glove. "I told you" says the ant and it walks away and I cry.
Nov 9, 2015
Nov 9, 2015 at 11:56 AM UTC
I want all of you.
I want your eyes
and the memories
that hold their hand,
and shushes it so that,
though it's presence is
known and acknowledged,
it is silenced and calm.
I want your smile
that shines the walkway
down your throat,
past your lungs,
and straight to your core.
I want your skin
and the paintings on them,
paintings of days with no sunlight
and straight lines of red.
I want your love.
Every moment of joy and pain
and sorrow and guilt, I want.
I want every goodmorning,
after a night's worth of goodnight.
I want the fear of saying goodbye to you;
knowing that at any moment,
the pit would find it's way back
home in my stomach,
as you're gasping for your last taste
of sweet, sweet air.
I want your love.
Nov 5, 2014
Nov 5, 2014 at 5:28 PM UTC
Click them off like
rosary beads
with accossiated prayers.
Smudge the dreams
into the eiderdown,
And divide them down
in ironed out
layers.
Line them up and
gobble them with listless
tea.
I am your prediction!
(said in shushes,
quite benediction)
I want to drop like stingless bees.
I am Addiction to Tranquility.
How jealous I am!
Watching him fall on his ****
as I begin the solitary farce
of trying to close my
eyes.
I watch his chest slowly sink and rise.
How beautiful -
to be cut down,
like grass.
Flophouse drapes of
cigarette smoke
hang from the ceiling in
billows.
A headache clings and
holds me close as
daylight stumbles
like a ghost,
and settles her questions
on my pillows.
The tragic thing about each morning
Is that I greet each sleepy dawn
with the dry and
pinkened threat of tears.
Sleepers – do you know the
might of what you do
each ******* night?
The oblivion in half your years?
The fiction of your wild frontiers?
The obliteration and presentation
of all your garbled
Freudian fears?
Do you know the glamour in what you do?
Do you know what I’d give to be like you?
To live and somehow not be here?
To close my eyes?
To disappear?
Sep 2, 2013
Sep 2, 2013 at 9:24 AM UTC
writing a poem is hard when your soul contradicts the rest of you.
i say i love this woman and mean it,
and fear grips me, puts its finger on my lips,
and shushes me. tells me that neither of us
is ready, that i don’t know my own thoughts,
hopes, dreams, wants, needs, and their reflection
in the mirror of her stark blue eyes and soul.
that it’s all an imagining beyond my own soul
and comprehension, that i’m projecting
a long lost sense of helplessness and courage
onto her without consent because i seek
acceptances and intimacies beyond my worth.
and still, knuckle-deep in this hard, scathing noise is a truth i refuse to ignore.
i am hers in my entirety and only want to know
that she is mine— my soul contradicts
the rest of me but i faithfully **** it
and aim for the future i’ve hoped lives
in both of us.
Oct 11, 2023
Oct 11, 2023 at 4:26 PM UTC
Once fully liberated, she rides her antique, three-speed bike down the small hill from her campsite to the: RESTROOMS – SHOWERS – PAYING CAMPERS ONLY. She dismounts and goes into the well-kept, recreational facilities and takes a hot, 50-cent, seven-minute shower, arching her soapy back against the white tiles, rubbing her soapy front in the same spot, up and down and up, and then, rinsed, she stands, dripping wet in front of the first full-length mirror she's seen in weeks, gyrating her hips, mocking pin-up poses to herself and all god's good-looking men with a sense of the absurd, then she wraps her towel around, tying the knot between her ******* She stands outside in the sweet, Santa Vidian air, finger-drying her hair and imagining, unabashedly imagining, guys in the campsite above, eating fresh-cooked meat and ogling her. Then she takes off down the road, pale green nightgown fluttering against the rear spokes, past Bonnie's trailer where from sundown till 11pm you can hear the best country music: Randi Travis, Willie Nelson, Hank Williams Sr. She pulls up to her sweet “Bleu Belle,” shushes the dogs reflexively, hops off the bicycle, and turns, eyes closed, face upraised into a rare shaft of redwood forest sun.
Jun 3, 2015
Jun 3, 2015 at 1:07 PM UTC
He feeds me his food sometimes. Even when he knows good and well I'm not supposed to have any. He gave me his bed to sleep on all day, but I share it with him when he is home. He loves to hold me close at night. Sometimes, if not all the time, I growl at him to stop bothering me to cuddle close to him. A midst my growling he just shushes me and kisses my nose.
I've finally got him on a routine. I sit at the door and he knows it's time for a walk. I'll walk him as far as he will go. As much as I wanna trot off he insists on a quiet pace. He also likes straight lines.
When I hear the door being unlocked I will sometimes see if it is him. Being stuck at home all day is boring, so I get all excited when he comes back. I'll nibble at his hands constantly to tell him I love him. And to play. He's good at playing when I can get him to play.
I guess it is safe to say that without my human I would not be here. And without me he wouldn't be here either.
Jan 15, 2014
Jan 15, 2014 at 11:39 PM UTC
Home is where the heart
breaks. (fall into bed)
Familiar smells entrance
and lull, the warm
hearth of embraces
shushes (a murmuring wellspring)
where spirit fails,
soul and body crumpled up like
scratch paper.
Hemmed in by excess
of Self, persona
blind to its orchestral
shadow, (wrought by irony)
the mind scribbles
and raves unrepentant.
*(subtlety aches for
skillful instrumentation
to give it breath)*
Singing the pain
of ages past to mourn
these harrowing visions
Beating on in leaden
veins to the lurch of a pulse
(the crows take cackling flight)
time the river pours off
The edge of the map.
Sep 4, 2015
Sep 4, 2015 at 7:33 PM UTC
Paddington
train station
is busy
Lydia
and I walk
through the crowds
of people
passengers
and porters
with trolleys
and voices
calling out
about trains
smell of trains
smell of steam
of people
keep with me
I tell her
so she grabs
hold of me
by the hand
and we swim
through people
they pass us
or swim by
us quickly
hers hand's warm
inside mine
me thinking
us 2 kids
aged just 9
swimming through
this vast sea
of bodies
and their smells
high perfumes
or B.O.
over there
I tell her
on that seat
so we rush
to a long
wooden bench
and sit down
studying
the people
passing by
either way
whistles blown
loud voices
trains shushing
puffs of steam
and her hand
still in mine
holding on
her green dress
slight fading
her white socks
I notice
have holes in
brown shoes
have scuff marks
it's lovely
seeing trains
she tells me
all the steam
and the smell
and the sounds
yes it is
I agree
I tell her
and we sit
as the train
shushes loud
and pushes out
a monster
of blackness
the steam train
from the long
wide platform
out of sight
like some large
dark phantom
of the night.
Nov 4, 2015
Nov 4, 2015 at 2:33 AM UTC
I shred the beets.
Heads of red flicks in the bowl
parged of white now rosé, blushes.
To say the word properly is to nestle the
tongue in the church of the mouth the nave
of clucks tucked under the roof of the palate to
squeeze conjoined shushes and birch noises.
To steam to steep
with the lazy roil of the soup.
Do you recall the crunch of the snow outside our dacha?
The days where ice coated crusts cut
galoshes
sloshed.
The tureen beckons with its fractures.
To predict the future merely gaze into the soup.
How is this to see
a winter of bread and shavings
of fibers sewn rough
of tough, tough coughs that spray rose
petals in the dawn?
Dec 5, 2017
Dec 5, 2017 at 6:57 AM UTC
And so, a breath is taken,
and the colourful universe feels
Scales and trunks halting,
causing the world to pause
A Witches' hat lowers
Hairpin halting
On the path to the bun,
A toothless grin falters,
A mother shushes her young,
A triple voice soars, and cracks,
falls
silence
just for a second
just this one
A hedgehog stirs from slumber,
a palace, blacksmiths, markets, circle,
Elves cease to smile
Just this moment
There is peace
The trolls, asleep in sunlight, are bought to
consciousness, and they lift their lichen in a salute
more beautiful than any enchanted guitar or
harp.
Dwarves halt in the smell of gold, lips parted in
shock, beneath beards which now quiver, rather
than quaff.
Hex's parts come to a standstill, the ants, overcome,
clutch the teddy bear and Hex's light, blinks off
then on.
A single word flashes on the output screen
<Gone>
The Wizards, third helping finished, long for
answers: anything but this
so wrong
But Susan only shrugs
Poker held aloft, she searches the the
monster, but even Iron is not
that strong.
Stop The Press
Stop All the Clocks
Even Dibbler stops picking a lock
All the egg timers stop
A howl from the forest
A salute
A Goodbye
The universe filled with an inevitable sigh
Pyramid's shaking
Orcs quaking
Goblin's sobbing
Tiffany Aching
Even de'Quirm's thinking
is placed on pause
As hats
and staffs
and lords
and trees
and daggers
and guitars
and paws
Even sad little bladders on sticks
Are raised in tribute
As reality quickens
And a thin arm asks for an AUTOGRAPH
The Cori Celesti bows
To the Chief of all Gods
As the timer runs of Sand
Mar 12, 2015
Mar 12, 2015 at 1:45 PM UTC
LOVE CHARM
I kiss your philtrum
and you moan.
I lick a tiny trickle
of sweat
from it.
I know
it has no
apparent function
& survives
between your delightful nose
& your delicious upper lip.
But what
of it?
A kiss
fits
so
neatly
into
it.
And leads to lips
& lips upon lips
ending in an ******
ellipsis . . .
I love to look
upon it
as the indent left
by the finger of God
or where an angel
shushes the yet-to-be-born
teaching it to forget
all it has learned
in the world
of the womb.
I kiss again
your philtrum
a kiss
fits
so
neatly
into
it.
Nov 7, 2018
Nov 7, 2018 at 10:23 AM UTC
there is a moth that resides on my bedside table
inside the warm lamp like a womb
like an endearing cozy hand
reaching for your face in the middle of a frozen hysteria
he rises from his bed of light every night
a bottom floor full of mirth and fuzz
ready to relay the songs of his memories
slow dancing in the small space of my room like he's memorized where the floor slants and what parts creak
his mouth moves in a jagged frenzy and I am devoured inside the falsetto of a pregnant hum so constant my breathing loops in significant O's
he waits for my eyes to close so that his wings open up
moving the dust to gather itself and move to another part of the house
the fluttering in sync with the wavering of the hypnotic sound waves
the antennae sighing along with the mist outside slowly forming on the windowsill
my head becomes a hot sun and as the beads of sweat trickle he moves closer until he reaches with spindly legs
drying the perspiration from my forehead with a tongue that shushes me to sleep until I am still in a cocoon of silk
telling me that want and need are always the same things
always the same things
Sep 21, 2019
Sep 21, 2019 at 12:50 AM UTC
I love my body.
The way it's imperfectly perfect,
slightly curvy around the edges
inevitably flawed,
tortured and tormented
whiplashed and backstabbed
but still and always a great piece of art.
I love my face.
The way its burdened by two chubby cheeks,
bears a thousand emotions no one can perceive,
how marvelously it masks my mind,
ignored and ridiculed
yet still chooses to smile.
I love my skin.
The way it is cold and warm at the same time,
pale, puckered with fear
tanned, tarnished with regret,
scrutinized and scarred
but still glows.
I love my hair.
The way it never listens to anyone but itself,
acts as a tangled mess,
an untangled spirit more or less,
chopped off, pulled at
yet subjects to shine magically.
I love my lips.
The way it speaks with kindness,
guards silence and is often
mistaken for its innocent kisses,
parched, bled and muted
but still a fiery, crimson code of concupiscence.
I love my fingers.
The way they wish to be intertwined with yours forever,
snaps, shushes and points
at the slightest arguments that arrives
with such brevity and righteousness
always kept crossed for better things to come by.
I love everything about myself.
I am proud of my body and everything that comes with it.
What I don’t like though
is the way you make me feel about myself.
Feb 14, 2018
Feb 14, 2018 at 2:57 AM UTC
the silence was never there.
thick, thin, a continuous disturbance—
created by one of us in a fragile ice skate dance
you sigh and the air swallows it
while i am left to watch if i do the same
or break
thick, thin, a feverish disturbance—
almost as fast as lightning, a broken trance
has me hurling hurtful words, an argument that cannot win
you point out the flaw in my ways
thick, thin, descriptive of skin—
your steps i will not to follow, a path
i do not want to take
a calm exterior is what i fake
to keep the composure i've powdered on
thick, thin, a relationship between suns—
stars that never go out
flares that never end
heat that never really shushes
in the silence of space
thick, thin, a wire we walk on—
tired and aching, we balance
we balance, angrily, fists in *****
sadness washes over us in rain drops
on a tightrope that never ends
Aug 13, 2017
Aug 13, 2017 at 6:26 AM UTC
Silence
Says the world around me
I spend so much time looking for my friends and my family
But the world it shushes, and it hushes me
Lulls me, sings me a melody
Of possibility, but doesn’t tell the truth
Silence
Says the world around me
I reach out so desperately, to have the closeness I once had
But the harder I try, the more that I strive, leads to ……
Nothing, but I need something, I scream
I need to speak out, but no one’s around
Silence
Says the people around me
A crowd of remembered faces, all faded
( why do the shush me, and hush me?)
I had known them to love me
Is nothing above me, below me
Can’t anyone hear me, a wine or a whistle?
Silence
Silence
Silence
I am still hear.
Feb 3, 2012
Feb 3, 2012 at 11:45 PM UTC
Whisper
In the dusk; the fading light
my consciousness floats
free to sleep, to roam, to dream.
Daytime’s resonance, artificial and brash, drifts away.
In its weakening wake,
within the soft quiet of evening, Nature speaks again.
Gently, she hums; she whispers;
shushes the leaves in the trees,
buzzes; at first a quiet drone -
cicada in the night - swelling,
a cacophony builds to crescendo,
to diminish as cools the night.
Nocturnal creatures rouse.
Night flowers with each new awakening.
Every one with their own instrument,
play their part in her Evensong;
deliver unseen complexity to the music.
Night deepens, and the Mother
puts down her baton, purses her lips
and breathes out her scent -
to float for the zephyr to take –
a bearer of her gentled nature
to those who dream within her tune.
The sparkle of the stars
bear cold and quiet witness
to the wonder of Her pristine night,
and the bearer of the keys of life:
This Earth - for which She is guardian.
Mother drifts into my dreams,
leaving me with bittersweet.
She touches my heart in whispers with her message,
and harkens me to carry it forward.
Dawn brings magenta skies.
Before the tinny, manmade sounds
carry me to daytime, I hear Her once more.
Reminding me of the song in my heart.
She bodes me remember where I will find it,
and to listen.
For it can only be found in her Whisper.
-Lin Cava
CC 25-October-2014
Jun 6, 2016
Jun 6, 2016 at 1:16 PM UTC
Timothy looks away
Slightly disgusted
By those around
Flashing images
streak by
Gardens, yards
Car park
His breathing
Frosts the window
Sarah carefully
Places one ear pod
Into her ear
To listen to Handel’s 5th
Cameron looks
Shiftily down the aisle
For signs of
The trolley cart
That’s never on its way
Signs of passing stations
Shuttle by
Side streets
High streets
Cobbled streets
Timothy sighs
Opens a book
Pretends to be
Invisible
To fellow passengers
The train manager
Formally known as The Conductor
Announces
A delay due to points
Failure
Victoria
Wishes she hadn’t
Left Geoffrey
Last Tuesday
By the gas works wall
Lamp posts,
Telegraph poles
Fence posts
Flash by
A trainee
Train hygiene
Operative
Rustles a bin bag
And asks for *******
Thomas smiles
At the lady across the aisle
Who quickly looks
To the floor
Hedgerows
Sheep
Green grass
A tractor lazily ploughing a furrow
Sandra,
A mother looks embarrassed
Shushes, tries to smother the cries
Of her screaming child
Trampolines
Swings
Slides
Paddling pools
Rush on by
An old lady *****
Vigorously on a mint humbug
Whilst knitting in rhythm
With the motion
Of the train
Factories
Smoking chimneys
Industrial waste
Barren landscapes
Fly by
Terry
Anxious,
Gets up and shakily
Makes his way to check
That his case is
Still in the luggage storage
For the fourth time
Since The last station
Garages with rickety wooden doors
allotment sheds
Lock ups
Pigeon lofts
Pass by
The tannoy crackles
The announcement
That the train will soon
Reach the next station
And
That
All passengers
Alighting Here
Be careful to take all belongings
And mind the gap
Over grown weeds
Wild rampant Budleahs
Self seeded trees
Glide past
The 3:58 from
Dec 21, 2019
Dec 21, 2019 at 9:15 AM UTC
Be mindful, but don’t fixate
Be outspoken, but diffident.
Be a teacher, but don’t berate
Be yourself, but don’t be different.
You’re free to talk till your tongue ties,
If you don’t mind the clamour of shushes.
May 11, 2015
May 11, 2015 at 1:22 PM UTC
I tell her.
That no one is going to listen to her problems.
That her words are just going to fall onto deaf ears.
That it's better just to bottle up her feelings.
That she is better off imploding in one herself,
than to detonate in a world that isn't ready for her.
That she was never meant to be in this world.
That no one will listen.
That no one will listen.
That no one will listen.
And she's only wasting her time climbing up a never-ending mountain.
It's the only thing keeping her going,
keeping her from leaving.
Her sadness dares to become a monster
whispering lies into her ear but she shushes it quiet
Because this is her battle. And no one can hear the breaking of her heart anyway.
Praying that someone's out there,
Praying that someone cares,
Praying that someone can take the pain away.
She holds out her heart one last time,
hoping I was believing some stupid delusions
But she just disappears into nothingness
Her heart was too pure for this world.
Feb 6, 2021
Feb 6, 2021 at 7:49 AM UTC
LOVE CHARM
I kiss your philtrum
and you moan.
I lick a tiny trickle
of sweat
from it.
I know
it has no
apparent function
& survives
between your delightful nose
& your delicious upper lip.
But what
of it?
A kiss
fits
so
neatly
into
it.
And leads to lips
& lips upon lips
ending in an ******
ellipsis . . .
I love to look
upon it
as the indent left
by the finger of God
or where an angel
shushes the yet-to-be-born
teaching it to forget
all it has learned
in the world
of the womb.
I kiss again
your philtrum
a kiss
fits
so
neatly
into
it.
Feb 13, 2018
Feb 13, 2018 at 3:08 PM UTC
I wonder that Moses could counsel You
Could argue with You and You would listen
I know no other God that would allow
For argument and pleading
For His subjects to speak and be heard
Do You know my prayers, O Lord?
Even to me they’re muddled and confused
Do You know what Your daughter needs?
Lord I am afraid to be Your servant
Because the masters You gave by birth-rite
Like to pull out the costumes and play
But to answer my confusion, they explain everything,
Their words and actions by saying, “WE ARE GOD.”
You said, “I AM WHO I AM.”
They are not who they are.
Send some rain? Would You send some rain?
‘Cause the earth is dry and needs to drink again –
And Your daughter cries out for Your direction,
Discretion, and mercy. There is no light
To lead me out of the dark
I have lost my way and am afraid
To search lest the way home …
Lead to them.
My sanity is not what it used to be, Lord.
Gentle kindness shushes me into quiet
But cannot soothe away the cracks in my brain.
She fears for her sanity but I wonder at mine
Contemplate how much sick I won’t be able to drain
From my cranium even when my body is aged
And legality bids me crawl out of this house to bitter freedom.
I am so tired, Lord.
I forget it sometimes when I don’t slow down
And then it soaks back in and I stare and stare
And contemplate how much I don’t have
And how little I have left for them to take.
I don’t know what will make me break:
No music? No school? No friends? No escape to Your safe places?
But I remind myself here and now that I have always been melodramatic –
Haven’t I, Lord? I tell myself that to puzzle it out and stall
The choking panic and confused tears that drill into me
And scratch their way bleeding up through my throat – I am TRAPPED –
But I’ve always been so silly
And they would add ungrateful and a liar
No one has the answers I cannot find the answers
Honor and obey, You said, but what if they’re wrong?
Am I right? Am I right?!
I cannot speak cannot stand – I will melt into compliance and silence
And remind myself that I am wrong, a bad daughter
That I am above myself and that’s it’s just all in my head –
But the cycle will continue.
Lord, I’m so tired –
Of hopelessness and not planning for a future because
I don’t think I have one
I’m tired –
Of self-inducing apathy as a cure to panic like it were a drug
To slip into my veins till my heart’s pumped it through my dulling senses
Help me, please
I haven’t felt You in so long …
Mar 13, 2017
Mar 13, 2017 at 10:56 PM UTC