The sign of Jesus coming
Is like a woman's labor pain
The pain is interval in nature
Like every hour is in pain
Then in every thirty minutes
Then pain in every five minutes
Then it's time to go to hospital
To deliver the new born baby
It's like in the time of Noah
God reveal His plan to him
People live casually, incessantly
What's wrong with marriage
What's wrong with business
What's wrong with ambition
What's wrong with wealth
What's wrong is that they don't know
That the ark is already finished
The selected one just come in
And all the animals for proginy
And people they don't know
The visitation of the Lord to them
Salvation has now come to those
Who heed the call to repent and obey
Eternal life in righteousness is on the bow
For everyone who just made perfect.
The Early Morning
…… is an inspired artist
with a palette of celestial colours;
its paintbrush, brilliant sunlight.
I sit in the hub of the garden
absorbed as the sun clambers skywards,
chased by several scribbled-inked birds.
Sunrise now reaches out to anoint my house,
daubing vibrant light that glistens like gemstones
on windows, downpipes and lazed, garden furniture.
Even the washing line blinks in the morning glory
while casually tossing shadows of clothing
onto the faded backdrop of a lifeless fence.
Slowly, the morning’s lungs breathe out
and shirt, jumper, socks and trousers
start to shadow dance across the enlivened screen.
Then plants freckle themselves onto the slatted stage,
a neighbourly, mop-headed flower peeks curiously over
while an aged, garden spade stirs from its earthy reverie.
They all want to connect to the merriment,
parading in this slapstick, fashion-lit show
while the garden fence just creaks with laughter.
I have been watering it for months—
the small black bulb in the cupboard
that I never let touch sunlight.
It swelled in the dark,
fed on steam from my cooking breath,
fat with the whispers I never spoke aloud.
I told myself it was only a seed,
a pebble in soil, nothing more.
I would open the door,
look at it once, and close it—
like checking the locks before bed.
It learned the shape of my glances.
But today, I reached in.
Today, I held it in my palm.
Its skin was slick as a fish
and when I pulled, the roots screamed up from the earth,
all tendon and white hair,
and the cupboard air smelled of rust.
You said it casually—
your mouth arranging the words
like setting a cup down on a table.
As if the syllables were a button
popped from a shirt, no one’s fault.
I felt my chest open—
not like a door,
but like a letter slit with a knife.
Paper-heart curling, bleeding ink.
You were already talking about something else,
your voice trailing petals across the floor.
I sat very still,
the bulb still in my hand,
its black head beating against my pulse.
I did not crush it.
I only held it tighter
until my fingers forgot they could let go.
A billion can buy a bushel of silence
hectares of prime farmland or flashy private jets
It can buy a turd in stilettos and a pyrite hearted mistress.
A billion can buy you a secondhand spaceship
or an endless good run of wall street luck
it can buy a bloated lip- plastic nips and butts.
With a billion you can casually jump burning ships
change the scented steps of a double helix
or buy a fresh orphaned kidney if you so wish.
A billion can buy you onto underage islands
but then again so can 50 cents.
A billion can buy a cure but it won't
it will just make a billion more by prolonging disease.
They say money can't buy happiness
but I'd rather die on a champagne yacht
with half dozen painted chicks
than all alone under a soggy bridge.
A billion can quarry a slab of pink granite stone
but not a stitch of silk will anyone own
when death unchains the soul.
The specter of nuclear war haunts the world again
not long after we all thought it might end
As agreements of Reagan and Gorbachev are trashed
the angst of Krushchev and Kennedy streams past…
Today, Iran hungers for the bomb, terrifying everyone
in her recent ‘Twelve-Day-War,’ a nuclear future may have won
Putin speaks casually of using ‘whatever force is necessary’
to render Ukraine a useful ex-enemy…
America’s arsenal’s buried deep beneath the ground ~
in the M-E, ballistic missiles and drones routinely downed
I don't know why.
I added the same sugar,
poured from the same tin.
But it reminds me of farewells
those spoken casually,
like we wouldn't miss each other.
Like love could be scheduled.
This bitterness
it's not the coffee.
It's remembering your face only through photos
your voice buried beneath children's laughter.
"Angie" likes to brag, telling us all,
“I’ve got my guy Under my Thumb.”
The Rolling Stones might call her a “Honky Tonk Woman,”
but you sure can’t say she is dumb.
Her man is a wealthy gambler.
He gets a thrill watching ”Tumblin’ Dice.”
"You Can’t Always Get What You Want,"
but his Angie baby gets everything nice.
"Wild Horses” can’t keep that man of hers
from giving her the most expensive things.
He brings her flowers and chocolates
and buys her big, fancy, high-priced rings.
He loves his convertible that’s hot red, but
if she said to "Paint It Black", he’d do it anyway.
Yesterday I heard her casually tell him,
“Honey, don’t forget. I need my new 'Ruby Tuesday'.”
a degree and he knows it all
summarizes me in a nanosecond
has me all figured out
simplified into a likely story
for someone else perhaps
but no sir, not for me
casually randomizing
careless comments tossed
into a common salad
the maestro takes words
and plays them back askew
creating his own new melody
with all his pomp and arrogance
he is the type that gives
the profession a bad name
AP: 3rd place 2025, Honorable Mention 2025
I avoid discussing politics and religion.
Not because I am indifferent or uninterested,
they're both rabbit holes I care to visit but on my own.
My polite silence seems no longer sustainable.
Too many people prove content to casually wave goodbye
to democracy while insanity takes the helm.
There's no hiding the direction where things are going
and there's no turning back the hands of time...
This Titanic is a speedboat headed straight to a big old brick retainer wall.
AP: Honorable Mention 2025
Front page pick June 24, 2025
Summertime is here, a breath of fresh air,
The sun’s warm fingers weave through the hair,
Flowers burst in colours bright and clear,
Painting the world with joy and cheer.
The hum of traffic, a lively beat,
Footsteps and laughter fill the street,
Outside, the air feels soft and sweet,
Where strangers and friends casually meet.
People smile beneath the golden sky,
Festival spirits soaring high,
A dance of life that can’t deny,
Summertime’s magic passing by.
mjm05/25
hello my darling
he said to me
as he waltzed casually
back into my like
AP: 1st place 2025
Forgot to wait for it
Fcking got me again
Let my guard way too far down
Didn't even see this one begin
These chemicals got us on lock
With the hardest chains to break thru
It's like I'm walkin in this haze with you
Waiting for the chaos to ensue
All it takes is a tiny little attitude
And the war stews
Explosions all around me...
I'm so confused
Didn't even know pain is my only truth
What am i supposed to do?
Apparently I have no clue...
It's a circle I can't seem to get around
Slamming my head into the corners
Of this reality
Wtf do yall want from me??
Everytime I think I'm figuring out what this life is all about
Sht gets all flipped upside down
Kuz I guess my face supposed to keep a frown
Life is pain?
Or was it love?
Both kinda work
If I don't catch the bluff..
When is enough enough?
Why is getting through this so damn rough?
When will my heart be tough enough
To know not to trust??
Like.....f*cckk
At least give me some time
To readjust
Like..I blink once..blink twice
Bam!!
Ima b*tch again
I was still on the page
Where we lovers AND best friends
Guess my pace a little too slow
...idk
Free my soulllll!!!
Bugging Out
Alone, watching the logs burn—
sizzling, like my heart after your words.
Betrayal hangs, breath lingering and swaying.
My eyes crackle with the fire and the brokenness.
Where does your emphasis come from—
to berate, humiliate,
to call me lower than a bug,
invisible as the squashing.
Sloth-like, I move toward the shower,
turning the water on with practiced grace,
trying to drown out those uncomfortables.
You, callous in mimicry,
throw confetti insults at my face, my head, my body—
but I duck like a child playing tag.
You can’t catch me.
I hide behind an insult.
And then, with sadness, I watch you gather—
bow and arrow in hand,
no concern in your eyes
as you casually aim,
and release
the last piece of me.
The Fab Four crossing Abbey Road in single file, led by John in white suit
and shoes, followed by Ringo in black suit and shoes, bare footed Paul
in gray suit and George in denim and white shoes, all in synced with left
foot forward, except Paul and their short shadows inside the crossing.
Tree and parked car lined road under a clear blue sky, brown flats
peeking or towering the green trees and a bystander on the right
side and cars in both lanes a long way off, no traffic, no pedestrians
on a sunny, midday, based on the shadows in Abbey Road in London.
No album title, no band’s name and no artist name, just an image so
simple and memorable, the band casually crossing Abbey Road in a
moment of stillness that became one of the famous artworks in
history and album cover of all time and one of the most imitated.
break and believe
in faith i dismiss, tree
though i exit
begone, and more
hide, in front of fair
let fall the tasting of me
blind is your loving waste
i'll be giant and brief
callousing the freckle you beg
did she get some off of you
casually?
did my decrepit posture run in cinders?
i have know in lies spiteful choicing you
that exit is only for the snakes sanity
she swam to the sleep longing for the sky
be leafs and fluster the scalding day for weakness
sing naught only become weaker fanning lessons
tree tops creek as billowing shame of you next
of you next, none have to know
where you dismissed life
none will follow, all are gone
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