Written: January 26, 2026, for contest Sponsored by: John Anderson
*****************
Not frail, but a supple whisper,
timidity softened into grace,
a slope bending with light.
Syllables flow, languid yet nimble,
bursting like a jovial colloquy,
round and full at the edges.
Curves of ink lean forward,
thick black against white,
a clamor of elegance denied.
It coddles my flaws,
rebukes steady fear,
and leaves me lissome in memory.
Hate hangs from me like a disintegrating cloak
It’s sickly oil tendrils trailing from me
It never gives passes
Eloquent in its misuse
Scratching its way through the sheerness. of the
slivers
Feeling so black that blue isn’t quite enough
Love drapes from me like a sculpted marble toga
It’s twirling twines exploding into fluff
It lives in the past and futures
Incoherently overused
It coddles in lessening touches of soft
Feeling the light before it lands
Afternoon ember flare coddles forest
Nodule noses, from dark bark eyes sap drips
Naked soldiers, Summer’s subside promised
Farewell foliage, spun fairy floss gossip
News spew swept red runaway train carriage
Ridiculed witches watch fireworks astral
Rudimentary broom aircrafts encourage
Twilight wake creatures creep from log capsules
Twitching whiskers, dusk susurrate translate
Trampled damp mushrooms mulch to mildew fleece
Orange fungi full moon balloon inflate
Hot flight flame exhales exhausting release
Grey limb wind tortured troops groan, familiar
Guards gravely wait for Winter’s insignia
31st August
Written for Contest:
Whispers of Autumn
Sponsor: John Lawless
This little voice keeps telling me to
keep my head down and plow forward.
The further I go, the more debris clogs the road.
It is broken in some places
Gale-force winds are ever-present.
Sheer drop-offs on either side.
The sky spits blue ice most of the time.
The voice also tells me to dress the soul in layers.
But one can only layer up and plow so much.
The heart will overheat
and the soul comes to an abrupt stop...
When the voice becomes too hoarse to comprehend.
Maybe this is when God coddles the reins.
Guiding this swayback toward the light
and toward St. Peter's gate.
C A U S A T I O N vs. D E T E R M I N I S M
Choices form towards our preordained trajectory
Decision built bricks stack factors progressively
Circumstancial pegs compile in accord to faculty
Dogmas of downtrodden clogged with profanity
Circles run rings around predictions, an equator
Divides same from same in symmetrical centre
Cogs who push their neighbours never blame us
Duration in environ expidited by wheel's impetus
Certainty occurs, journey obscured from turning
Decorum's shield prohibits peripheral discerning
Contingent coddles confederates, cave sedation
Dictated picture is droll pattern of premeditation
Character patter converses with class conducive
Dialogue delays, latitudinal liberal splay spruking
Concious diverges in a dual carriageway purview
Deliberation channels hairpin 's curve impromptu
14th February
Fortitude Breaks
Causation Chains
To all those fallen poets
sifting fields of words
i will help them grow
describing pain that melts the snow
and a glow the darkness coddles
let me get sum right
A lovely lady beguiles a luckless lad
Of unwitting others she might have had
The fairest face may be foul of heart
Deft deceit is how now it shall start
Like fated moths drawn to the light
Novices can't tell wrong from right
This lady then connives confusing witch's what
Spins spells that do convince what is not
She conjures him to shirk sacred duty
So sure he's blinded by her beauty
She coyly coddles this beamish boy
His twisted thinking in frabjous joy
He peers deeply down into her soul
Seeing darkness finding blackest coal
It hearkens back to Eden's first sin
Stirs silent shadows sunk long within
Beware that all's not as it seems
Beauty's illusion can change what it means
Purpose or pulchritude which will impress
When next we witness a damsel's distress
How luscious the ripened grapes, purple sweet
Enthralling us in their leafy bower
Where a lush orchard coddles yield every hour—
Moonlight and dawn gloss velvet skins replete
With bathed nectarine turning into wine…
An elixir when our affection glows :
Cabernet , more precious than scented rose
As lovers’ mouths sip of romance divine!
Contest of Brian Strand: Late Feb 2019
CONTRAST OF BLACK AND WHITE
Faith coddles the fetus in his cimmerian cradle,
his freshly formed ears set on the steadfast heartbeat.
~
Eyes blink, outside the cramped passageway,
glowing bright like a newborn star.
~
The thumb sucking infant sifts out the gray pixels,
shape sorting images, building blocks in the mind.
~
Blindness binds a child devoid of light.
Contrast of black and white supplies sight.
~
When does this child become afraid of the dark?
Once exposed, eyes crave a steady diet of light.
~
2/17/2017
Weebles wobble
but they do fall down.
Once without windup whimsy weebles wobble writhing in wistful wiggly wattles,
they bubble, bobble, boggle, bottle and boondoggle coddles and dawdles;
a colossal ensemble debacle joggles and toggles the toddler's throttle
waiting on wafting waffles the twaddle and goggling the toppled pottles.
Just google that old fossil's nozzle schnozzled squabble.
Tongue twister:
without windup whimsy weebles wobble writhing in wistful wiggly wattles
The greatest pretender in the sky
is a thief in wings
and sings and sings in purloined folly.
A burlesque bird first loots a throat
then coddles every stolen note
and assembles every syllable
Then one by one in choral mime
as though true specie in the air
acts with incipit pompous dare.
And what honest notes could sound
that author care the see
that invention were an honest gift
achieved with authenticity.
Water coddles my numbing fingers
warmth floats upon stubborn clouds of mist
impacts unenthusiastic cheeks and lingers
morning’s winter heated by a whetted kiss.
Hands clasp as a lover to a lover
skin sliding smoothly through soothing soap
fogged mirror a glassed and cozy cover
warms my hands, my face, my hope.
Simple pleasures, unnoticed sunrise -
not epic love, nor joyous dream,
only eyelids lacquered over sleepless eyes
and chilled hands warmed in a faucet stream.
January 20th, 2016
When I close my eyes and look into the darkness
I see the reverse image of swirling time
Glimpses of you, but you are not there
Like Schrödinger's cat, you are alive and dead
But all it takes is a potion
And my eyes will remain closed for eternity
The ease of which, has its own damnation
For this life still coddles and excites
And allows me to weep and moan
When I close my eyes and see you in the darkness
The Transparency of Selves.
Transparently unseen,
lonely souls walking on,
slipping between raindrops,
curling between folds of reality,
twisting in dreary, worn-out skins.
Moulting, peeling off, discarding,
worn-down corpses edging towards,
whistling crowds of leering stares,
wasted on insipid momentary sighs,
where collective consciences lay mute.
Opaque words flounder, seeking, begging,
wooden excuses swept up in dusty screams,
bellowing unspoken profanities in solitude,
sweltering amongst boneless patriarchs,
where impotence teeters on the brink of reason.
Rivers of unreason roll on, ceaselessly,
watering the sordid thoughts and empty voices,
filtering out warmth and empathy, drilling,
deeper into a callousness that embraces,
coddles, nourishing nothing but putrid decay.
Strolled in
to my barbers Friday evening
Typical wait
(10 minutes)
No problem,
except two people
bothering me.
A mother
while she coddles her son
with one wavy arm
In tight clothes
A ring bigger than Texas...
not a word spoken between them
both on their fancy I phones
Son,
strolling through Facebook
Mother staying busy with games,
starring into it as if it were a big mac
I watched
cursing in my head
Other waiting people
stuck on their cool new entertainment
Nobody talks
Nobody thinks
10 spare minutes
scares the *****out of people
Time to get her son’s haircut
He, atleast 10
She walks over and
instructs the barber
what her son needs
probably never making
a decision for himself
He'll grow as she
becoming a winner
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