The tree
The flowers in the valley
Purple like fruit punch
I see Sandra by the pine tree
She’s crouched down talking to a little girl
The clouds above look like an elephant version of ABBA
Oh wait that little girl might be me
But a memory
Because I am not under the tree yet
I am still a leaf
Identified with form, we dream,
transfixed by mind’s restless thought stream,
so we heed not God’s wake up call,
working not with Him as a team.
God’s light is veiled by ego’s wall,
so who we are we don’t recall,
which is the sole cause of heart’s dread,
stance crouched, unable to stand tall.
On choosing to be by love led,
bliss pheromones in us are bred,
whence concepts dissolve, we evolve,
living more in heart, less in head.
Written: July 30th, 2026, for a contest sponsored by Seth Pina
*********
Your very skeleton
is not spun from cotton and polyester.
No, it is not carved from wood,
nor forged from metal or steel.
Its substance is—nerve endings,
tissue, and blood—
circulatory systems,
bound,
but not from woven fabric.
A lethal lotus languishes,
lamenting in its limbo,
crouched on bended knee.
A curved carcass, prostrate
beneath time’s passing wheel.
Its chalk-white bones
measure the slow decay,
where darkness lingers
in the hollow space within.
Cyborg of a cyber-skeleton.
Coiled with a steel-stitch
sprocket of subjugation.
Its spinal cord, bound in circuitry,
hums with sorrow.
A crestfallen cranium,
a heavy, hollowed
moon-orb weighed down
by the gravity of grief
in synthesized solitude.
Amidst this woeful wheel,
supplications of skinless steel
fuse forgotten fragility and fortitude
into a fatalistic future.
For you were neither tool nor tree,
but a tight-furled tapestry of flesh—
a weeping engine, bound in bone,
where the wild pulse fights the gear,
and slowly fades to rust.
In a dark dot,
I, as a spot.
lie.
As tears I cry
all crouched,
and perched,
in the hollow suffocating,
fists clenching,
as the space around,
caves in, and walls surround
me with spikes, that inward poke,
and the voices that spoke
I heard loud and clear.
and I fear
the laughter
above the clatter
which is nauseating
and revolting,
as into the abyss I slip,
and in the mire dip,
screaming so loud,
but none in the crowd
hear me,
yet see
how I cringe and tremble in fear
as panic hits, I can hear
the deafening silence of the dot
as the spot
comes hurling at me,
driving me into the raging sea
that engulfs me!
And then the light’s beam
So freaking bright
that in my dream
I’m blinded by that light,
which splits the dot that held me tight
into a splintering ray
obliterating my day!
Copyright © 2021 by Crystal David John
Little bird little bird fly away
the cat's in the bush and you're her prey
Wing it fast and take flight
or in her belly you're an easy delight
That squirrel in the tree chatters loud
that old cat ate his best pal
Other birds have long flown from fear
little bird little bird why are you still here
She's crouched and ready to leap
little bird little bird no time to peep
Just fly away to the moon
leave the old cat in a fit of fume
Little bird little bird safe in the sky
over the rainbow like the lullaby.
Listen...
The night seems paused,
Like the hunter downwind its happless prey;
A silence crouched in a quiet.
It lend to itself a stealth that in these shadows lay,
We may be better off to follow its lead.
Let us duck beyond the reed,
Let the gentle brook bicker over us,
And lend our tongues to monastic solitudes,
And vows of silence,
And speak not till nature finds herself
A newer cause,
Or the dawn vanquishes the need.
And the cock crows,
Midst the hollow stems and lovage weed.
Ah, the life of a cut-purse—
Ere such audition e'er dreamt the need rehearse.
"Life accompanies error,"
And we are full of its merry bliss
How ere it come to this?
A frog atop its lily
Staring at us, so silly.
By so late an hour,
Clowns before rogues—
"And all wet."
The clever night has made us its jest
Let us retreat from fen to den:
A warm hearth and dry clothes,
And conceal our conciet,
For ere the wind of rumor blows
And give nock to doors and wake windows,
Inviting eyes to spy our predicament,
And see where our path lent tself
To such wasteful end
Unwelcomed Visitor
If Jesus came to see you
Would you open up the door?
Or would you hope He didn't see you
As you crouched there on the floor?
Would you recognize our Saviour?
If He came to you today?
Would you run in joy to greet Him?
Or send Him far away?
Do you hear Him in the shadows?
When He speaks in gentle rain.
When sleep and rest illude you,
And your heart is wrecked with pain?
He is calling, hands extended
Take His hand and feel is touch.
He holds what you are seeking
And He loves you oh so much!
If Jesus came to see you,
Would you answer when He calls?
He is waiting there to help you
He will catch you when you fall.
Through long years he stands there waiting.
Just accept his healing touch.
No one else provides the answers
And He loves you oh so much.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
the floxed bulb of October winnows down
to pumpkins crouched in their own orange light—
each vine a fuse unspooling toward frost,
each fruit a brain swelling with moonstruck seeds.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
the floxed bulb of October winnows down
to pumpkins crouched in their own orange light~
each vine a fused unspooling toward frost,
each fruit a brain swelling with moonstruck seeds.
Within the cemetery they'd wait
For him to walk fast past the gate.
They knew he had an inward fear
This cemetery was haunted here.
A joke his friends would play on Jim
Would hide away unseen by him.
So, when he hurried past they'd yell
Jump up and cry "You'll go to hell."
But, Jim got wind of their fun prank
Crouched in a big white sheet he shrank.
Ran up behind them, yelled out "Boo"
A mess they left! I'm telling you.
She dropped from the morning’s quiet,
a flash of white, a small gasp of wings.
No song followed her fall,
only the dull sound of mercy closing.
The cat crouched still in the doorway,
eyes wide as if she’d seen
the cost of being wild.
Even she seemed to grieve a little.
I held the bird in my hands…
light as breath, soft as an old prayer.
The air itself stopped moving.
Love leaves marks we can’t see,
wounds that shimmer beneath the skin.
Yet love keeps our trembling hearts from leaving.
I laid her down beneath the lemon tree,
covered her with the gentlest earth.
A feather caught in the wind,
rose once - then vanished.
I can’t believe I once believed
that dragons could shed tears—
a time when my mind was robed
in the fragile cloth of childhood.
I wandered alleys where clouds bent low,
pressing their weight upon my skull.
Shadows snapped at my heels like starving dogs,
my heart swung loose inside my throat.
The tremor in my boots chained me still,
and every thought I birthed became a phantom,
scrawled in the dark, painted across the sky.
Those years were lived in trembles and fears,
each night a prayer for the ocean to come,
to wash me clean of figures
that crouched in corners,
that flickered like mirages where light bled thin.
How did those faces dissolve,
slipping from cloudbanks and corridors of shade?
How did they crawl out of my mind,
leaving silence where terror once nested?
Why was the darkness that devoured me then
locked away as a riddle,
a secret even I cannot untangle?
And those I asked only mirrored my silence.
Some still breathe the same trembling air—
fears childhood carved deep,
fears adulthood disguised.
But new specters gather around me now,
pressing their weight like tides unseen,
and once more I beg the ocean:
take me under, strip me clean.
By moonlight when the moon shone with all her majesty,
My ancestors told us the story of the Tiger,
Which crouched at every rumble of the jungle-thunder,
Either out of fright or from bravery;
Tiger, male and ferocious,
With wicked fangs,
Tiger which breathed fire upon the foliage that shielded
Our village from the rage of the sun,
Which raped lady antelopes with utter contempt,
Which dined lavishly on forest flesh
And wined drunkenly on hunters’ blood,
Which knew no honesty,
And which turned wild upon them,
My ancestors,
Season after season,
In rain and in harmattan,
Until one fine day
When the forest trembled with the screams of
The beast, beaten on its own tracks,
With roars of terror ending when the moon
Slid between the witnessing clouds.
Fire-Fly Stars
I Always Wanted
To Be A Scientist.
Someone Asked
Me Once:
Aren’t You?
***
What I Really
Wanted To Be
Was A Polar
Bear Lusting
A Powerful Musk
With All Effort,
With A Sure
Un-Certain Purpose.
***
Or I Would Be
Huddled Under
Some Mass Of
Reeds In A
Cavern Crouched
Over A Silver
Beam Of Light…
And The Echo
Everlasting Of
One Drop Of
Purity…
Landing In A
Honed Stone
Bowl.
***
And I Wanted To
Be Worthless
Like Every
Component
Choice…
Like Every Spectre
Unfolding!
Like A Favorite
Un-Lovable
Ever-Loved:
Unknown Tree.
***
Still…
Loving Dreams…
Yet Unseen.
In Camp-Fire
Light.
-Gray Squirrel
07-10-2025
His muscles they burn
The mind takes a turn
His cap is so wet
Soaked from all the sweat
Crouched beside the pyre
Burned by searing fire
He’d done as he’s told
Found by that to behold
Beauty that is seen
Glimmer like golds sheen
He can’t recall when
She laid next to him
Shirt sleeves much too long
Racing thoughts be gone
Fabric screams when torn
Woe all hope forlorn
Silver fins weaken
Brilliant gleam eaten
Trembling lips are pierced
His demise coerced
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