A name can feel heavy
Before you ever mention it.
Some names carry rooms
You never meant to dwell in.
A name can imitate until you
Forget your own voice.
Some lock behind you like a
Door you didn't restrict.
Some names carry rooms
You never meant to live in.
And still, you wear them
Because someone handed
Them to you.
Some lock trailing you like a
Door you didn't close.
One day you discern the metal
Shift.
And still, you wear them
Because someone handed
Them to you.
One day you hear the metal
Shift.
One day you step out
Leaving the cage open
Behind you.
tears flow
coffin lowered
standing here missing you
my life changing in an instant
goodbye
Sponsor: Nette Onclaud
Contest: LIGHT A PENSEE Poetry Contest
Date:July 28, 2026
Seed Becomes Light
Candle tongue
small sun in ink
he burned twenty hours to wake dawn
darkness cracked like glass before him
night bowed to one man
Poet Note:
This pensee is inspired by Thomas Edison, who worked by candlelight to invent the light bulb.
Mortal man becomes myth with the passage of time
in poetry and song, he is duly enshrined
Yet I remember when myth once bounced on my knee
~ and teaching him when to say thank-you and please
Your input dims or blooms you
Your choice you voice
Your attitude you express
You always pour out
What's inside you
Intentionally or unintentionally.
Your input dims or blooms you
What you consume
Becomes your costume
It sharpens or weakens you
The habit you keep
Determines your lifestyle.
Your input dims or blooms you
To be informed is to be aware
To be correct is to be brave
Because it can take you to the grave
In this world of cruelty
Where the evil ones don't feel guilty.
the bee had no idea he would become a piece of time
He was not a writer, a poet, he did not do rhyme
But he was encased in amber over time
And now he is a beautiful necklace of mine
Midnight draped darkness around like a shroud
The silence though was like stone on air
'Twas paused by ambulance's weighted cloud
Our vows once spoken, now beyond despair
Now night seems to press in upon my hand
Shadows fill corners of my old worn mind
Then a spark springs forth that needs to be fanned
That tiny light spark knows hope I'll soon find
Once buried seed dreams of spring's sun warm glow
Deep within, silent faith endures long, strong
My hope and faith are not fragile, but flow
Whisper, come forth let your love go in song
Dark that enshrouded me release today
My heart has some hope and will find a way
The air in the basement archives
tasted of rotted velvet and wet
copper.
A low, wet breathing synchronized
perfectly with the rhythm of your
own pulse.
Skin-bound ledgers bled dark,
viscous oil onto the warped oak
on the floorboards.
The whispers began, raspy
and toothless chanting your
true name from the shadows.
You looked down to find your
own fingers drying, flattering,
and turning into yellowed
parchment.
The emergency exit signs bled
into a deep, sickening crimson
that cast no light.
Something tall, loose- limbed,
and blind crawled upside down
across the ceiling timbers.
Every exit had vanished, replaced
by endless, towering stacks of
blank, waiting tombstones.
Needle-sharp, paper -thin claws
drove deep into your shoulders
from behind.
The entity peeled back your chest
to index your beating heart under
CLASSIFIED!.
Circling in the swinging rounds
Sleeping in the busy train
Of the London Underground
Missing over and again
Escalators that deliver
Upwards to the rainy street
Interrupted dream will quiver
Falling down under feet
What was real, becomes imagined
More amorphous, less greater
Undeniably nostalgic
Though I will deny it later
I return to where I’m bound
Leaning on the rails it’s me
But you’re nowhere to be found
Though it’s only you I see.
From one small drop of rain,
Ocean begins to swell again,
From one small hidden seed,
A giant tree can be freed,
From one small fragile dream,
The world can cease to scream.
From one small careless spark,
A forest burns until light is dark,
When one small bomb falls,
Lives lost behind the walls.
Time to change the flow.
Gather all the fragile dreams,
Let them join in silvery streams,
Watch how they transform,
Become the raging storm.
One small voices call,
Is hardly heard at all,
One million voices or more,
Will create an enormous roar,
Combine all your voices,
Lets shake this worlds choices.
Its time to ignite the dream.
PEACE
FOR
ALL
Before It Becomes Then
Maybe we’re all just passing through dreams,
wanting the versions we’ve already been.
I wanted more than I had back then,
now I want back what I had then.
We stand at the edge of “almost” and “when,”
trading our now for a distant “then.”
Time slips soft through unheld air,
gone before we know it’s there.
And maybe this second, quiet and small,
is someone else’s dream after all.
So before it softens into “when,”
stay here a while—again, again
Pa died with a smile
My sibling’s in denial
When Pa went to god
He gawped like a cod!
In Canada we have nice currency,
pretty banknotes and shiny coins;
oh, what if time was replaced by money,
I think that would be strange !
Lesley said- have time to meet for coffee,
well, I measure time in money;
so, it will cost you a sweet $20 green banknote,
oh, she said, forget it !
Hi said Joan, time for a long hike today,
time, well how long are we talking;
because my time will cost a red $50 banknotes,
right, well never mind then !
My monthly fun dance classes costs me time,
measured out that's a $100 brown banknote;
the laundry takes time and lots of loonies,
and tons of toonies too !
We've all heard it said that time is money-
exchange for purchasing or hours worked.
What if it were the other way around
and time becomes the valued currency?
Then money equals time, a reversed gift.
This exchange would then offer us a choice
of what is valued at our stage of life.
How can we ever honor it with time?
I'd cash in half of all our lifetime savings
and purchase time- increasing senior years!
Extend our lives so that we surely can
longer watch our five great-grandkids grow.
Their ages range from one to only six.
So, at our current ages, that can't be.
If we could trade for fifteen years at least,
would see them turn sixteen to twenty-one!
Plus, receiving gifts of time rather than things
would grant us extra ways to spoil them
with our presence at future birthdays and
those main events that grow and form their lives!
With the other half of our money saved,
exchange it for the value of more time
to barter goods and services required
to help us live those extra fifteen years.
The Ghoulette Becomes Breakfast
‘I’m so so in
the Halloween spirit—a scavenger hunt I’m hosting. I’ve hidden bloody axes, scythes etc. in
my backyard, however I’m
terribly upset I won’t be able to attend tonight,’
screamed The Ghoulette in fright
in a stork’s oven roasting in the light.
A too famished stork had kidnapped her,
had kidnapped her with great skirr.
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