TENDER VICTIMS (Children of Gaza Contest)
Dust-covered children,
With tear-streaked faces
And bloodshot eyes.
Orphaned. Abandoned.
Offered no respite--
Empty promises and lies.
Barefoot in rubble,
Tiny hands reaching,
Covered in flies.
Surrounded by debris,
Shattered homes,
With none to hear their cries.
The six o’clock news
Tells their story--
And gets one or two sighs.
One slow motion jagged tear
found me after you left me here.
Its wetness still sits upon my face
as I stare at absolutely no place.
What I do live and what I dream
and all sundries fitting in between,
now struggle in a frenzied dance
passing thru, in and out, this circumstance.
My brain is mush circling a clueless groove.
Surely, I need an enlightened next move.
Calm failed to enter when you shut the door,
and life as I knew it quit being anymore.
I simply cannot find my identity.
Maybe it left with you and my clarity.
I seek to ease a primal urge to shout
at frenzied thoughts dashing about.
Perhaps I knew years had grown weeds
while I prayed for fertilized love seeds.
Perhaps I knew time long held this bleed
while I prayed true love would succeed.
A former place this, a patch where roots rattle,
where stubble has a ferrous frizzle.
A long-truncated railroad stop
humming still with a faded reality.
As dry voices on the wind, they return
- the homesteaders and journeymen,
the harnessed horses.
Pants' cuffs carry kernels
long planted elsewhere.
Caps, coats, and carts
Sweat, rustle and creak,
an invisible locomotion of leaving and arrival.
employed upon an iron labor.
The tall dry weeds are talkative.
Brown boots seem to shuffle
as they wait here or idle.
A hollow clock clacks,
its innards now
are a nest for ticking birds.
Dandelions anticipate twirling flight
under a corn fed sun.
A mid-day heat thrums fragmented rails.
The station seems almost ready
to receive
as if its bygone world
had not forever disembarked.
I can feel it all burning down,
the walls I painted in soft colors,
the corners I swept clean for company—
they crackle in silence.
Instead of exploring other ruins,
chasing ghosts in forgotten places,
I should stop.
Sit with the dust in my own lungs.
Run my hands along the scorch marks
I never let cool.
There is wreckage here
I never named.
I’ve been walking through myself
like a stranger with no flashlight—
stepping over the memories,
ignoring the rot,
pretending I’m whole
because I never stopped moving.
But now,
the staircase from my heart to my head is collapsing—
each step a splinter,
each thought misfiring like sparks from frayed wires.
The chandelier has hit the floor.
Glass teeth scatter across the silence.
It used to shine.
It used to hold light.
Now even the ceiling
has given up on me.
One step away
from waves that play.
In that fresh light,
he let go that night.
I thought back then,
that was all it had been.
I stayed to see
each wave hit me.
With heart shut tight,
no stars in sight.
My hands let go,
they moved so slow.
Each night I'd fall
inside the call—
the thoughts so loud,
the cries unbowed.
Maybe it's me
who made him flee…
But how could blame
belong to shame—
a lifeless fish
without a wish,
inside a bowl
with no control?
The water’s gone,
his life moved on.
He stood too near—
the waves pulled clear.
He lost the fight.
He stopped the light.
Too late to mend—
his hands did bend...
but still—
that fish
met no
new end.
Graciousness forms
the apparel of the meek,
tempered in blistering
hues of aura crafted
with the breath of
exhaustion sinking
deep into the soul
of the soulless,
there it wanders
with eyes open wide,
a pop of life silenced
by its surroundings,
forsaken lands filled
with despotic nature,
crucified
their interior along
with their exterior,
proceeding cautiously
as it gravitates
toward the center,
connecting humble
origins placing
the palm of its heart onto
forced separation,
the wind wraps
around creating
sanctuary healing
the wounded descent
of sacrifice,
predetermined
by its antecedents,
a child born
through ashes into
the world's callous
ever ruling
appeal.
Abandoned on the promenade,
A big-wheeled trike did sit,
Forlornly waiting for the tyke
Who should be riding it.
I passed it on my morning walk,
When few are up and out
And seeing it, I wondered
What its story was about.
For why was it forgotten?
Did the mom leave in a rush?
Or the dad or sitter tending to
A child’s scraped knee a’gush?
Or perhaps they came across some friends
And headed to the swings
With the tricycle remaining there,
Ignored for better things.
I hope someone remembers it
And comes to take it home,
Where it belongs much more
Than as a subject for a poem.
“To be abandoned by your own
is the most painful sadness known”
_by Poet
She lives alone, although her son lives there
a floor below- but they are worlds apart.
He comes and goes without a single care;
this sad abandon stabs his mother's heart.
He pays no rent or helps with any chores.
Her food's delivered- ordered on the phone.
She cannot drive or visit any stores.
So with a broken heart, she deals alone.
Three other children live some miles away
and try to visit her throughout the year;
but cannot force their sibling to obey
and help their mother out by force or fear.
Abandoned now at eighty-two years old;
how does a mother deal with such great pain?
To get him out, the family was told,
“You can't expel a son from their domain.”
No course exists to remedy this wrong,
a son who so abandons her this way.
No reasons for his actions came along
for her to live this hell from day to day.
mass confusion under an abandoned black mailbox
just mentioned as lackadaisical as day,
someone very close to me just told me about diabetes medication
i sit on this empty porch of dried tears with a quickly written letter in my hand
i am thinking about possible amputations and high blood pressure
so secretive, and i do not know where to go
so vague, and i do not know what number to call
so mysterious, and i do not know what hospital in which to go to
the mailbox is now black corn flakes without even intending to be
not knowing the definition of 'where', 'to', 'go', or 'next', i put said quickly written letter in the abandoned, flaky black mailbox
i return back to my weather worn black car and stare into the space of myself in the mirror of the driver side sun visor
(The Hollow City Cycle include:
The Hollow City
I Remember You -- the city speaks
Last One Left)
You left me when the lights flickered
and the water turned bitter.
When the sky coughed ash
and the birds stopped singing.
You ran.
All of you.
As if I hadn’t held your every heartbeat
in the bricks of my spine.
I fed your dreams--
from paper boys to prophets.
I kept your secrets
in sewer grates and sun-warmed benches.
I lit your windows,
caught your tears,
sheltered your sins.
And now--
the vines know my name.
The weeds whisper lullabies
where children once screamed.
The wind is my voice,
and it remembers.
Don’t come back
to grieve what you abandoned.
I have roots now.
And bones.
a house abandoned
walls caved in
the windows no panes
and the floors creek
yet still a spark of beauty
flawed and few
nothing inbetween
i stay reflecting on the past…
it used to be thriving
full of life
kids playing, people residing
the memories the walls hold
indents of several souls
the history of not one but two,
i take a step back
a dark shadow sweeps through
i slowly watch the rug unroll
its clearer now,
a story unfolds
the faint echo of screaming
and the vision of blood shot eyes gleaming
tear stained curtains rip off the wall
the cracks aren’t just age,
they’re scars, i withdrawal
the hands of man destroyed her beauty
left her falling apart, while neglecting his duty’s
i can’t help but think
she’s stayed so strong throughout the years
still standing tall despite hers scars and constant fear
but,
she’s abandoned now, all withered and torn
at the hands of a man she once adorned
but beneath the surface her foundation stayed strong
it’s the beauty within that’s made her last this long.
I have a piece of land
On the top of the hills
By streams flowing and mingle
For all plants free to grow
No farmers discovered the land
No contrived seeds are sown
The field kept its virginity
Since a long time ago
Flowers blooming for bees
And fruits growing for animals
The field is not being abandoned
As time retardly goes
From golden rays the clouds are spun,
But without warmth, the winter sun.
Signing the sky with solemn swear,
Casting its light to he who stares.
Only sight can tell the sun is frozen,
When light's love starts cursing the chosen.
But a Fool doesn't see with open eyes,
Only the break of dusk will turn him wise.
After fire is lost and falls to rest,
The moon and the stars will rise expressed.
Suddenly The Fool can hear it's whispers,
Blindly still, he wanders with blisters.
Not all things new are made from passion,
At times the stars are all he'll fashion.
Beyond the veil of coal and sky,
That's where the sightless Fool will fly.
It was full of long stringy grass which had grown out, all over the back of the house. It hung over the bare walls. The briars were everywhere and they would prick you clean red blooded. The shed widows shattered and the door covered in heavy moss. the thick smoke running out from the chimney looked like it was about to go up in flames. The red ransomes lawnmower was rotted in rust and rooted to the ground by long grass.The clothes line had snapped in half. The tarmac laneway was cracked with weeds pumping out from underneath it all. Remodelling was out of the question. It remained untouched and there was no even sign that anything would change
An Ice Fishing House, Abandoned, in Need of Repair
That same shed waits
by the trees.
Waits on its skids
for the lake to freeze,
and the for the creaking
joints of bickering
stoop-shouldered men
as they push it out to the center
of a pool of glass.
It houses the stories of fishing
in winter, pulling sustenance,
wriggling, through chiseled
portals into another realm.
Old men would wait
like death, slow,
their breath
turning to steam
until they could abduct
their prey from the world below.
Trout would flop
with the thickness of a muscled fist,
striking ice like distillery rage unhinged.
They would twist and corkscrew,
mottled black and silver slapping
the frozen pane of the lake,
waiting for suffocation to take them,
as the old men drifted up in
the steam of twice-warmed coffee,
and the willow-the-wisp exhalations
of ribald stories, retold, and finally forgotten.
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