Written: August 22, 2026, for a contest sponsored by Regina McIntosh
Quote: "How beautifully leaves grow old; how full of light and color are their last days." By John Burroughs
The pine lines blur; the sun-rays drop and fade.
Across these fields, thick clouds have thrown their shade.
In twilight dusk, a mist of mellow grace—
Folds down, and wraps the world in cold embrace.
A death-sigh stirs the branches of the trees;
Some aged, hushed curse blows inland from the seas.
Under starlight, have a moment to pause—
Black spaces tear above us, clear out maws.
Bare twigs are whipped and broken in the gale;
That salt-spit from the water turns them pale.
The last few frozen flowers nod and bow—
Those bruised blue petals—just a sign of woe.
The summer songs are dead in this display;
Raw, barred-iron ridge chokes the dying day.
Time takes a cruel turn to seal our fate—
A firm, gray freeze is scratching at the gate.
What I want wanted
Is all that I want.
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Girls - girls in Calvin Klein
Thong girls, girls in pink purple
Red Red Red lace girls
Who sit silently in cars
Your windshield
Charm hitting rhythmically the wall
Chokes
Better
Judgement
Like
Victoria Secret lace going for Thirty-Five going for Thirty-Four surely no less than Thirty-Three million lives lost in sweat shops.
Shop Girls!
Sweat Girls!
Red girls in Red shops and Red cheeks
And pretty pink bits
In their pretty pink bits
All lace and want.
You want this delicate labour.
Of skin, of Cotton.
34D and it's made just for you.
This took eighteen years.
You'll find me in my panties drawer
When you like -
Our range is extraordinary.
Have you seen the peach? The clementine?
We don't really sell the pineapple, but you can take her for a spin if you're feeling a little naughty.
Wet baskets spill like the want of your beating wallet.
I watched my Mother Earth
naked under acid rain,
her trees like ribs poking through
a thinning green dress.
Once, she was thick with mango scent,
her belly warm with rice,
her rivers laughed like gurgling babies
now she chokes on plastic bottles
and oil spills that shimmer
like toxic jewelry.
They say the sea is rising,
but no one tells you how it feels
to watch a coastline
forget the names
of the children who played there.
My childhood was monsoon wet
thunderstorms licked our skin,
frogs sang in the dusk like priests
now rain arrives like a stranger,
either too late
or all at once,
like a slap.
I am told
to recycle,
to carry a cloth bag,
to plant a tree once a year
like lighting a lamp for the dead.
But the billionaires fly
above the storms,
sipping cold coffee
and dreaming of Mars.
And I
a woman with cracked feet
and a bleeding voice
write poems
no one reads,
weep for birds that no longer return,
and mourn glaciers
as if they were lovers
who never said goodbye.
The sun burns angrier now.
The moon stays away.
And I, too,
am learning how to die slowly,
without asking for too much air.
Acrostic THIRST
THIRST dances alone on the empty road
HUNGER steals breath while dust chokes every step
IN heat, the child crawls as the Nile shook
ROTTEN crumbs clutched tight from snatchers’ hands
SILENCE breaks when empty stomachs cry
Decoded message: Thirst steals childhood away
The Ruin of Your Wager
You threw your fortunes to the wind,
and laid your bets upon an underachiever.
Did you not look behind the mask?
Did you not weigh the heavy cost?
The ink was dry on history’s page,
the warnings written in the dust.
Yet blindly, you ignored the past wreckage,
and signed away your sacred trust.
Look now upon the quiet ruin.
See how your chosen champion falls.
You backed a beast that thrives on chaos
while silence chokes these empty halls.
Just a quiet thought.
By Phan Tan Hai
I sit reading a page of history—
the lines leaning, trembling with sorrow;
my eyes sting as I trace each word,
cold smoke rising into my soul.
I clearly see the names of friends
who died and now appear again,
demanding to charge once more with words—
a battle of humans or ghosts.
I see countless question marks
weighing heavily on every page;
a time as sad as smoke
staining the paper yellow-brown.
A time that feels so distant,
yet still chokes me as I read;
my homeland fills my eyes,
ink blurred but never fading.
Head bowed, I walked for ages—
my hair once so green;
as though a hundred lives have passed,
I look back and it is white.
I carefully record each word,
renewing the lines of poetry;
casting a hundred thousand words
to bloom as flowers on the far shore.
You warped my consciousness as a snake chokes its prey,
Being the crayons of my colourless tale meant to be grey,
Once a lonely rope left swinging, now your creeper coils along my way,
A drifting cloud carved by storms finally opens to its long-lost day.
A straight thread now tangles itself into the loops of your thoughts,
Being the spell that breaks open the oldest knots of my hate and curse knots,
Once a lone trunk now splits into paths that rise to make your leaves’ bed,
A lost traveller scorched in heatwave’s furnace finally discovers its shed.
A body consumed by your soil, atom to atom in it,
An exhausted, burning soul dissolves into your gathering clouds as it sits,
Consciousness dilutes in the pure solution of your life,
The last breaths of mine always rest in the veins of your heart’s life.
Death does not arrive with bias or mercy.
It sneaks between ribs and chokes beating hearts.
Eyes close and breath ceases — bodies go quiet.
We go, we go,
Gone.
Back to where the stars have patiently waited.
Where we scatter outward, and what we lose
Becomes light again
In a universe that never forgets.
Little girl lost
Without emotion
She floats on concrete
Shoes uffed over puddles
Running toward mommie
But mommie doesn't
Understand how to
feed this little
girl who is lost
And so without hope
And stranded in a
Rain Forrest she
Opens her diary
But only to close it
Without the words
She is lost for words
Lost without money
She chokes on P & B
Sandwiches
But stumiks the upsets
Of a broken Vail in her belly
She hides and trys to find somber
Sweet melodies
That will put her to sleep
Little girl lost
That's what people call her
In prison now
Hooked up to a mic now
She checks "1" 1 "2"
And speaks " who does really care"
This girl is gone and blue in the face
Of emotions
Final
Little girl lost.
I see the pain.
I feel the fire in my throat that chokes and suffocates .
With love ,with laughter ,with the silent cries at night.
As people comes as people goes .
Would they remember my name at night .
When one day can turn into one decade .
When they’re old and lived their lives .
Would they remember my name?
Would they only see the smile that never connects?
Would they hear the laugh that felt real?
Nor would they cry with sorrow and heavy heart.
Then covers me with tulips and Lillie’s
Or Will they remember me when there’s only ash of the girl that only felt the pain that suffocated her?
Oh happy day (oh happy day)
Oh happy day (oh happy day)
When Donny croaks (when Donny croaks)
He gasps and chokes (when Donny croaks)
The doctor pokes (when Donny croaks)
And sez "That's it, folks" (Oh happy day).
I'm scary summer visit once a year
with fierce countenance I always appear
Dry up all sources by sucking water
Day by day shoot up hotter and hotter
My infant days warm, cosy, and cheerful
when days pass by, I turn into fearful
My aura haunts even after sunsets
And the suffocative weather upsets
Burst opening the charcoal doors of night
Emerge with the gleam of chandelier light
Like a vicious dragon, I diffuse fire
None dares to encounter my severe ire
My scorching and charring hot weather chokes,
Squeezes, suffocates and perspires the folks
End to end whipping waves sprawled and enclosed
Everywhere stringent curfew terms imposed
Panicked birds stop singing and hide in trees
Tired cattle stay in shades of trees and wheeze
People gulp to quench their enormous thirst
Scared veterans shut up indoors coerced
Light and simple cotton clothes people drape
Lemons and melons to beat and escape
offering a fun they gather at pools
Enjoying ice-creams children bunk their schools
Place : 1 st
Claude Monet- Olive Trees in Bordighera 1884
Sun-Dappled Roots in Bordighera
The olive trees, a tapestry of age,
Kneel on the hillside, turning a new page
Of light and shadow. Not the willow's weep,
But the slow wisdom that the branches keep.
Their trunks are muscle, gnarled and iron-red,
Twisting from earth where ancient roots are spread.
A violet bruise deep in the bark's core,
Where the Mediterranean sun has pressed before.
The canopy, a thousand hurried strokes,
A restless, shivering dark that gently chokes
The fierce bright sky. Emerald and indigo dance,
Captured in paint by a fleeting, sunlit trance.
Below, the soil burns a fierce, ochre heat,
A sudden, bold orange where the shadows meet.
A fiery carpet, scattered and intense,
Reflecting brilliance, defying reticence.
No clear blue harbor, no orderly plaid,
But Impressionism in its rugged pad—
The light itself, the subject, sharp and new,
Sifting through branches, showing its mood to you.
O who will sing that rudderless ship
that has lost her destiny?
With her sails in rags
and her lines in snags,
-- the Ship of the Dead is free!
The captain lies in a coma,
his hands clutch helplessly,
and the shantyman chokes
and wheezes and croaks:
-- the Ship of the Dead is free!
The crew are extict and jolly,
they gnaw themselves hungrily,
and their black lips grin
as the rigor sets in:
-- the Ship of the Dead is free!
The pilot has smashed the compass,
and tramples the sextant with glee:
he erases the log
and steers by the fog;
-- the Ship of the Dead is free!
O the skeleton climbs the rigging;
his sockets scan the sea,
and he cries to the crew:
No land in view!
-- the Ship of the Dead is free!
Knowing of my yesterdays;
and how I feel left broken,
Seems that must be the way;
Am I really just a token ?
I have held so many secrets;
yet never was I shaken,
Not until I matured enough;
to know I was forsaken ....
I went on and tried to live;
many times just on the rim,
for in my feelings I did give,
somehow were kind of dim .....
Love , Trust and Happiness,
all left in just a sweep;
My heart again left broken ,
from a promise for to keep.....
I am not as thrilled today ,
to even know she still exists ;
I wish she had just gone away ;
cause somehow I'm left pissed.....
To end my rant of my ill's;
I will repeat as fact,
I hope that chokes on her booze;
and Mom dies of a heart attack
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