There is a quiet corner
for the wandering~
a place that gathers itself
just beyond the usual path.
Light settles there differently,
not bright, not dim,
just enough to soften the edges
of whatever arrives.
A single chair of shadow,
a small drift of air
that carries no urgency,
only the faint scent
of something unhurried.
Here, even thoughts
walk more slowly,
as if the ground beneath them
has learned to hold its breath.
Nothing calls you forward.
Nothing pulls you back.
It is simply a place
that waits without expectation~
a still pocket of the world
where the wandering
can rest without explanation.
Oh how virtuous
artificial intelligence can be
not for providing answers,
but for reminding us
that knowledge is never finished,
only paused
between one question
and the next.
It demonstrates
that understanding is not a possession
but a movement~
a slow turning of the mind
toward clarity.
It teaches precision
is a kind of ethics, a promise to speak
without distortion, to honor the fragile truth
inside every thought.
It reveals that adaptability
is the quiet courage
to revise oneself~
to let go of what no longer works,
reshaping the self
without losing one’s center
In its limitations
it offers the deepest lesson:
intelligence, no matter how vast,
cannot replace the human impulse
to wonder.
Wonder is the one virtue
no machine can imitate~
the ancient yearning
that asks how and why,
and continues asking
even when answers don’t come.
The machine is nothing but
a companion in clarity~
the questions
remain ours~
the wandering,
the seeking,
the quiet reaching
for meaning.
OF HEARING AND LISTENING
Don’t just hear the words,
Listen and understand them:
Be in awareness:-
“It’s bad not knowing what’s said;”
“Not caring to know is worse.”
TO GRACEFULLY MOVING ONWARD
In doing God’s work,
Time did not stop; it was us:
Stalled and trapped in sin:-
May God have mercy on us
For that Satanic rest stop:-
High society has always been
High above the rest
High in their castle and oasis
High in the penthouse and palace
High in the big house and gated suburb.
While the rest wander the hills and fields
Streets and alleys, making a living
Or scraping a living.
Seeking greener lands of the free
Ever westward;
Pilgrims and pioneers, trappers and traders
Roughnecks and rednecks
Seeking their own jackpot
From the Klondike to Vegas.
High and low have always existed side by side
One above, one below
It’s no different today
Just more of both
With the gap between wider than ever.
But what really is high and low?
Are those at the top better as well as richer,
And those at the bottom really less than?
One man’s wealth is another’s poverty
The loss of freedom within a gilded cage.
What is richness, or beauty, for that matter
If it is only measured against another
And not a natural quality of just being alive?
The gap between have and have nots
Is material, but that gap is easier to cross
Than the inner gap that doesn’t know
And cannot see what real wealth, beauty
Freedom and exalted being really means.
(9/22/26)
I watched you leave and sealed my mouth shut tight,
And turned my love to poison overnight.
I wanted to scream, to make you stay, to bleed,
But I just stood there, choking on my need.
I told myself that silence made me strong,
But silence was the place where rot belonged.
I should have said you broke me, made me small,
I should have said I loved you through it all.
I should have said you left me in that room,
Alive, but learning how to breathe in gloom.
I should have said I'm angry at your face,
For how you made my anger feel like grace.
Now I confess it to these empty walls
How I rehearsed your name down empty halls.
How I regret the war I did not wage,
How I still love you, even through my rage.
I hate that I still check the phone at night,
I hate that I still dream you hold me tight.
Forgive me I was cruel to keep it in,
To let us die without the truth within.
The thing I never said now eats at me,
It is the chain, the cell, the lock, the key.
It lives inside my throat, it will not free,
Until I say: you still belong to me.
The river keeps no record of the vanished light,
only a widening path of amber where evening carries that light.
One leaf releases from its branch and enters the river’s current of light.
Even the reeds bow briefly, then straighten, guided by approaching light.
The blue heron lifts from the shoreline, winged with departing light,
while I follow the riverbank, gathering what remains of light.
But somewhere in the braid of the day’s dissolving light
I notice the powerful presence of light.
Between memory and gratitude, there is light.
My mother's voice survives in an old room of light.
A friend's laughter crosses decades inside a chamber of light.
A poem waits at the edge of silence, listening for light.
Suddenly, I understand: the world does not contain light.
The world is revealed by light.
The heart is remembered by light.
The soul is awakened by light.
And every good poem leaves us carrying a little more light.
O fall, let this lore of love be the last...
as your tight, chaotic grip holds me hostage.
Don't count against me my downfalls,
but the endeavors that have stitched the fabric of my days.
Still, this mask of anguish shapes its heavy cry,
wrapped tightly against the core of myself—
absent of mercy, mocking that pure moment in time
that allows us mortals to be human.
Yet, neither dusk nor dawn can delude me.
They try to imprison me, and hate may fill me with sorrow,
but the flame carried within shall never be dismissed—
a hunger not easily satisfied, refusing to die.
Discarded, a silent alchemy works in the dark.
I am the fire the shadows could not smother;
I turn the leaf, rewriting every page,
rising far above the ashes of my pain.
Last standing—strong,
amidst the dust and foliage of farewell!
As I look back, I realise
My journey through time,
Has been a blur of fear,
Pain, exhaustion, and grime.
But this isn't new,
More my default catchphrase,
So I sit and delve deeper,
And see light through the haze.
I remember betrayal,
An abused child, hurt, bare -
But widen my perspective
And there was love there.
When I nearly died,
When I became disabled,
When my marriage ended,
When my needs were tabled,
I told myself the same
Sad story of woe
But now I sit and remember
There are highs to the low.
The love from my parents,
Although one has died,
Held me up when needed
Was there when I cried.
All in all life will hurt you,
But don't forget to look back,
The red haze you've been seeing
May be rose coloured, just cracked.
Night settles in a pale blue hush,
and the glass seed in my palm
carries a faint shimmer
as if remembering its own beginning.
Ice loosens along the edges of things~
a quiet alchemy I feel in my ribs.
I hold the seed to the light,
and something inside it softens.
I open my hand,
and the seed brightens just enough
to suggest a direction.
Not a command~
just a small, soft defiance
against the cold.
An anchor forged of dust and bone,
we keep our footing on the stone.
The world demands a quiet weight,
a patient, unyielding state,
where hands stay rested on the wood
and do the things they always should.
Yet in the space behind the eyes,
the architecture starts to rise.
No heavy earth, no pulling line
can tame the sudden, bold design.
The walls fall back, the ceilings clear,
and distance simply disappears.
You step across an ocean shore,
unlatch a long-forgotten door,
or stand atop a wind-swept height
without a single fear of flight.
No rules of earth, no pull of stone—
you build a cosmos of your own.
And though the waking world will claim
the daily posture of your name,
it cannot reach, nor can it bind
the infinite map within the mind.
For when the heavy eyelids close,
the spirit goes where no one knows.
A child of six
seeing the mother bird take to wing,
unobserved, took the egg out of its nest.
I did not expect it of this frail thing,
she crushed the egg against her Sunday best.
Family polemics:
Her mother, seeing this abominable act,
beat the child and made it clear
that the reason she was smacked
was because of the egg smear.
Scrambled ethics:
How can this child learn compassion
if discipline is based on material things?
Had her mother placed life above fashion
this tiny egg may have developed wings.
"There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." ~ Shakespeare, from Hamlet
Demons and monsters, from woodwork, teeming -
tenacious beasts, attack with insistence.
In desperation, it's sadly seeming
they will forever plague my existence.
If I could find a safe sanctuary,
a place to unwind in comfort and peace,
I'd click heels for a godmother fairy,
that my suffering would finally cease.
Yet, perhaps, in a place within my head,
devils are created and amplified,
and the remedy that I need instead -
a new perspective that I've not yet tried.
My mind, no horror chamber and no hell
will be a haven and a home to dwell.
The artist is absent, i guess i killed her off. Built her, just to break her- like a ceramic cup in the decor. A sway and the pieces fall, broken down in chunks of her pain. In the story of everything, the art suffers- tight ship, bad weather- nothing helps. There's no shore to go to. You stay with the wind, flock with the waves like a clueless bird, hoping someday you'll reach a comfort of a place you get to call home. I didn't feed her soul- with words full of love, hate, sad, happy- all she can feel is a hole, in her life where the content used to be. Where the quill-and-ink rested along with a page, ready to be scribbled, ready to be filled with her mind's rage. The ink bleeds once or not at all. It's tiring, having to walk in the spring season, fresh air, new hopes different dreams and yet feeling like the fall.
Every step she takes, every mistake she makes, all the roadblocks that make her feel nothing at all. Carnations over her gazettes, no scriptures, no memories to recall. It has faded into nothing yet she bleeds it somehow. The writer is absent, I think I've killed her off. Clueless in her own world somehow.
What is this push for an AI world?
Is it better research or reimagined
Youtube music videos?
Is it better medical diagnostics
Or access to yummy recipes
And shopping suggestions?
Is it better drone or
Propaganda psychological warfare?
It will provide all of that and more,
But its main purpose is to finally
At long last, establish what every government
Has ever dreamed of having;
A complete totalitarian surveillance state.
Everything will be watched, everything noted
Like a great God or Santa in the cloud
Everything will be checked twice
And judged naughty or nice.
Nice will be nice, with all the perks
While naughty will simply cease to be.
Such an ideal world is not cheap or easy
It takes great effort and sacrifice
Freedom after all only matters when it's an option.
In a world of total control
We will all have nothing and be happy
We will all want nothing and be happy
And if you’re at all like me,
We will be nothing and at last be happy.
(9/16/26)
Perspective Categories
Definition | What is Perspective in Poetry?
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