Blown glass heart slowly expanding.
With every breath they choose to lend you.
Pouring their heaviest selves into you.
You're quickly contracting while they're resting.
Shaping you into a vessel of misuse.
Blown glass heart cooling and cracking.
Timeless masterpiece shattering.
The fillers spilling out, red-faced and laughing.
No blowers left to be found
no lenders of breaths
no fillers of vessels
no more compounding interest
no angel to sweep you from the abyss.
The heart is still there, though in mosaic.
Your beauty was never in how they seesawed you
but how you see, saw you.
Life's beating mosaic in cornflower blue.
Tribute to Eileen Manassian
Eileen's last poem was in November of 2025.
I'm worried, concerned, and grieved about her safety.
According to her bio, she was teaching at Middle East University in Beirut, Lebanon.
From her bio: The war in Lebanon...bombs landing all around, nights spent in bomb shelters... has also scarred me to some degree.
I grieve.
Because the air strikes have intensified. And armed conflicts, civil unrest, and terrorism have hit her city.
Eileen has been in the middle of the crossfire, with the US-Iran war compounding the volatility of her life.
I grieve.
I miss the vibrant Eileen, who would bring blossoms to Poetry Soup.
And pray for a happy outcome and reunion.
Note: Since I have already entered a tribute in Constance's contest, this poem here is filed under goodwill.
connie pachecho
7/3/26
(“Crappy Karma Happens Merit Badge”, 2010, original oil)
The simple fact is
People get what they deserve
By the simple fact
That that’s what they get
Karma has a way of doing that
Following you around
Like a shadow, like a puppy
Like a mugger in the dark
Waiting for just the right moment
To take its pound of flesh
Living on borrowed time they say
Borrowed by simply living
When it’s all more a loan
With the debt compounding daily…
Who and what are we borrowing from?
Our future selves.
(6/8/26)
i FEEL IT INSIDE OF ME,
THE DEEP DARKNESS THAT'S CRIPPLING MY MIND BODY AND SOUL,
CREEPING AND LURKING TEARING ME APART PIECE BY PIECE,
READY TO BE LET OUT,
IM SCREAMING FROM WITHIN,
CAN ANYONE HEAR ME?
DOES ANYONE EVEN CARE?
IT'S ALL THESE DEMONS RUNNING RAMPID AND DEEP,
OVERFLOWING AND COMPOUNDING,
i CAN NOT SEE THE LIGHT,
MY FALME OF HOPE IS SWINDLING,
ALMOST OUT,
I WANT TO YELL OUT PLEAE SAVE MEM
BUT THE MISERY AND DARKNESS RESTRAINS ME,
IF I OPEN MY CHEST OF AGONY ,
WILL YOU BE THERE TO CONSOLE ME?
HOLDING ME CLOSER AND TIGHTER,
UNTIL MY SUFFERING IS DONE,
CAST OUT ALL MY DEMONS,
AND SAVE ME FROM MYSELF
When an apex predator behaves unnaturally
The balance of power becomes upsetting
The scale is not just immeasurable
It's behaving dysfunctionally
Reason is cast aside
When sides are paramount
Differences mounting to the sky
Becoming mountainous, unassailable
Forgetting we rose from the ooze
We didn't choose what was discarded
But it was nature made that choice for us
And not something lightly regarded
The borders crossed were nature's own
And no one owned what was provided
No one claimed as theirs alone
What only nature has decided
What's unbecoming to presume
Has become our nature to resume
Some think that challenging is treason
And choosing sides is tantamount to reason
Ignoring what has led us here
In willful ignorance compounded
Compounding what leads only to fear
And thoughts of our ascent unfounded
Shh! don't make any peeps.
But it's in our nature to make many more peeps.
Say ouija ouija ouija, to move the marker to true aim.
Say one too many times or too few less and you have made a grave sin.
Hands free writing gets a new meaning when using telepathy.
Or would you just call it automatic writing?
PEEK A BOO, now I see YOUZ.
Coming back from the banished zone of silence.
Thanks be to youz, bleeping peeps.
I am free to explore these other dimensions further away from my damnation.
Compounding the holy with common festivities.
Naturally makes for a truly holy festival.
Cheers to the man holding the skull aware of his final destination.
Frans Hals hails the successful seance.
Let us think not only
of instrument and music
though a poem sort
of a dance
let is think not only
of voice and cadence
though a poem also
a trance
let us not think
let us not think
for mind has an echo
compounding the same
I adhere to conduit mystery
taking no credit nor blame --
What do you do
when your head feels like
a million pounds,
your chest is buried
underground,
where worms and slugs
and filth abound,
and rocks compound overhead,
compounding a heaviness
which even the heaviest cannot heave.
Where mere moments make a millennia
of torment -
For sleepless nights
make endless days
and endless days make immortality -
And mine is underground
Far
Far
Underground
Where hell itself resounds
in my head,
and my screams shriek in silence,
drown out by fear.
And breath escapes me.
Where stillness surrounds me,
and turmoil wins
ever winding,
wondering when I might
snap
Please,
I cannot
don't let me
go back...
Drifting face across fulfilled lives, how many lies do I see inside?
I see without visual, drowning in endeavours.
I hear within silence, the blinding numbness adhere to my veins.
The silence enriches my absent thoughts, swallowing me whole into the jaws of fate.
What’s holding me captive in this divine existence? The monotony of being etching away my compounding resolve.
Saturated with doubt, with guilt and remorse. A futile endeavour to attempt release from the clutches of madness.
Altering ley lines to divert my path, digesting the inedible and finding purpose within.
Disturbances not overcome but overgrown with enamel concealing the ugliness left behind.
The path forward we travel, onward we look. Hereby is the contingence to survive. Survival is key, survival is free, survival is not where I want to be.
Dying invested
dividend high
Selling tomorrow
presence to buy
Feelings compounding
destiny’s rate
One final moment
— blessed in His Grace
(1st Book Of Prayers: August, 2024)
("Dark Pool Nebula", 2011, original oil)
Burdened By What Has Been
Each moment
The addition of a trillion bits of information
Like compounding interest
On the rest of eternity
(8/15/24)
Apology
not good enough
Intention
still to blame
The road to hell
left burning red
its deviance
in flames
Excuses
rolling off the tongue
with lie
compounding lie
A higher power
judgment bound
the devil
— in denial
(Bryn Mawr College: July, 2024)
We found a way to mesh bordering on perfectly sequential
A widening variation of discovery; in a world I thought inconsequential
This investment is based solely on our long-term potential
In culmination of what matters to me; seen within your vast deferential
Maybe there really is something more than amicably existential?
Affection for you is essential,
Leaving nothing inferential,
Focused the quintessential,
Affection rain-like torrential,
Compounding is exponential,
Prized past preferential,
Affection so reverential
Sitting here, blanketed, the night is so dark
I look through my window and up at the stars
But something is missing, my heart sends a cue
That something is someone, that someone is you
All that you are I'm just waiting to know
But what I know so far I hold in escrow
With compounding interest I've yet to realize
The fact that you're priceless I do recognize
Can’t just jump to the finish line
Need to put in the work along the way
Would be nice to only reap the gains
But no shortcuts despite what others say
Progress needs to build upon itself
Can’t just jump to the finish line
Collecting credits creates compounding
Building up as our thoughts begin to shine
Focus on improving the inputs
The outputs will come in due time
Can’t just jump to the finish line
Must start at the trailhead for our climb
After reaching the summit we may
Realize the mosaic in the puzzle design
Stop to reflect before scaling a new mountain
Because we can’t just jump to the finish line
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