Written: July 19, 2025, for contest Sponsored by: Mystic Rose Rose
Those we love don't go away
They walk beside us every day
**************
Specters in the Wind
they are still here,
gathering in powerful gusts,
heavy-hearted and somber,
riding the crimson breath of night,
as embers drifting through the air.
They converse through the storm swell;
their laughter loops in lilac breezes.
While their sorrow seeps into the earth.
Not gone,
but concealed in mist, in the veins of tree bark,
and the birthmarks of stone.
They traverse the wheat that sways in the wind.
Their footsteps forever frozen in time.
Every echo is their letter.
Every shadow represents a phrase,
from the script of spirits
who refuse to depart.
Their touch resonates with the rumble of thunder.
and their sigh becomes woven
into the seams of daybreak.
They don't sleep; they swirl.
They don't flee; they flash.
They don't perish; they delve deeper.
Every time you speak their name aloud,
you awaken to a tempest in the skies.
Categories:
birthmarks, analogy, death,
Form: Free verse
Scar tissue, birthmarks, happy times, and grief
Corrugate man’s brain, a coral motif
Emotions, synapses, signals unknown
Grotesque in nature, splits open when stoned
Still pictures emerge, filling us with dread
Trompe loeil jumps out, turning confused heads
A lasting impression, one little glimpse
Stare any longer, de-evolve back to chimps
Forthright altruism’s meaningful and straight
Love of people dilutes, when mixing faiths
Right angles on a cross, drew germane taste
Master race had its day, now laid to waste
New clear experience, turns sand to glass
Quartz for the reaper, forms in mushroom gas
Colliding atoms, there’s no other way
His sky vaporised, man sure seized the day
drip drip drip drip-feed of life ~ wait a gush all we needed was a knife
Categories:
birthmarks, death, life, time,
Form: Carpe Diem
Birthmarks,
unique identifying signs,
cover our walls.
Scuffs, scars, scribbles,
fingerprints, nicks.
Randomly appearing after
marking the birth of our son.
Would I trade those pocked surfaces
for pristine blank spaces?
No. The memories of that little boy
becoming a young man is the story
those walls tell.
A narrative in which “The End” came too soon.
Deathmarks? No one talks about them.
Categories:
birthmarks, birth, boy, childhood, death,
Form: Free verse
Going home
across the Shard bridge
spanning a rattle-snaked river
that bites into the Irish sea
cold-bloodedly pumping
into Fleetwood's gaping fish-mouth.
Here birthmarks
are branded with icons
like beach lighthouse at Rossall Point
as Northwesterly winds
whistle across the dinosaur ribbed sands.
Yet towers still sentinel
over the dark valley
riveted in iron, rusted russet
like warships wrought from steel,
but aspire
like a winged-spirit
above backstreet's cobbled lanes
that echo with drunken frenzy.
The river's stenched breath
perfumes the breeze with sewage leaks
as passing tankers head north
and farm slurry seeps into pure veins.
Distantly,
Alveley's coalfields fade
whose ashen sides once licked
red ulcers with embered tongues.
Their slag banks were stacked
near St Michael's
whose hidden eddies still swollow
many a beautifully troubled mind.
Now the future skies
spread star-spangled
glowing with fractured light
sparks that guide strangers
embracing Morecambe bay's wide
open seas
Categories:
birthmarks, nature,
Form: Free verse
Dark grey matter
manifest crimson flow tendacies
Fade to black thoughts
formaldehyde revealed thru scope sight
Scarlet droplets trace a fetal prone outline;
such a morbid delivery ...
a yellow tape, premature plight
Coffin borne mutilated bodies
with bullet death birthmarks:
Revolver uttered first cries of last rites
A morgue spectrum of short wave anger —
Trigger hatred
blinded by ultra violent light
Living in crypt darkness,
metal barrel skin worms catacomb move
with cadaver quickness
towards the UV light
Leaving iron-copper tracks of desecration,
as a spectral flatline
guides their hooked pellet mind
Cherry bomb pulmonary flashes
of ultra violent light
show the infra red, spherical graveyard
shining deathly bright
Sadly visible
from the firmament height
Categories:
birthmarks, dark, death, metaphor, symbolism,
Form: Elegy
In your mood of seeking perfection,
In your fundamentalism--
Stay clear of me and my scars.
Birthmarks are not leprosy
Until I waste my vision
On their defense.
Categories:
birthmarks, i am,
Form: Free verse
I fully remember my earlier life completely as a man
People of my village used to call me Phony
Who was killed with a shot gun fired at close range.
The reason was I made a pretty girl pregnant.
There’s a party with masks and horrid dresses
A girl extended her hand, took a walk on a lake
Saw an old house not lived in for many years.
We had it all the house, nothing could stop us.
After a few months, whispers went around about
An unmarried girl with round tummy gifted with a child
But I could detect her because of a mole on her upper lip.
Before I could see her, some people shot me dead.
I still bear array of birthmarks tallying a gunshot blasts.
I often visit the village in this life and often see the woman
With the mole and her son exactly a carbon copy of Phony.
+++++++
June 26, 2014
Form : Free Verse
Dr. Ram Mehta
Fourth Place Win
Contest: Past lives by Carolyn Devonshire
Categories:
birthmarks, father daughter,
Form: Free verse
Last time I checked,
it was still on my neck,
What now is a mark,
once was a speck,
Protected by the freckle,
I can now never forget,
Tattooed into a bad mood,
the ink I still regret,
Smooth surface, epidermis,
let color fill the pores,
Black lines, abstract designs,
around the open sores,
Follow my fingers
from the valley to the summit,
Let go of all your baggage,
watch all your worries plummet,
Rub it in a circle
’til the purple turns to pink,
Palm against palm
let our fingers interlink,
Wrinkles and folds,
crevices and creases,
Capturing the beads
a sweat gland releases,
Scars and birthmarks
and lipstick kisses,
Fleshly desires
and skinful blisses,
Cuts and wounds
and bumps and bruises,
Believing the lies
when beauty confuses,
A tingling sensation
while waiting patiently,
Exhale into the navel
and let creation breathe,
Scriptures and phrases
that raises goosebumps,
The laying on of healing hands
and disappearing lumps,
I’ve spent a lifetime,
counting freckles and moles,
Skin against skin,
like magnetic poles.
www.psalmsandpsychoses.com
Categories:
birthmarks, beautiful, feelings, image, life,
Form: Rhyme
Into the woods, soft leaves fondle the nape
*
Along a walk bathed in frost of moon pail
I bare myself before night goddess’ cape
And lay upon the edge where grasses sail ~ ~
While sacred rite bestows a holy grail.
*
Now, free is my body, my life compass
Where stars connect with skin on raw canvas
Tracing birthmarks from navel ripe as womb
• ~
In pure silence, light meets joy unsurpassed
One with birth’s flesh, Soul washes covered plume
~
Categories:
birthmarks, time, uplifting,
Form: Dizain
The wrath of God doesn’t have to be
the size of a hurricane
nor a major flood or forest fire
to leave us all in pain.
It can be an itch or an annoying twitch
a big black hair on your nose
painfully shy or one crossed eye
it’s terrible to have one of those.
Ugly or clumsy or not very smart
we all have our cross to bear
mismatch your socks get chicken pox
or forget your underwear.
Cowlicks birthmarks and knobby knees
all conspire to bring us down,
crooked teeth big ears and zits
are here to make us frown.
With a squeaky voice you don’t rejoice
and bad breath is problematic
as is hobbling on a cane
when you have a sore sciatic.
Oh Dear Lord just look at me!
a melting pot of woes!
As a kid I made a face
and wouldn’t you know…it froze!
What will we do with these gifts from you
bestowed on us in your wrath?
As we complain down here in our shame
do you sit on a cloud and laugh?
But then God said as he shook his head;
“My child I love you so..
these minor things that set you apart
are here to help you grow.”
Categories:
birthmarks, faith, funny, god, god,
Form: Quatrain
We’re all losers in some way
We’re all liars and cheaters and fakes
Conniving, contradictive
Even if only on one occasion
Now let’s all stand up and admit it
Forget your pride
Hold each other and cry it off
Let the whole world know how hard life is
But don’t tell someone else their pains are unfounded
Comparing them is like comparing birthmarks
That’s not what’s important
Let’s all have an emotional breakdown
Just this once
Let each and everyone know
Just how f-cked up we are
“I can’t find solace”
“I can’t find hope”
“I can’t communicate”
“I can’t listen”
“I need drugs to quicken my deadened pulse”
Let everyone onto your flaws
Hold each other and cry it off
Whatever it takes
Corny
Cliché
Whatever
That’s not what’s important
Categories:
birthmarks, confusion, life, people, sad,
Form: Free verse