Is my emptiness a mere barrenness?
Is it my inner vacuum and void?
Isn't it freedom from ego's harshness?
Is, in that, my me-ness mere celluloid?
Fullness is the blossoming of consciousness;
It's the pervasion of Brahman within.
There's, in it, an orchid of moral sense;
From its wholeness springs every loss and gain.
Fullness is the divine that drives my soul;
It's my self-image and enlightenment.
It's this that wins my existential goal;
In it, the rainbow of life is brightened.
The sacred void becomes the spirit’s shrine,
Where inner silence wakes the light divine.
Winter withers all the meadow’s flowers,
and the frozen hours
paint the woodlands pale:
as the snowfalls thicken,
lindens cast their stricken
branches stark against the season’s whiteness.
Yet I mourn this barrenness less sadly
than I grieve how badly
Shame and Honor fail:
Honor’s stream runs shallow,
Virtue’s field lies fallow,
no heart seeks to cull the rose of rightness.
The spring restores the leaves and petals to the flowers on the thorn-hedge,
but the man whom wickedness has taken
and who has forsaken
Honor’s holy pledge
walks a path of sorrows,
nor can face tomorrow’s
gleaming dawn secure in manhood’s brightness.
— translated from the Middle High German
---------------------------------------------------------------
There it is
Shadow rising to the top
Like scum from a fresh milking
I can not turn away
Glimpses flash
A rattling doorknob
My body feels heavy
Terror
My bedroom window
Footprints in the snow
Laughing at my suspicion
But it happened
My womb fell out
My barrenness returned
The sacred moments, scarred
Intimacy, indistinguishable
Fog, so much density
Questions without answers
Accusations without provocation
Grief
Smudges on my glasses
A cross stands in my heart
Denial drives the nails
But it happened
My BODY kept the memory, though my mind broke under Judas
Written by Trudy Schrader on 12-8-2025
In silence snow comes in the form of gentle drifts of feathered white that whisper with the wind, glistening in dawn’s stillness and bringing wonder to the world.” by poet
White feathered flakes have fallen from the sky,
and stillness has fallen like a soft sigh.
I inhale silence so sweetly serene
while reveling in the snow’s pearlescent sheen.
Diamond flecks on terrain have interlaced
so that land’s barrenness has been erased.
The air so refreshing makes me feel clean.
Yet untouched by man, oh, snow is pristine.
Azure drapes the dawn; gray has fled away.
Grace and pure enchantment have seized the day.
I savor the hush as silken as the snow.
Welcome, winter’s wondrous glitter glow.
Memories dwell
within low spirits over-
whelmed by suppressed
feelings and unspoken
thoughts that accumulate
into a small ounce
poison juice.
My father craved it,
My mother hates it,
My older brother became
lost in it.
I for one nor hate, craved, or felt lost,
I followed the smell and it lured
me with its delicate scent
and harmless manner.
a sip of its warm
flavor coated
my drained throat,
the taste is somewhat
bittersweet, but
its flames bursts
as it hits
my stomach,
its fragrance strengthens
its resolve causing
my head to spin
in illusive traction,
my body burns
to a hundred degrees,
the intensity latches
onto my lungs
like a bloodsucking
parasite rejuvenating
what's left.
While gasping for air,
I lose consciousness,
blurred vision,
echoes strum
against the walls,
I fall barely holding on,
while whispers travel
along my ears,
as its voice ascends
slowly,
I catch a glimpse
at the shot glass filled
with barrenness,
a once detailed portrait
is now the remains
of a youthful shadow.
Indeed blest to do well with zest
Nourished beyond existence-best
Delighting in pursuing sublime quest
Endeavoring for joyous victorious crest
Exercising faith, vanquishing doubt’s pest
Dear heart of mine dwells serenely in God’s nest.
Blooming despite barrenness’ test
Lovely while looking graciously dressed
Exuberant every day, gratitude is expressed
Sharing gifts of mercy and peace toward the rest
Triumphant* life keeps on reaching-out, indeed blest.
*2Corinthians 2:14 Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place.
April 15, 2025
3rd place, "Write Eleven Beautiful Lines" Poetry Writing Contest
Sponsored by Constance La France; judged on 4/16/2025
In the breadth of madness,
A silhouette twisted by illusion,
Flows the molten stream of evil,
Into the chasms of his gray dreams.
The rebellions of flesh, heavy with indolence,
And the barrenness of bleak thoughts,
Scratch at the dignity that follows sin.
The insanity of a mirage,
Rising from the depths of the soul's cellar,
Unleashes its poisonous whip,
And whispers, again and again—
You are sinking;
You are sinking.
And the threads of survival,
Somewhere beneath the roots of belief,
Are shrouded in moss.
Ah,
You are sinking,
And the reflection inside the mirror
Bears witness to a cold, bleak corpse,
With hands long past their trial.
I wander slowly,
Let the mirror whisper my name,
yet the reflection, it seems,
Has been possessed by another voice for years—
A voice that abandoned me
In a place amongst decaying thoughts,
Fighting for a belief
That was never truly mine.
And now, I hear it,
Behind leaden coughs,
And smell it,
Amid the fragrance of dried flowers.
And I see it
In a spring
That has long since spat
On the balance of the seasons.
"Album Daylight by Jonathan Patterson" - Quote by Poet
In the precinct of sprawling emptiness,
curved out by the contours of desolation,
the spreading daylight of prime promise
bursts with the brilliance of magnificence,
creating the serrated shadows of silence,
where I'm consumed by illumined calmness.
Within the light and shadow lattice,
the fused sunray strands weave
the tapestry of argentine ecstasy
on the silvery barrenness of seclusion
for me to walk in search of the lost dreams.
Trudging with the forlorn life
across the shades of grey in the wilderness,
I take a lonesome journey with my pallid heart
across the silhouetted grandeur
of the daylight dwindling.
Walking the last mile of the journey
in the remaining hours of the day,
I long for respite for the last time,
step into the waiting memory corridor,
see my dreams return enwrapped
within the lengthening shadow of me.
When life with barrenness deals
Her c-r-a-c-k-e-d heart frustration feels
I sketched my emptiness, called it ‘sans you’,
Which, the walls too confess, call it ‘sans you’.
How many years of utter loneliness?
I sketched my listlessness, called it ‘sans you’.
A desolate island now stands in heart,
Sketched its sheer barrenness, called it ‘sans you’.
No more springs, life’s all autumn, grey and dull,
This gloomy awareness was called ‘sans you’.
In sombre silence born of my sadness
That my life’s spent in stress, I call ‘sans you’.
____________________________
Ghazal |28.12.2024| remember, loneliness, missing you
buzzing bees breed blooms,
bearing beauty, banishing
brutal barrenness
“The snow did not even whisper its way to earth, but seemed to salt the night with silence.” — Dean Koontz
Inhaling quietude, I watch
glistening pearls swirling in twilight’s sky.
The silence deepens as winter softly creeps
into the night
beneath a canopy of sparkling stars
and the glow of a full pearlescent moon.
I fall into slumberland, knowing when I wake,
the gray barrenness of the land shall be effaced -
replaced by a velvet quilt of white
which winter so pristinely has laid down.
see a man of a man
in some world
twisted
discarded
a nature waiting
to forest a barrenness
paroled from a stench
in a pre-birth of time
his time
when . . .
. . . and that shall
be asked again
You’re a Flower in My Garden 3-5-24
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Daphne
Your winter child, with beguiling scent perfumes snow and rain,
I smile in January’s barrenness to herald crocus, wrens and snowdrops.
Sometimes a temperamental garden tot, don’t like wet feet,
Evergreen harbinger of bees and ladybugs and butterflies
Whispering of vernal winds in their hibernating renewal.
I watch the furry maniacs retrieve a cache of summer pine nuts
From beneath the cloak of my protection –
Spear leaves edged in yellow like wispy winter sunshine -–
Giving back a fountain of fragrance splashing from star shaped blooms.
Robed in purple royalty, decorating winter’s threadbare garden gown,
My blossoms glow through your garden’s gloom,
A jubilee of sweet incense, heaven’s winter grace, lovingly shared.
There is a darkness in my life,
a forecast of torrential rain that drowns my heart with sorrow,
and its gloom clouds my mind,
washing away any hope for tomorrow,
This darkness overshadows me,
eclipsing whatever light that remains within my soul,
and the more I try to fight it,
the less I feel in control,
Tears spill onto my cheeks,
tracing the outlines of a smile seldom shown,
as I sit alone in this cave of a home,
hidden from the world and hardening like stone,
It's as if I'm dying inside,
trapped within the confines of an epidermis tomb,
while my cries for help echo through the barrenness of my existence,
resonating with apprise of my impending doom,
But in this aphotic zone in the depths of my core,
my words are a sconce on the walls of my heart,
illuminating the halls of my soul,
so that others may navigate their way through the dark.
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