The Visitor
He pushed at the open door
no sound
just darkness inside.
Dust filtered his
nostrils,
a mustiness of lost years
inhabited his senses.
A loose floorboard
creaked in the stairwell,
the aroma
of her Chanel provoked memories
of his
living hell.
A tear of self-pity congealed
in the dirt at his feet
He switched on the light
"Hello son
I knew you'd be back;
He's gone..."
The pall of gloom hovers over the sea of sorrow,
surges in turmoil tempest to my mental meadow,
melts to make the stream of tears to flow covert
as “the clouds spill a thousand secrets”.
The mordant brine of dissolved distress,
shaped in tear drops the eyelashes design,
slowly slides down my deserted visage vale
with the pent-up pile of dream debris.
Torrent of tears congealed in cold dereliction
carries the shriveled shards of broken heart,
rushes to reach the warmth of your yearning arms,
and become “love-drunk on desire”.
The flames of inferno of your lingering longing
blaze the enshrined essence of my frigid life,
“melt my tears into your sweet fire”;
the mesmeric mist creates the miasma of memory.
At the tip of the reclined jade bough,
ornate with fine filigree of emerald foliage,
a floral lattice in the love-laced sapling
blossomed as a flower with a fervent flair.
On the weary wings of the arctic wind
the wilted petals of my florid longing
blew away in the winter of discontent
to the cold cauldron of nowhere.
As my yearning turned into glacial vacuity
in the freezing darkness of the arctic pathway,
I walked forsaken over the frozen flower
along the gelid trail of frigid memory.
I felt the poignant crunch of the flower,
for, then every step was an articulation
of my fragile brittle feeling congealed.
Yet, even if the bruised beauty
got treaded upon the fallen blossom
in the snowstorm raged meadow
I painted its shape-shifted insignia
on the cinnabar canvas of togetherness lost.
In the twilight zone it would glisten
with the patina of residual florid rapture
within our opalescent inner sanctum,
the garden of our real home still verdant,
where the frozen blossom would bloom again.
through bone marrow, an ordainment
cruises, initiated plasma expecting
sit strategic observe vibrations
lips inward as pursing to utter mama
softly whisper, then careful cobra hiss
tongue presses roof for decisive ignition
hills like Rainbow Vinicunca nurture
becoming erect, spine steeled slither
clocked, emphatic descent to reascend
spirit’s grains congealed prudent
guiding kernel’s evolutionary action
imperative transformation willed
_______________________________
Time in ebony night stops to flow in aloneness undefined,
where infinite pathos in the congealed instants wanders
on the shadows of the past, void perception in seclusion,
gets shaped by strata of darkness, framed in psychic canvas.
The dispersed grains of darkness drizzle down silently
from the cauldron of the infinite blankness of eternity
that my sky starts to shape at the edge of ductile dusk
since the beginning of my time lost in the crypt of isolation.
The silken tapestry of the black blanket spreads slowly
as the twilight dissolves at the hinge of the hazy horizon
like the timed rainbow melting upon the sinking skyline,
where the silhouette darkness dances with the flowing night.
Sonorous sound of silence echoing ethereally in night sky
wakes up the sleeping stars one by one to sparkle bright
on the bejeweled crown the amorous ambiance adorns,
as the moonbeam strands weave dulcet dream of you for me.
Each stardust-sequined silent night I wait awake alone
for you to emerge lively out of my dream like an angel,
walk through the pining corridor of my craving mind,
as I let my thoughts drift in the emptiness of night’s silence.
On the wings of winter wafting in the polar wind,
the wilted leaves of longing cold
blow away rustling to the chilled realm of nowhere.
The frosted yearning turns into freezing embrace,
she escapes from the fold of frozen love
with the blurred sense of icy longing
that lingers in the glacial crevice of his frigid heart.
In the congealed psychic cauldron,
fabricated by the flakes of snowy soreness
he stands at the edge of his own freezing,
a steep precipice of stillness of unspoken regrets
where silence is made of blue layers of ice.
She sees his sapphire beauty in the cold architecture,
the way pain can sculpt something splendid.
In the milieu of frozen emotional abandonment
man mimics the texture of ice hardening at the surface,
protects what lies within the arctic mind.
Ice and men is a transient duality
of coexistence of strength and fragility,
lone coldness and moving compassion,
both holding the histories of fleeting silence.
“Flowers fade and decay through wintry hours
– waiting for rebirth” - Quote by Constance La France
Chilled whispers of freezing north wind
waltz with ballerina snowflakes.
Cold decay spawns in congealed nights with frost,
bare tree boughs bend with snow.
Fallen leaves have lost golden glow,
in winter’s gloomy grip they wilt.
Doting butterflies have vanished since long,
for the flowers are gone.
Surely, spring returns with splendor,
hued spectrum relights smoky sky.
Resurrected morning crowned by dew pearls
shines with sequins of spring.
Glowing sun melts away the snow,
jade veneer new adorns cracked ground.
Satin leaves sprout in barren trees with buds,
live in tinged crescendo.
Flowers bloom in faded garden,
breeze ripples with their mellow scent,
bringing butterflies to color burst scene,
revived nature’s fresco.
O gossamer, thy needles.
They shine like suns at play.
Bands of fate in full? She pulls!
Faster grow, O hay!
Erosion, art thou harbinger?
Kingdom gone? Returned?
Battlefield, thy prey! O cur!
How my heart has burned!
Tremendous time, thy measure.
Each minute to work out.
Poisoner, thy pleasure!
Dismay, decay, doubt!
Fine flickering in free fall?
Plight of a far-flung hope?
Funeral, thy darkest pall!
Invincible rope!
Creek trickling down the cliff?
Cold the water gets.
Faster, peasant! Pole that skiff!
He who shirks regrets!
Thistle in an empty field?
Spartan on the shield.
Wound in side that never healed.
Heart-blood a-congealed.
O xylophone, thy plaintive note.
Balloons love to float.
O ye travelers, pack thy tote!
Red the riddle rote...
Contest : Oxymoron
Sponsored by : Nette Onclaud
Date : September 3, 2025
Your congealed charm sprays spring colors,
folded buds of my heart unfurl.
You drift far transfixed in my sky
that falls floating with my life’s shards,
pain rhythm sutures broken heart whole.
I hear silent scream of flower
cry for old sunrise in new dawn,
see you turn dew pearls on petals.
Collops of fat line the tables of the few,
while the many stretch hands toward empty plates.
Skyscrapers rise in the capital,
yet in the villages, children bend under jerrycans,
walking miles for a sip of muddy water.
The economy grows, they say—
percentages polished and paraded—
but the growth is stored in vaults,
not in classrooms with broken desks,
not in hospitals without medicine,
not in the pockets of the farmer who tills red soil for nothing.
Every election season,
collops of fat are dangled like bait—
T-shirts, soap, envelopes,
promises swollen with grease,
but never nourishment for tomorrow.
The youth, restless, crowd into boda stages,
degrees folded in pockets,
dreams reduced to dust by unemployment.
Markets overflow with speeches,
but not with buyers.
Streets fill with posters,
but not with jobs.
Uganda’s wealth pools in corners,
thick, congealed, unreachable.
The nation limps,
while a few grow heavier, rounder,
their laughter echoing across gated compounds.
Collops of fat—
the evidence of excess,
the proof of imbalance,
the weight carried not by those who eat,
but by those who starve.
In the quagmire ooze of daily trudge,
where the mire of monotony
clings cold, congealed in sorrow,
it takes only a spark of inspiration,
to transform an ordinary morsel
into a shimmering taste of sheer joy.
Echoes that entices, suffices.
I carry my sample bag handy,
stocked with my pet peeves in reverse.
Tiny things that you take time
to notice, and create space for,
that bring gemstones of joy shining:
The smell of rain, with storm's first drops.
The wispy waft of coffee, freshly brewed.
A rare bird sighted or heard, out of season.
A few chords of a beloved song.
Warm socks from the dryer.
A wink, glace, a tiny half-backed smile.
First touch of warm hands.
Fresh bread from the oven.
Noticing my things I placed in extraordinary ways.
A doodle scribbled on my notepad
Inspiring word or phrases recorded.
Doing things at half-speed, to spool like honey.
In all these little ways on long days
these echoes entice, suffice.
Heartthrob in damsel drag
Belief of human bile
Completely instilling cascading dregs of mechanical flesh, bones and spit
64th avenue
And coiling deft doom
Winged balls of bulging blood and speckled steel
Merry wails and flutters of moths unsealed
Fitted upon falling kneel
And reckoned release of rotten roadkill-
Rats and babes and brats
Congealed candy and sickeningly sweet brandy
And hailed light of epiphany to choke, swallow and spit
And strangle without a hand nor handle but grit
Of groil and crevices of menaces heralding honed notes
And a lone liver in fathered infirmary
Black backed in breachers
Potted a bulge to indulge the fickle maggots of dissociation
Emulsification and hearty sniff of
Whitened slice and slithers of snow
Dregs to drag and hone and throw
Up upon bedded saline laden road
Of rows and rows and pounds
That drag rotten flesh afresh from the hound
Sutured from spine to fluttered wing
The hide
Plucked apart from rat to brat
And collared collier stepped afresh with new hide and throw
And stubborn stubbled child with a new mind in tow
5//5//2025
Quote: “Lenses grant vision, perspectives determine what we see.” Poet
As faith confirmers, glorious, color-chorused rainbows caress.
Brilliant beauty as fresh delivered through Heaven’s gate,
brightens human hopes, uplifting faith to further radiate.
Sensations sparkling gloriously bright as any God made jewel
grants elation promises that soothe any doubts man may mutter.
For many, rainbows are a visual grabber, seeing faith further congealed.
Those lacking even faith’s shadow, view rain as the subject matter.
Your face in the twilight wind
flashed with the dissolved rainbow hues,
radiating the spectrum of your love,
I saw painted on your florid face of splendor,
the petals unfurled on the contours of your smile.
Lest it withered away in the cauldron of oblivion
I kept it framed within the foliage of memory.
In the cradle of the reclined verdant bough,
opulent with the fine filigree of emerald exuberance,
a delicate design I made with love-laced twigs
for the nest of my adoring desire,
I weaved with the finesse of fervor.
On the wings of discontent winter,
wafting in the polar wind of despair
the wilted leaves of my longing
blew away rustling to the hazy realm of nowhere.
Dismal in my frosted nest on the skeletal tree,
I counted in my faint heartbeat
the footsteps of the desolate dusk.
My yearning turned into a glacial embrace,
you escaped from the congealed fold of icy love,
flew away far to the sun-soaked sky.
Forsaken in freezing darkness of the arctic nest,
I live with the petrified feather you left
in the memory lost within a frozen mist.
In
cosmic
wilderness
icy rings swirl
with frozen rock dust
in thin ribbons on flight
in solar system unique,
around the sleeping Saturn far,
as it’s leftover wandering waste,
making the breathtaking celestial rinks
where I as cosmonaut shall one day glide,
skate upon the congealed space tracks vast
in freedom of weightless milieu,
whirl charmed in galactic glow.
As the stardust swathes me
I’ll take spiral turns,
primal silence
will flood me
in false
dream.
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