The shadows stretch across the empty floor,
As I remember what we used to be.
I walk alone beside the open door,
And drown inside a "bridge over troubled water" sea.
You left me with a "shadow of the day,"
When everything we built began to fall.
I watched you turn your weary face away,
And leave me with "the sound of silence" call.
The evening brings a "fast car" driving past,
Reminding me of how we used to run.
I know that nothing golden ever can last,
And we are "stuck in a moment" undone.
I wander through "the scientist" advice,
To calculate the pieces on the floor.
My shaking hands are turning into ice,
Beside "the scientist" who walks no more.
The night becomes a "black hole sun" above,
A heavy weight that crushes down my chest.
I try to breathe the memory of our love,
And search the dark for some forgotten rest.
Contest: Never Say Never
Sponsor: Suzette Richards
Acrostic: 10 lines, Never Never
Written 090426
NEWS that is bad will always travel fast
EAST less if you dare, but buy the best
VOTE your conscious, not your money
EVALUATE first, before you calculate
RULING our tongue is always 'job one'
NOSY neighbors need to change
EVERY 'No' does not really mean 'No'
VALUES should always be clarified
ENEMIES today could be friends tomorrow
READ the ingredients before eating
A poem by Frank Daub
I’m for stopping; Brendan’s not.
The sea is just down there.
I am anxious for the sight
of stone turned to bread by the wash
of foam and the jetting of the salt water.
I’m for stopping; Brendan’s not.
The spiraling gulls
are sun lighted bright in their play
above the sand,
their startling dive
toward the sea is brief
in time and sight.
I’m for stopping; Brendan’s not.
The freedom of the coast
was eight hundred years
at taking.
One bold county man’s toast
to the awakening water
baptizes the youth
who have forgotten Eire for other lovers.
I’m for stopping; Brendan’s not.
I haven’t heard the all
of every song
or the rise and fall
and rise of every story
that set a mother’s son
free to calculate a career.
I stand for stopping; Brendan says, “too late.”
I want to stay
where the past has gone,
old rebel cries and songs.
Yet,
it’s Brendan through the gate,
and gone
and done
and through with old.
There are rebels in my head.
First there's the anarchist;
There to break things and push steel until it bends.
And of course the logicist,
Willful to calculate things and plan around things that we can’t rend.
Then there’s the gravedigger;
There for my friends,
When we get into fights or can’t make amends,
He’s there to fight for my memory.
A shovel in one hand,
And an epitaph in his left.
There is the artist,
A brush in his whittled fingers,
He comes around after the gravedigger to paint the picture of people we loved and lost into my memory.
He stays around for the ones we still have; at least for now.
Painting pictures the second someone sticks in our head.
They always turn out younger than they are in person.
A snapshot to the simplest time I have of them.
The final one, is the leader.
The realist.
The one who sees the train at the end of the tunnels.
The one who pulls us out of miscalculated situations.
The one who rights the bent bars of our prison cells.
The one who sets up funerals for the friends we miss.
The one who paints over portraits once the pastels fade in time.
The one who fixes me.
He decided organic matter could increase his
overall objectives. he would dig deep holes
fill them with straw and horse manure
in a 600 square foot section measured.
In each corner a large hole filled
with manure. in the center he would dig a hole fill it
with straw and horse manure such then would be
the sounding function to starting
a new garden.
a Culverts in culvert system was developed
to tackle the scarcity of water problem.
it looked like something someone would use
to describe an alien ship.
Deepest in the center an circle with
pie like dividers that lead center.
filled and lined.
The lining using heavy duty plastics and
stones
drilled holes in the culvert while
the exterior culvert stands to create the well effect
needed to calculate and store waters.Omukazi Pima orikushemeza
I chart her moves and tides,
Probability’s my only guide.
Every glance, her every sigh—
The script I know
Before she even tries.
She walks on chaos in heels,
A hurricane wrapped
In fake emotional feels.
She winks—I calculate—
She laughs—I hesitate—
She says "yes" and means "no,"
Points left when she oughta go.
Logic cracked like broken glass—
Built walls while she kicks my ass.
I wrote rules and drew the lines,
She paints outside them every time.
"Let’s talk"—I try to dissect—
She says nothing –So what’s next?"—
Tried chess moves every night,
She ate the pawns
And said "They tasted alright."
I’m stranded in her storm,
Out maneuvered
By her stupid form
She says "yes" and means "no,"
Points left when she oughta go.
Logic cracked like broken glass—
Built walls while she kicks my ass.
I solved for X but she’s a Y,
A question mark with laughing eyes.
She burns graphs, breaks my code—
Leaves me lost on this lonely road.
It seems to me,
That in my younger years,
I would not procrastinate.
But I would first evaluate.
Then, I would calculate.
Afterward, I would vacate.
I'm aging now,
And it seems to me that
I only want to 'staycate'.
He is a formula I cannot trace,
a textbook logic that is full of flaws.
I see the reason written on his face
but cannot calculate his shifting flaws.
He'll solve a problem with a cool, calm mind
then shut me out to think things through alone.
I find it stings to get the cold shoulder,
faced with a wall where nothing more is shown.
I don't get him, yet somehow I do.
I feel his moods before he says a word.
And every clever theory I thought true,
Turns upside down and becomes absurd.
He makes total sense until he starts to move;
a grand conundrum that I wish to prove.
Words calculate thoughts,
I tell myself.
Thoughts manipulate feelings,
I tell myself.
Feelings breed emotions,
I tell myself.
Emotions links to the heart,
I tell myself
but
where does my heart go?
I tell myself
why do I overthink?
I tell myself
do I overthink?
I tell myself
why am I sad?
I tell myself
am I happy?
I continue to tell myself
over and over again,
but why do I keep
telling myself
over and over again?
Every time we put ourselves last,
and we consider others first.
Life became the backburner
of this consuming cycle.
Sacrifice becomes meaningless,
because you are no longer living.
Sacrifice is not for the weak,
it's for the everlasting of those
who come after because
you surrender yourself.
I wonder if Jesus felt the same way?
I am not religious,
I am not honest,
I am not good,
I am not just,
I am just surviving the best way I can,
I tell myself.
How about you,
what do you tell yourself?
"5th Season"
The papers signed, the silence fell at last,
7 years of effort vanished in the air,
A bitter echo of a hurried past.
We built a home and left it standing bare;
I calculate the minutes that were cast.
The future that we planned now feels untrue,
I trace the map of roads we should not take,
The promises we broke now see us through.
For all the years we labored for its sake,
Now time demands a heavy overdue.
I know that I shall never refrain,
from singing the praises of my brain.
I did not possess beauty its true,
but an asset is my high I.Q.
Absorbing facts at a speedy rate,
to deduce, decipher and calculate.
Many a time it's been my salvation.
My brain deals with any situation.
I'm blessed that I dont need to rely
on threats to intelligence, called A.I.
they smile,
but their eyes flinch—
like dogs who smell meat they can’t have.
you tell them the thing you did—
the job,
the book,
the quiet miracle you pulled
out of the grease and ash of your own life—
and they start
tightening the screws on their grin.
they don’t clap.
they calculate.
because your sunrise
casts a shadow
right across their throne.
they’ll find a way to turn it—
make your luck a crime,
your joy a brag,
your voice too loud.
they’ve got to stay on top
of a ladder no one else is climbing.
so you stop talking,
sip your beer,
and let them drown
in the silence
of your contentment.
good news doesn’t need an audience—
only air,
a heart still beating,
and a door
that closes quietly behind you.
I wasn't truly attuned to the Bard
Who tried to show cosmic significance.
On the dark moonlit forest's stage, he starred.
His Bardic thoughts defying arrogance.
I met the night Bard while he was singing
In chorus with Oaks of the magic grove.
Sprouting with seedlings was his beginning.
Raised in the forest, his true treasure trove.
This bounty lies protected by wet clouds.
It seems nature knows how to calculate
The number of elements it enshrouds,
Even as they waltz on the lovely lake.
The wind plays the wooden flute merrily,
Pleasing the Stars with chants of forestry.
There it was outside my passenger side car window looking so close over the tree tops like it was here I seemed to feel the magnetic pull in the liquid in my brain clarity bringing me a sensation of understanding and well-being part of the whole of life my mind adjusting accepting no need to hurry or quickly calculate outcomes everything will settle in place as earths rotation and speed carries me along once more
I
smile
08/09/25
9:28 pm
I knew after the longest moment we made love,
That you could be better than someone sent from above,
But soon enough you told me we weren't meant to be,
I know you had only meant to see me free:
But I sadly and sentimentally told you,
I would always love you no matter what you'll do.
I descended into a sorrow stretching beyond tomorrow,
As I continuously remember there will be no one like you.
I'll forever fondly remember your lovemaking,
The way you left my legs up in the air quivering.
I'll always be patiently longing for much more,
Even after all attempts I made to make your heart as sore.
To this day even after our time spent long apart,
I will still calculate my aim while holding this dart.
Forever praying someday you may return to me
With the intention to love me forever more eternally.
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