I find myself upon the woodland’s floor.
Adrift am I each time wind starts to blow.
My brothers and my sisters are no more.
How long I’ve wandered I don’t even know!
I yearn for days of warmth when all was green
and birdsong filled the air. I miss my home.
I feel wind’s fury as I now careen.
My fate I dread. Oh, how long must I roam?
My color that changed crimson has grown dim.
Has God a care for me? I've withered small.
The cold comes creeping and the sky’s gone grim.
I tremble, sorrowing to see snow fall.
If verdant bliss awaits each dying tree,
what of its leaves? May snow come bury me.
Recumbant redundancy
Came t'coil and careen 'round the rails of goosen flesh heels
Strained the frame of my mortal fallibility
And estranged mine name from the cankering collage of mine colleagues in arms
'ggressively agrieved mine mantled place and mounting crown
That hath e'er now oxidise down the stairs of mine life
Racked mine train and affronted frame of thought
For one was reticent in their regiment
Now, e'er dulled thee t'the dole,
O dewy-doe eye'd,
Such shall surely swallow thee whole
Haunted to pleasantries, t'the gaunt face before thee
None graver than the ashen grave 'fore I
Ghoulishly reposed, to enclose and envelope,
My writing hand loosen'd in a lousy attempt,
To evade, to prolificate, and feed the face of the market rate.
And with a bow, I shall forsake my latent escape
And one shall take their monthly crown, without rebate.
21//12//25
Urge for Loyalty in service
The fealty Of taking badge pride
Vest no cunning brigade aegis
Fits in thE atmosphere of a better slide
Length of great passion
The wOrth of hampered green
Host the Voyagers wit caution
Gist thE sail save wave's careen
The center Lead of vaults
The crease mime lOgo of chime
Standing still against inactiVity waltz's blame
To aiding thE earth's issuing assaults
The pace of Lasting bond
The fear Of children's want
Stage aboVe the stake of tricky end
To wEigh the comely oath savant
There is no curse for the Least
There is nO cuss in adultery
Self loss accustomed drunk's saVory
But a no go loosE for liars amidst
Thou hath boLdness emit on earth
Averse nOthing opaque bearing the cross
To peace seeking doVe's directories' worth
Boosting Eon's hope crosswise
Whichever is it
Nothing worth more
Only love and love hit
Situating outward cares cum bore
When on mother earth you fall
Pass off no hatred
Cry all you can but stand tall
Above darkness influences that can be afforded
Written: November 17, 2025
****************
The night used to gargle with garrulous joy—
canorous crickets, a capacious choir
beneath the diaphanous veil of dusk.
Now, only the hissing of wires,
the gaseous hum of machines
careen through the cloudscape.
I prowl the porch at the moon’s behest,
a flaneur of vanished felicity,
searching for the fetching fipple-song
that once gamboled through the grass.
But the calyx is closed.
The petiole wilted.
The elixir of sound—evanesced.
Where once the heron slept
and the wisteria wore its tiara of dew,
now lies a threadbare hush,
a dismal hex of silence.
The garden, once gaudy with chirps,
It is a byzantine grave of elision.
Did we disassemble for too long?
Rake too deep?
Abase the earth with hubris
And flapdoodle dreams of dominion?
Did our egregious hunger
for luster and control
writhe the world into quiet?
Written: September 29, 2025, for contest sponsored by Tom Wood
***********
I) Sojourn of the Alabaster Mind
I careen through a world of chatoyant light,
Each step is a mirror of halcyon lore.
The pavonine sky and a chimera flight,
Projects sage shadows on an Elysian shore.
A clamor of atlas, a ductile tickle
Elixir of wonder, still need to fickle—
To pursue the penumbra, to not be blind,
And a sojourn for the alabaster mind.
II) The Necrotic Hour
I maunder across the clangor of despair,
A stertorous breath in the stygian gloom.
No nepenthe soothes within egregious snare,
Each cough is a pyrrhic echo in my room.
The airhead mocks my once-mellifluous breath
My Oculus dims in sudden fever death.
No eloquence lives in this loathsome abyss—
My nemesis: the sickness can't be sheer bliss.
Swallows careen to cracker crumbs
Left lying near the narcissi.
Whilst a dead friend visits the bedroom
Sitting in a corner
In a perpetual shadow
Rolled up on a death notice
Ripped from the town crier’s board.
Has Hellas come to call us
Back to everlasting realms?
Flawlessly shining
Sunrays careen o’er fields
Hope stirs once again
beside dotage, corn whiskey make her writes go careen left right up down
Time used to be gentle
like bike bells singing harmony
with a summer breeze.
Time seems to be picking up speed.
A freight train without an engineer.
A Hendrix electric guitar on amphetamines.
When did time become a runaway brute?
A trickster, a taker-a mass grave maker.
The shell game player. Raper of dreams.
Whisking everything you love to the far away...
Putting your cries on mute.
Time is picking up speed.
Withering things but never planting seeds.
Plucking the shriveled blossoms of memory.
Dumping them in a landfill.
With broken dolls, rusted 5 speeds, black lantern dreams.
Time is yellow rings of selfishness.
Forever hungry- lacks any empathy.
It devours the cream of life.
Turns the radiance of innocents into junkyard eyes.
Splashing gray onto the temple.
Welding bent hand to crooked cane.
Smashing everything in its greasy path.
Time is endless clownish-black comedy- a careen off a cliff.
A vintage violin at the bottom of a winter stream.
Time blasts into celebration when you're down to your last breath.
Jam First then cream,
Scone not scone
Fulfill that elusive dream.
“Its not ideal” I often scream
But its something that people often moan
Jam first then cream
And yet to the heaven as they careen
To hear the folk who often drone
Fulfill that elusive dream
How people with their teas preen
And how the others should atone
Jam first then cream.
Surrender your Englishness become clean
You’ll never feel again alone
Fulfill that elusive dream.
You are perfect do whatever you mean
Scone not scone
Fulfill that elusive dream
But please remember, Jam first then cream.
A tiny run, then plunging up and away
from tiptoed feet that pushed and then released
from earth's constraint. How gently I essay,
and effortlessly - wonder is achieved!
In springing from the ground I've found my dream
with one knee slightly raised and balancing.
At times or with the wind do I careen!
But lo! Beneath, all things are silencing.
I'm drifting forward upward into space.
I peer below at buildings and at trees
diminished in their stature. I am grace
above them wafting hither in the breeze.
I ready and steady myself to downward go,
for instinctively I deem I must descend.
Anticipation - though - now starts to flow.
I know I can do magic again and again.
here we careen through the scheme
riding the vortex of the american dream
seen behind the blind scenes in hiding
keep fighting the design on the frontlines.
the career of a degenerative peer
is not measured by how they appear
or adhere the commandeer of said steer,
as long as they down beer and disappear.
clear as this fixates the mistake of the states
we would augmentate and drown hound fears
sheer will could astound the nouns quo
leaving them in tow with woe as one said so.
illuminate the sewn, find a darker home alone,
brash and beating the bone into the stone,
not grown eating scones of the blindly shown
that well-known handmade status throne.
grenade low tossed at the cost of some human loss
for fuel that is obsolete and crude at high-spreading moss
green fabric the waxen-elitism roster head boss
with a thumb gangrene, the color of his blood pulse.
down a flask of mezcal with a spliff of mary jane,
we aim to numb the pain from their dumb games -
switching lanes through the lazy river zaftig maze,
eyes glaze over, middle fingers raise at their gaze
I slept and then October with stealth crept in.
I knew it when a breeze blew in. Crisp and clean,
it softly breathed and wreathed the trees and kissed my skin.
Hues of passion now show fall fashion for its trees.
Birds loudly call. When winds blow hard, leaves of fall careen.
Coolness drops by some degrees. Please let there be no early freeze.
Spiced pies have enticed me. Pumpkins look like silly saps.
On porches, their eyes- bright by night- welcome Halloween.
October then takes its leave – with a heave of wind perhaps.
I scream
at the silver screen
through the blood lust scene
ice cream
spills unseen
RUN!
crying careen
eyes sheen
not my thing
it would seem
Drifting, drifting we float, in azure abysses aglow
Drifting, drifting we glide, amidst aquatic artistry's flow
Drifting, drifting we go, where coral constellations grow
Swimming, swimming we surge, through sapphire seas serene
Swimming, swimming we swirl, where silent symphonies convene
Swimming, swimming we soar, as shimmering schools careen
Deeper, deeper we dive, discovering diverse domains
Deeper, deeper we delve, dreaming in diaphanous depths
Deeper, deeper we descend, dazzled by dappled daylight
Floating, floating we flit, through fragments of fantasies
Floating, floating we flow, as bubbles burst and breathe
Floating, floating we fly, transcending terrestrial ties
Marvelling, marvelling we move, in liquid labyrinths vast
Marvelling, marvelling we muse, on unity unsurpassed
Marvelling, marvelling we merge, with mysteries unsurpassed
Surfacing, surfacing we rise, souls saturated, serene
Surfacing, surfacing we return, beauty-filled, breathless, keen
Surfacing, surfacing we emerge, coral's call echoing between
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