Barren are my thoughts
A wasteland of arid dreams
Blown away by time
more so than gnawed wishbones
cold on a plate in the sink
next to an empty wine glass
(still purple)
Last night left room
for more than life can offer
My feet are here on old carpets:
all orange, blue, raging yellow patterns
(the coarse and unforgiving fiber)
I misalign meanings
while angles insult me,
tilting this house I call a home
while everyone I love sleeps
I stare at the circle
on my leg-
ringworm and a swollen tendon
on the same side
God stopped looking
when I needed him most
and the goldenrod is growing
so I know that fall is here
I am not Odysseus
“Just as this snake devoured
the sparrow and her children, eight of them,
their mother making nine, so we all fight
this war at Troy for nine years. In the tenth,
we take the city with its spacious streets”
Barren winter brought with it
weakness in body
but not of heart
clearness of the mind
for the most part
Life isn't easy
but never has been
being young in body
helped with life's disappointments content
Or
maybe maturity and wisdom
gives us the grace to
just let it go
Inspired after reading a poem written by William Morris
He sat upon his handcrafted mahogany stool
Facing the white plains of his canvas
His palette ready with selected color
Vision crisp and sharp like salted chips
Raising his brush to touch the matter
...clumps
The connection is resistant to attention
The heart is cracked, but never open
Movement toward closes opportunity
Like a mechanical apparatus without pause
So, the artist puts down paint and brush
Focusing on the receptivity of the canvas
...smooth
Once again, he draws close to deliver
The paint touches but turns to deep black
Blind people can't see value without light
The other senses sharpen the focus
Hearing what isn't refracted
Feeling what shouldn't be touched
...taste
Patience guides the flow of the artist
As he speaks life over the flowing paint
"My love, I infuse my vision in every stroke
You are no longer barren and afraid."
The canvas vibrates as sight is restored
The image brings forth the fruit
...goodness
"You, precious one....are not for sale."
Written by Trudy Schrader on 04-26-2026
Horses galloping
in the barren country
long scorched
by conflagrations.
Carbonised bracken
and naked trees cry
gnarled in bewitchment
of incantations concocted
around smoky cauldrons
broiling with the fury
of serpent fangs
and necrotic poisons
that consume
the golden hour
Heaven's artistry in motion.
jacinta allen..You should be banned, from Aussie mateship...For the things you've planned.' Mind you you've the time as you sit on that square, what used to be a rump
Resembles a deflated tractor tyre spare, oh dear jaciinta (so fat and bland ) why do you
Ban relief vehicles from our farmers land..
I thought much flatulence, was
coming from those pigs.. Ya know the carcases that got burned up..Swollen ugly taut and big ' then i
Saw the wobble of your tripple chin..and a stench.' When your moudh flapped wide, Well it hit me worse
than a garbos grime, in fact like
Pure sin.' Look!! You can keep your toxic ideas from hell, oh and i must note jacinta
Your visa there has been stamped as well.'
in the pre-dawn hours
tears fall from a needy soul
pangs of emptiness
April 23, 2025.
I woke up one morning,
To the barren of trees.
The sky was blue,
yet the silence screamed.
What was it that made winters so dry?
So cold, so blue, so lost of life.
The snow burried dead beneath,
The trees cried their leaves away,
The birds hiding in fear from the rest,
The world only led astray.
Who was it who brought life after this death?
Who was it who brought spring after winters birth?
Let them all die and die in silence.
Let them all slide and slip away from violence.
He bought the barren island for $13,000
Together with a friend, they planted 16,000 trees
For 40 years, the island turn into a sanctuary
Of insects, flowers, birds and tortoises which became
Famous and well known throughout the country
He turned down offer being a news editor and settled
The rest of his whole life living in the island
He manage the island well and made it
An important place in his private life
The island grow well with his own management
The Saudi prince want to buy the island for $10 million
But he refuses the offer for personal reason
Until, one day he announced and open it to the public
The island became an important tourist destinations
People flocked and flourished the island
He died with old age in the island
The country declared the island as a National Park
In lieu of his stated Last Will.
I am the tundra barren cold and numb
A frozen wasteland where no light can reach
Between these poles, my insatiate self-succumbs.
In icy silence where no whimpers humb
My thoughts like glaciers grind, erode, and breach
I am the tundra, barren, cold, and numb.
The Amazon within once vital thrumb
Of life and hope now withers out of reach
Between these poles my insatiate self-succumbs.
Anxiety a howling blizzard's sumb
Entombs me deep a creature bleached of speech.
I am the tundra, barren, cold, and numb.
Depression creeps permafrost of my slumb
While echoes of lost joy my soul beseech
Between these poles, my insatiate self-succumbs.
Yet in this waste, where all seems overcome
A seed of strength cracks ice defies the leech
I am the tundra, barren, cold, and numb.
Between these poles, my insatiate self-succumbs.
Years delivered my mind, from the shadows left behind,
Darkest calamity, sucking me into the tragedy,
Feeling less like the dream I chased, like the darkness of disgrace.
Soundless images roar through my soul, creating fear, so out of control, while my heart beats, rhythmic, like the colors of woe, lifeless stillness, in the empty room where I go…
To remember the joy, the readiness, the yearning
Breath of a prayer, still burning, through my memories, as they seek to see, through me – the honesty, confessing,
To the need, the need – the seed, who was once buried in me, a piece of me, but, only for a time before life decided….
To remind me, most eloquently, where I once yearned for the blessing, - baby, child, newborn life,
Someone who would be mine – to love…
Now, the empty room remembers, as the still, cool September,
Blazes with crisp, vibrant leaves, imagining the beauty who I will never see.
In me, there is a need who’ll never find relief,
A need to reach into that empty room, see the sweetness of a cure,
For the harsh reality, who is the cloud of infertility!
Written: May 26 2024
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dark, drizzling recesses that pulse and flow.
A nebulous haze of nothingness, a sad show.
With rasping tears of seabirds, in silent cries.
They uncover comfort in various forlorn sighs.
Horizon depicts a snapshot of dreary gray.
Raven rainbows trance in barren dismay.
Why are you grieving, my wounded heart?
Why are you missing vivid spring impart?
Birds in scarlet, saffron, and cyan hues,
Glorious in the skies, so ariose views.
Yet, time slips by and you head away
Remote star casts me out of abyss sway.
I maunder amid dry gloom, forlorn and alone.
Chuckles echo across my passing groan.
In grief of shorebirds, I learn of my plight.
As I long for your arrival with all my might.
But hope lingers, akin to a glimmer at night.
We will return one day in a pure love light.
I will wait for that juncture, my soul ever true.
In bleak wilderness, memories will renew.
Not till the last forest’s flattened on earth,
The last few drops drip down no more nor leak,
Till crawling deserts daunt, the lands look bleak,
The last river’s all bare from very birth,
And last well on Earth's barren breast drys out,
Man’s greed gets never gratified in full,
Till stark nude earth’s all left there’s for this fool,
Humanity hangs in despair-filled doubt.
He stares still— Nature hanging on last thread,
The will of Mother Earth all but wilted,
Most of world’s precious snow all nigh melted,
And coastal seas advance with unknown dread.
What next? Till tortured Earth’s barren like Moon,
I doubt still, man gets wise any time soon.
_______________________________________
Sonnets |01.01.2010, revised June 2023|
The barren landscape it once was
Now has craters and paths
The blandness it once held
Now has colors across the land
The barren landscape it once was
Is not barren anymore
Blood – rich whispers of crimson,
Like flames melting the feelings
beliefs alive, grief that spelled
Out the word – I n f e r t i l e
Infertility wrenched beauty from my life,
Erasing the stars from the night,
Darkening my heart – but I survived
Yes, I remember
I was young one day,
Yearning, aching – praying
Begging for one smile from a baby,
A smile that told me I’d been right…
Love would- love could save me
Yet, I remember
The nights, sleepless and silent,
Biding my time, tears
Flowing to remind me why
I couldn’t know the beautiful
Beneath eyes that shined
With a child’s love, a child’s adoring
Blood – dark and crimson,
Pouring out the hope, the anticipation
Pregnancy never came to me,
The girl who worried about never knowing
Throughout history, the giggling glory
Childish antics and childhood joys
I never will know the love that might have been
Mine if fate had brought to life, from my womb
The soul of an infant, a smile that sent me
From solitary confinement to the jungles of beautiful
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