He walks in a world of mirrored glass and gold,
Where every coin is made of teeth, and time
Is measured not by clocks, but by heavy lead.
A dog, a ghost, a myth of hollow bones,
Buried beneath a weeping willow’s song.
He seeks the Table carved of jagged stars,
Where suited phantoms trade in shattered breath,
And penance bleeds from leather-bound decrees.
Beneath the neon rain, the shadows twist,
Weaving a coat of sorrow for the dead.
He aims, a cipher in a waking dream,
Through catacombs of chalk and snapping glass,
Where adversaries dissolve in clouds of ink.
The pencil falls—a catalyst of wood—
And writes a symphony upon the brain.
He bleeds in shades of bruised, electric blue,
Rising again to face the shifting maze,
A tethered phantom in a tailored suit.
The path winds backward to a sunlit grave,
Where peace remains a memory of smoke.
Oh nightingale,
you rise like a small anointing in the dusk,
your voice a trilling psalm of love and lament.
You carry the mystique of prayer on your wings,
a feathered liturgy drifting toward the listening sky.
Oh nightingale,
you sing from the chalice of stillness where God whispers,
your syrinx a cipher of creation teaching silence to awaken.
You carry ancient wisdom in your throat,
a feathered oracle scripting prophecy on the wind.
2:43 AM
618 strangers
watched me bleed ink.
One bought hope
at 2:43 AM.
I was the scam.
Now I'm the verse.
Get back up.
Read the rest.
—
David Hurlburt Jr.
Disabled author from Canisteo, NY
The Cipher of the Circle — $2.99 Kindle
amzn.to/4nH3Y9x
meticulous
hybrid
extremes
individual
caustic
ironic
hallmarks
of
elemental
phenomena
intensive
outwardly
fettered
intensive
shadows
&
profound
cipher
in
a
torsioned
configured
context
A Fraction struck the Silence—
Of Multitudes—unnamed—
One Numerator—leapt the Dark
And claimed a hidden Prize—
Infinity stood waiting—
With Calculus of Chance—
The smallest Odds—completed—
A Universe—by Lance—
The Egg—an open Cipher—
Received the chosen One—
From Swarms of bright Potential—
The Reckoning—was done—
No Trumpet marked the Victory—
No Ledger claimed its Sum—
Yet Probability—astonished—
Became—a Someone—from—
What Might-Have-Been—fell backward—
Like Figures rubbed away—
While Certainty—still trembling—
Learned how—to stay and Play—
Follow this picture of a cipher
until the paint has set
& dried
They tarred & feathered a
Phoenix rising
and paved the way
for it to rise
They tried to sever golden
wings & many were in
so they could fleece
This only awakened what had
been sleeping
& resurrected the
deceased
May sleeping minds rest in peace
while they decipher
waking dreams
In a world built upon perceptions
things are rarely what
it seems
It's coming apart & loosened seams
expose deception behind
the veil
What's grounded today will
fly tomorrow
as sunken ships emerge
to sail
Their hearts are weighed
on sliding scales
& things can slip
when they are wet
Each act is liquid but all is leveled
so they'll endure what
they beget
There's no regrets while
in the moment
but things are clear
in sights behind
Eyes once covered now see it
clearly
they followed others
leading blind
Prayer is a light
To hearts it is quiet
Hidden inside joys varied
The most sincere servitude
To chests gives cure
To rest for a soul
A drink as a holy water
A seperation between evil and good
Salat is soul's meal
Faithful's meeting with Allah
Holy Throne's cipher
Sky's gates password is salat
With that servant raises to holy God
Prayers reach to house of Lord
Angels get down from welkin when Quran readed
Universe gets silent and listens with all heart
Now let you pray, you too five times a day
Without compulsion and laziness do it by pride
At the judgement day your scales full of good deed
At the recitation and prostration unite with the Almighty God (Allah)
And the radio silence is making me cipher my feelings
Into higher words beyond the expression of meanings,
Making me loosen my grip on reality through new thinkings.
In this city where LEDs set down the glows,
Every heartbeat adds up to what nobody knows
You said it, and I felt our friendship; gather a spark,
"One four three," you whispered and lit up the dark
Digits we carry through laughter and tears,
Cipher to our moments that decode all the years
It's all in the numbers, can you not see?
One heart beatin' for you and yours for me
Four chambers compress where it flows strong,
Three cheers for all moments where we both belong!
And when we're lost in a tangled mess,
I’ll hold your hand through every day stress
We’ll turn these figures into magical dreams—
Life’s more than numbers; ours bursts at the seams!
It's all in the numbers, can’t you see?
One heart beatin' for you and me
Four walls crumbling, but our love stays strong,
Three cheers for a life where we both belong!
Here’s to forever—a promise so true:
Count on my love; it adds up to “you.”
Through every equation of joy and strife—
It’s "143"—the sum of our life!
TO THE TASK AHEAD FOR OUR WRITERS
No one can write our story but us;
His story merely footnotes us:-
In the culture of the penned word,
We must personally ink ourstory;
Footnoting history’s keloid pains:-
In doing so, the rules must be ours
As opposed to those of anglophobia:-
In our midst, do we not have
Our own Prophets, Scribes, and Seers?
Do we not have our own worthy Griots?
Let us not write for their critics, but for ourselves,
Demonstrating mastery of the enforced language
Through which we must uniquely cipher flowing lines;
Deciphering coded lies from undeniable living truths:-
Can an indigenous fruit be a “native” of one that’s not?
Bits of pieces,
Scattered around,
To pick them up,
is what must be done,
Shifted about,
The broom sweeps,
What left underneath,
Is none of my concern,
Scoured away,
Evanesced by each beating minute,
Concealed far apart from my sight,
There is nothing to be noticed,
Cipher left behind,
Nullity lingers here,
Nothing was here,
Indifference, it never was.
By Sarah Shahzad, July 2024
.
NO
then hang me
Yahweh
left mine eyne open
to
indulge this sight
One uv His Most Fantastic Creations
and i'm sharing
with
the Gift mine Blessed
PHUK
the fine uv this purty
ticklez the Atlantic's spume
wit
hern hip's limb'z digits
not 'ware uv ‘mine’ think's
“tickle”
or
hind mine
the spurious who
wait for mine reach
uv
hern
Ancient Latin 'cipher
"nubile"
i mustn’t
worship
,)
but damn
Snap
If a time and place is different
for them to fire off their weaponry,
to lie and win against a significant.
What keeps a similarity in liability,
to lie and win in a predicament
where skill is an absolute necessity?
Bold and without a last abatement,
I see through the lies of industry.
Bold and without a past abashment,
wouldn't be paid a cent currency.
Seen by gross pure aggrandizement,
violent potent a cologne adversary.
Laughably, an obvious despondent.
Is there no end to one so lairy?
A stone thrown, I notice your salient.
I won't resemble the tuning veeries.
Even no pruning, losing an assailant.
The truth is tied up in flimflammery.
Path set by the trying time rodent.
Cocky, peacocking varies ostentatiously.
Read past the first half constituent.
Go pass-through a proof for checkery.
Auction of nonsense falsified Rembrandt.
Author a snow cipher meeting misery.
When songs of joy are sung, full-throated and deep,
lines of gay rhyme and cheer may blissfully spring;
but songs kept furtively never lie or sleep
within a bard's secret, inward being.
What germ of hidden verse can be his art?
When the mind envisions poetry, profound
phrases of love pouring out from the heart's
impassioned lips may multiply unbound!
But riddled in a cipher, kept inside
a closed conundrum, there's a magic key.
Encrypted, made to go viral, far, and wide,
in rhymes apparent is his mind's bel esprit.
For beautiful souls always shine, and find
in the other the gift of a great mind.
I faced this man, looking like a portrait,
I heard him whisper from heart straight.
You’re bold and flagrant frank,
voice vibrates with cadence of confident airs,
you’re logical, at times tangentially crank,
eyes encase dulcet dreams, at times tears
In the latent lattice of intricate design,
layer on layer, your mind is stratified,
the sanguine strata of all assorted hues align,
unique psychic patterns are unified.
Many aspects of singular distinction hide
within the network of your mind’s cipher layers,
can’t be decoded by the world outside,
the reticent sense of silent self never cares.
An insular captive of your mental making,
you’re you, an inimitable loner,
in your lane you see the aliens walk forsaking,
you’re defined by your essence sober.
These are the entity attributes of you people view,
different from the rest around you, for you’re you.
I looked at the portrait somewhat closer,
saw this man stare at me from the mirror.
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