For Sara Jama's contest "Emotional Shrapnel"
05/10/2025
she appears spontaneously
courtesy asunder
an uninvited visitor
behind her a seeping of rust at the gates
an artist with barren hands
splashing scarlet all over the hessian
a lurid migration, primordial as fossils,
sketched by Selene’s soft summoning
into the earth’s belly,
with feeble niggles,
surging to tremor crescendos
abrading,
grinding,
scraping
in the moulded wisdom of the womb
where a design is deferred
a cradle lies still….
As I awake from night's deep sleep
morning light begins its grand sweep.
Across the skyline, it unfurls
as dewdrops hang like strands of pearls.
Resembling tears, not those of grief,
they quench the thirst of each dry leaf.
On prismed drops they drink their fill
as sunlight climbs above the hill.
My flowers sup from Nature's tap.
Their petals cupped so they could lap
the nurturing moisture of life
when lack of rainfall brings them strife.
Sun has risen and morning broke.
In the sky is a golden yolk.
Its warmth has spread over the Earth.
Each day is likened to rebirth.
Twilight will find sunlight fading.
Its hours are quickly abrading,
but darkness will never hold sway~
Luna will not be kept at bay.
With us, moonlight shares her soft glow,
ruling the tides that ebb and flow.
One more day that tells the story
of nature in all its glory.
Agitators ambush America
anger attacks, abstruse
acquaintances and adversaries acrid
absolutism acolytes abrading
abrogate acrimony
America, arise altogether
amend, amend
Abrading action
Dystopian scorn pours
Cheap chips liberally
Inside, rage sufficiently evolves and simmers
It sprawls systematically, abrading my dinkum mind,
The eager embers are zealously veeled by Satan
Until his fierce rage and evil seep into my veins
My mind and thinking are comatose
A fierce ache for blood has me quite oblivious
As yet, I'm on the verge of yielding to the blaze
By the dazzling haze, a radiant voice screams
Let promptly withdraw of umbrages
Afterward, you shall hoist the flaming mantle
My stern eyes are bared by the keen timbre
When I've excused, shout whip, and escape
Forgiveness arises the way to waiving the past
1st PLACE CONTEST WINNER
Written: March 21, 2022
A Brian Strand 1093 Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Brian Strand
Life Is A Book
Written: by Miracle Man
October 23, 2021
My life is like a book, the lead character is age,
each day I thank God for an additional page.
Once, I viewed, only tangible things as wealth,
while my most precious commodity was good health.
I took health for granted until it started fading,
my hair began changing while skin was abrading.
Golden years became filled with uncertain things,
but my trust is in God, I accept what He brings.
Only He knows the time that I’m allotted to spend,
so my book will continue until He declares its end.
~
Diamond
invaluable, resplendent
shining, shimmering, scintillating
jewelry, gemstones, silica dioxide, blight
scratching, abrading, scarifying
commonplace, begrimed
Gravel
~
~ 2nd Place ~ in the "Sparkling Diamonds" Poetry Contest, Joseph May, Judge & Sponsor.
The stream lost in tectonic turmoil
Arterial channel skeletal
A pebble poised on the brink
Petrified still
Unrolling inertia
Thwarted by the sands
Of static time
Patina of moist caress
Weathered in the strife
Of ossified life
Existential essence
The primordial building strands
Covered the inert facet
Layer by layer
Grew the malachite moss
Elemental life sprouted
As verdant veil
Wrapping the stony heart
Before turning to fossil
Abrading hope pondered
Would the stream return
May 14, 2019
There is always a light, sometimes a tiny glimmer expanding
Amongst the darkest forest as a fiery wheel of hope and desire
It measures the life of many years of tasting moments so far and few
The first full bite filled with momentous prurience leaving a tender
Taste reminiscent of briny afternoons and glistening bodies
On a hot summer afternoon at the edge of a water hole
Tender hands gliding up and down smooth skin dispersing
Guiding rivulets amongst the valleys and dell a secret hollow
Too far a reach; for the adventurer has love in his heart not lust
And as moons and suns are born and reborn the water recedes
Forests are felled, but one strong sapling a nexus between
The moments to bring forth the final moment the momentous moment
The nexus by no means a linear thing, time curving as if blown
By a wind filled with sounds of ghosts and angels, gently abrading
What seems like mountains into stones, into dust, into a gentle breeze
Drying tears, reviving a hermit heart, filling lungs with perfumed air
My paramour, no more a paramour but so much more, so much more
Cinders in my eye, looking at the sky, a tear running dry
Cinders on the road, they dump another load, to help me in the snow
Cinders on the ground, lying all around, high desert Oregon-bound
Cinders in my nose, abrading all my clothes, the color of brick and rose
Cinders in the air, suddenly aware, forest fire over there
Embers whisper ash, in the aftermath.....
.....and dream.......
.....in slumber.....
.....of Cinders....
Rainfall washing
Light splashes on windowpane…
Leaving nothing behind
No pattern or trace…
If only those tears
Anguishly wept for you…
Upon your deathbed
Had washed away…
Cleansing the pain
That even now abrades my spirit…