I know the music of violence
The dance of scared feet
The drums of pounding heart
The ugly masquerade
Malevolent with sharp teeth
That drinks the warmth of innocence
and leaves generations scared to embrace peace
I know the cry of dark skies
The shouts of burning roofs
The Crackled whip of confusion,
Mothers Daughter Fathers Son
Death becomes family
draped in blood, silence
While peace screams illusion
Mount the White Flag
Young ones
Surrender to unity
For Unity is
a family of different ideas
It is a table of laughter
A meal of hope
A Glass of joy drank together
A quenched thirst and a belly filled with gratitude.
Unity is a Fathers Pride
It is a Nations Gift
Wrapped in the sacrifice and
Thoughts of freedom
Unity is a Mother’s Prayer
The earth knows the lines on her knees
So Unite, Let’s Unite,
For unity is a safe tarred road
For the present and next generation to walk on.
The midnight bell chimed through
the empty halls.
Dust settled softly over trophies
on the walls.
Lockers slammed shut with a
metallic, sudden boom.
As freezing air flooded inside the
history room.
Footsteps echoed sharply down
the dim West Wing.
Through no one was there to hear
the sirens sing.
A phantom chalkboard wrote a
single name in red.
The roster of the students who
were long since dead.
I hid beneath the desk, my
breathing sharp and fast.
Trapped inside a prison built of a
horrific past.
The heavy smell of smoke began
to choke the air.
As phantom fire crackled wildly
down the stairs.
Then shadows stretched out from
the dark gymnasium floor.
And skeletal hands began to rattle
every door.
The guidance counselor's door
swung slowly, widely wide.
Revealing teeth and glowing eyes
that waited deep inside.
The hallway lengthened out into a
endless maze.
As glowing red eyes locked into my
terrified gaze.
The mountain was wrapped with tall, dark pines
Gloomy, heavy clouds obscured the sky.
Flashes of thunder lit up briefly above.
Timber crackled across the dark slopes.
A ghostly cold wind whirled around the mountain.
Pines swayed against each other.
Then, drizzly rain started to fall.
Birds, small and large, scuttled to find shelter.
We ran together holding wet hands.
Yet we were in love and laughed throughout.
Don’t blame us for getting completely wet.
We danced, slipped onto the wet soil.
I lifted up my head, I kissed the rain.
So did she. We kissed so passionately.
Until we came to the end of the muddy path.
We ran up our new wedded house unto a hot steamy shower.
It was not rain that fell on our faces
But we did not care as we continued our kisses.
Placed 1
The sun contours the cloud’s edges
Like a sky crack. If the sun be my eye,
Could eye be distracted from the surface heaven?
Some seven wispy islands’ masking bedding,
The frictive crashing plates, dying
And reborn downpours, slitted resting
Clouds, tense breasts and tension bringing.
A salmon fillet stretches gelatinously,
Horizon skin cooked by incidental switches,
Minor cloud bump shuffles that arrest
The sky. It lay there scorching
From the daggered strikes, the speaking
Pikes that shatter crackled clouds.
Their lost remains are seeping out of line,
An army shielded, steel of darker, stealing paints.
Valhalla battle cries boast legends, saints
And mages known only to the sky.
crackled lightning was frightening
that was me ghost said in a boast
could loud thunder have been a blunder?
it gave me a bit of a twitch said the witch
young ghoul did not understand the rule
twisted slightly, scene was unsightly
Halloween so vividly and intensely in the swing
stormy night made it right for a Jack-o-lantern king
Pink the sunset which filtered through the leaves
to burnish your skin on one afternoon,
when fireflies glittered like radiant weaves,
Vanishing in the grass. We knew that soon
those ebony clouds gathering would force
us to flee the glade through a birdsong’s tune:
Enticed then to stay, stay madly on course,
dare the oncoming rainfall ...and a smile
enlivened your face with such insolent force.
Till lightning crackled as we wait a while,
you gasped, and oh we fondled everywhere;
while a conniving star reeled to beguile.
A wildcat rushed out and paused low to stare,
While we huddled tightly ... too close to care!
First Place
A friend told me
over a cup of joe
that the devil quakes in Prada,
barring the gates of hell
from the one who now hunts
beyond the mortal plane.
I chuckled, asking
“If that were the case,
wouldn't the sky be a constant
affixed with blinding cracks
electrifying both day and night?”
He simply shook his head, grinning.
Then the flash of a screen drew attention
to images of Death shell-shocked,
huddling in a hospital bed, quaking
with agonized fervor as if
he saw Death himself and lived.
It was then I knew
he was speaking the truth
as the sky crackled above
with bolts clashing
like steeled fists,
reunited at last.
Always prepare for the unexpected, as more often than not the unexpected will happen.
Always have a plan B, even better a plan C.
Quote by Poet.
I was heading into Death Valley to
deliver drums of oil to the research
station, a trip that I took every month,
our haulage firm called it the 'Hades run'.
The forecast was 129°f for that day,
all was going well when disaster struck,
a front tyre had blown and I swerved off
the road, Blast it I thought It’s all I need.
I reached for the cab radio that crackled
and then went dead and I cursed my luck.
An hour went by then two, I was beginning
to panic, no other soul on that lonely road.
Then the air-conditioning packed up and
the temperature rose in the cab and I got
out quick and into the shade under the truck,
and drank the two bottles of water that I had.
Six hours had now passed and I was struggling,
the heat was unbearable and I realised I’d
probably die.I thought I was dreaming when I
heard a voice shout, "Hey Buddy you okay there".
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The kitchen hums~
flour dust in the air
like December’s first snow.
Her knuckles,
cracked as the recipe card’s edges,
work butter into sugar,
a sacrament of crumbling.
Cinnamon whispers the old language~
the one she brought over in a tin,
tucked
between hymn books and grief.
The oven sighs.
The dough remembers.
When it emerges
golden, crackled~
we eat it warm,
our fingers sticky
with the past.
A Reflection
My soul is one, my body is one.
I soaked my soul in drink.
And like my stone, cold heart
my dark, dark soul did sink.
My soul is one, my body is one.
They do not always blend
broken mirror, broken glass,
Twins clash in opposition.
My soul is one, my body is one,
like the sign of the yin and the yang.
Red wolves waiting in ambush,
Watching, snarling, . . . circling, glaring.
Walking barefoot on crackled glass.
One is my soul; one is my body.
In the silence of my mind,
the soft voice whispers “this too shall pass.”
In time, my soul should feel.
And in the place of my poor, tired heart,
a stained-glass window heals.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Aisle-strayed, the spine-scuff welcomes:
this scent, pine pulp and glue ghosts,
settles dust-flurried lungs.
Fingers graze jackets—crackled vellum,
fresh gloss bleeding promise.
Shelves stand like weathered priests
holding confessionals of ink.
One flayed paperback, dog-eared
at page sixty-three's small triumph—
proof someone else needed saving.
Here, grief grows papercuts;
hope wears library stamps.
Every warped cover a hatch
lifting into borrowed light.
The shattered remains of what I once had,
The hollow dreams still quite tall,
My mind of chaos driving me mad,
All behind a huge, transparent wall.
I hung my head low, slumped down.
I searched aimlessly in the darkness.
A picture lay there; on my face a frown,
But what was left of them all, they called it silence.
I caressed the picture,
My thoughts haywire,
The world is sinister,
Burning me up like fire.
Who am I? A meek peasant.
Knew no more than hardened violence,
A burdened past, a tortured present,
And what lay beyond, they called it silence.
Sorrow gripped me on the inside,
Lifeless and shriveled from within,
Merely spectating the secrets, they still hide,
Hoping that once again I could begin.
Sacked of my people, my life,
All while hiding under a veil of pretense,
Blaming me for the start of a strife,
And what they didn't need, they called it silence.
I let it calm down,
The whirlwind in my mind.
The warmth and laughter, I had them drown,
No place for joy will I ever find.
I ripped the photograph, my elixir.
The fire crackled in the distance,
All gone, I was forced to surrender,
And all that was mine, they called it silence.
I was a student of logic
when the world stopped breathing—
July 20, 1969,
a footprint pressed into silver dust.
Neil Armstrong’s voice crackled,
“one small step…”
and yet, my mind whispered—
was it the Moon,
or a Hollywood stage?
Fifty–six years have burned away,
half a century of miracles and machines.
We send probes beyond Pluto,
yet have not returned
to that pale frontier
just 384,400 kilometers away.
We dive to the edge of oceans,
but never to their blackest trench.
We speak of radiation belts,
Van Allen’s invisible fire—
how did fragile bodies
slip through alive,
wrapped only in cloth and hope?
Pride is America’s anthem.
If the flag had truly bitten lunar soil,
would it not have marched again—
and again—
until a fortress crowned the Moon?
They say budgets broke the dream.
But tell me—
what nation spares the stars
while spilling trillions on war?
The camera rolls.
The world applauds.
The truth drifts somewhere
between silence and space.
pause to hear a storm
listen to its vast noises
admire its voices
winds that blew in infamy
crackled as romantic fires
state huts wade through muck
spiders and newborns pancaked
trouble from the breeze
it stretched over our tall walls
but into their tenements
furious horses
unimagined violence
warfare wind wallops
nests shaken out by breezes
some people gather again
Just two more hours till the Royal Ball
Alas, this zit wouldn't fade at all
Since no ointment would ease
I just gave it a squeeze
It crackled, then it spackled the wall
I knew soon that company would call
But how to hide that goop on the wall
Left no clues with my clothes
Wiped the ooze from my nose
Looks like I'll make the Ball after all
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