Averting their eyes, the channel they turn
as yet another forest burns
Temperatures climb every year
sure cure for heat – down another beer
Glaciers melting fast, oceans rising
no problem – oldsters busy downsizing
The weather’s now gone insane
forming in the Pacific, three hurricanes*
Sounds awful, but patriots stay in their lane
they just keep toking up on Mary Jane
_____________________________________________________
*as reported in the "Wall Street Journal," 9/5/2026
question burning, cries
answer me before I cool
urgency insists
quickness passes for wisdom
deep thought waits outside the door
paper catches fire
while we search for the answer
ash erases words
haste thins what truth might have said
the quick answer lies ill-formed
the hotter questions
leave far less time to answer
asking feeds the fire
burning time on more questions
until doubt devours the clock
fire lights up the words
bright enough for us to read
while it eats the page
what fire destroys can still speak
through embers buried in ash
time is not the clock
for time itself is the flame
it burns while we ask
what became of our answer
left in ashes asking why
He dies in colors, soft streaks of agony.
A brush drips red, his pulse fading pale.
Canvas glares like a silent judge,
edges frayed, stretched to rupture.
Every breath, a bruised whisper of creation.
Turpentine ghosts choke the air.
He is both weapon and wound,
hands trembling on poisoned timber.
Each stroke bleeds away his hours,
pigments crushed under frantic weight.
Living kills him slowly: waking, eating,
pinned beneath the weight of vision.
His palette reeks of ruin, marrow-deep gray.
The easel leans, a crooked crucifix.
Shadows coil beneath his feet, rooting him.
Paint wars with him; the war is his own.
Art consumes, art devours, he lets it.
Sacrifice shows teeth, most dire.
He falls, into his masterpiece burning.
Ash scatters hues, he becomes his release.
I ready my mark
Put my fingers just before the line
On your marks, the referee shouts
A bead of sweat drips down my face
Boiling the skin it touches
Leaving a moist trail behind it
Curls around my chin
Hanging in suspense
But it can't support its own weight
It falls
Falls in slow motion
It hits the track
Instantly evaporated against the track
The blank fires
My legs shoot forward
With each stride, my shoes dig into the rubber
I see the finish line
The lactate hits hard
My breathing is ragged and coarse
I can't give up now
My eyes go black
My brain shuts off
I wake up with rub burns on my face
But I finished first
Victory is mine
Your stunning beauty, which intensely burns,
warms all of earth's creatures and provides hope;
your glow emits from you by natural turns,
and your rays of life have fresh, boundless scope.
Your young dazzling face, radiant in form,
brilliantly shines like the raw, yellow sun;
and your halo, like an electric storm,
lights up all though your heart's meant just for one.
But Sappho, Tenth Muse, fades before your light.
Her verses dim beside your living flame;
your beauty makes her ancient words burn bright,
and poets find in you their truest name.
Let doubt be silenced by this single line:
of all the Muses, Rose, you are divine.
Written: July 20, 2026 for a contest sponsored by Brian Strand
****************
cicadas cry out
the green leaves burn into gold—
time consumes itself
Birthstones and horoscopes over a chi-square
Months with periscopes everywhere
Moon and Sun in shaded segments
Boon and pun in braided alignments
Spells and pleas yowling in the wilderness
Wells or seas swigging in emptiness
Thoughts wandering around
Droughts and dryness seething in a playground
Warmth or heat you nestled from scorching daylight
Cold air or dew drop sighed by moonlight
Wall clock that restricts your borrowed time
Or unseen counter that predicts your stolen dime
Each day that passes by
All day you ask without a bye
Each night that crawls in the dark
All your might you grope behind a scalded bark
Shadows that follow you
Wedge pillows you never had that haunt you
Tales in dreams that smother you
Puzzles in reams that harrow you...
Why bother when there's none to fear?
Fear only God who's able to hear
Your qualms will never leave you
Only until you believe they're never yours that weave you!
Sun in His Bare Hands
A boy walks bare feet through hot street
With balloons like sun he holds with pride
His hands are cracked, the summer burns
Through hot street, bare feet, the boy walks
The summer burns, his skin like coal
His hands are cracked, the summer burns
He waits for coins, eyes calm and gold
With skin like coal, the summer burns
He waits for coins, eyes calm and gold
With sad balloons, he stands alone
His heart is pearl no dust can soil
Eyes calm and gold, for coins he waits
His heart is pearl no dust can soil
Across the road his thin feet roam
One day he’ll rise above the thorn
No dust can soil, the pearl of heart
Memory burns the kettle black. It bursts.
Broth slides as cream sticks to the stove's hot eye.
Emptiness gathers on a spoon, unstirred.
Dinner is runned out on in a quick blur.
Yesterday's coating is on my tongue's cry.
Memory burns the kettle black. It bursts.
The room's chills left there hold me within brrs.
How could melted icecubes still subtly bite?
Emptiness gathers on a spoon, unstirred.
I flow like a desert's sandpaper thirst.
The watered taste is hardened by stark light.
Memory burns the kettle black. It bursts.
A wait in this loveache becomes curdled.
Please, hold me, all my scars don't feed it right.
Emptiness gathers on a spoon, unstirred.
Where a cleaning chore, inside only shirk.
The warmth in my bubble is a goodbye.
Memory burns the kettle black. It bursts.
Emptiness gathers on a spoon, unstirred.
The light brightly burns,
and as the night approaches...
the mood slightly turns!
A ship off the old dock
1869 launched on the Leven
named for an archaic Scottish short shirt
worn by a witch in a Robbie Burns poem
damaged by fire in 2007
a composite construction clipper
with George Moodie as 1st skipper
sailing 8 seasons in the China trade
on the whirling wind across the swirling sea
no they're not made
like that any more
she danced as a dervish carrying tea
then wool for ten years again and again
driving on in record time from Australia to Great Britain
and after all those ocean voyages
from her Dumbarton launch to end her days
a museum on the Thames in Greenwich
only 425 miles away
A Mount Vernon daddy long-legs
was pregnant with ten thousand eggs.
You might call what she did a shameful deed
with a Monticello centipede,
and yet...not long after Valley Forge,
that monstrous army defeated a proud King George.
This is part two of my poem, so if you haven't already, go ahead and read that one first. It will make much more sense.
All the love,
-Kaleigh <3
And so even in accidents,
even in mistakes,
there is a choice:
to feed the fire with care,
to guide it,
to contain it,
or to leave it free to burn whatever surrounds it.
After that, the flame grows
into whatever it’s given:
Warmth.
Light.
Destruction.
Or something strong enough
to transform everything.
A spark…
small enough to hold in your hand.
A spark…
bright enough to light a table,
a camp,
a life,
a movement.
A spark…
bright enough to ignite change
or leave everything in ash.
So I ask you:
What will you feed it?
What will you choose to burn?
Because fire—
like anger,
like courage,
like hope—
answers only to the hands
that strike the match.
The power is never in the fire itself.
The power
is in the hands
that dare
to strike the match.
George Burns died thirty years ago today.
He starred in TV shows and films and he appeared on Broadway.
George and his talented wife starred in a sitcom together.
It's very sad because both he and his wife are gone forever.
George lived to be 100 which most people are unable to do.
He was an extremely talented man and that's certainly true.
[Dedicated to George Burns (1896-1996) who died on March 9, 1996]
My heart breaks
over his indifference.
He sweeps past me
as though I am nothing -
nothing,
as though I am invisible,
eyes brimming with hope,
with love.
My heart breaks.
Perhaps I am invisible to Him.
Perhaps I am unimportant.
Yet to me, he is the opposite.
Oh my,
this bloody boy -
my only propulsion.
My heart shatters,
shatters in pieces.
My eyes burn,
burn from tears -
tears without end,
dropping from my eyes
like a silent English shower.
My heart shatters.
I see it now:
he made it clear.
I am nothing.
He doesn’t care.
He never did.
I was foolish…
My foolish heart is broken.
I believed in love.
He wrote me -
but why?
He cared.
I know it to be so.
Yet he fooled me.
My foolish heart is broken.
Never to be fixed.
I give you my word,
you, otherworldly boy -
I will never fall for it,
fall for this insidious feeling,
other fools call love.
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