I feel like ripping out a gangrenous wound!
Incessantly playing a broken accordion
My mind's repurposed angels distribute a few alms for the rain god
And the scent of old trunks falls on my cloned funeral
I encase my senses in the pit between lal-mim/sol-fa
I now have a house, crooked lives churning within my tiles
I am against—you are against—all the laws of physics.
Cigarette butts that never cease to smoke fall from the sky.
You are something that always feels cold. Hiding Dali in your body
That's why elephants make love alone. Storms, a great curse
I saw myself in the first shelter of hydrangeas
I cut my cord, in defiance of the all-out pain in my back
I feel like ripping out a gangrenous wound
Yet, it won't be mentioned in any medical book, and you won't know why
I simply drew your blood...
I have walked the hallways
where minutes gnash like teeth,
each second a pebble pressed
into the jaw of memory.
The air tastes of iron--
memory’s rust,
old prayers swallowed
before they ever touched the light
Yet still - I carry my candle
into the jaw’s dark cavern,
its flame a soft rebellion
against the grindstone silence.
Soft laughter rests in the cracks,
like seeds grabbed
into the frozen earth,
waiting for the frost to release them,
for spring to rise
from winter’s quiet.
I move onward,
not a hostage,
but marrow unbroken,
a hymn rising
through bone and enamel,
singing until the jaw
yields to the light.
Encapsulating Darkness
Covers over the lights
The Moon Rises as the sun subsides
Sets Horizon meets top and bottom flight
~
So is the day dark
As the night Shadows walk, fall and crawl With the darkness sees the light
Descending Darkness well bright
9/18/25
Written words by James Edward Lee Sr.2025
The moon hangs heavy in the night,
a mirror to the mind’s quiet flight.
It pulls the tides of thought and fear,
revealing what we hide, yet hold dear.
Each crater, a memory etched in stone,
each shadow, a feeling we’ve never shown.
It listens to the whispers of our soul,
reminding us that being broken makes us whole.
When darkness clouds the conscious stream,
the moon reflects the dream unseen.
A silent therapist in silver light,
guiding the psyche through the night.....
Modernland has legalized murder, they roll these streets
Billyclubs in tow, those weak are taped and tortured
Throw'em a gun and a bullet grinning through glass
As those who suffer pull the trigger, bang
Darkness isn't evil, the real monsters are people
Art is rebellion, they want Armageddon, life isn't Christmas
They decide who gets presents, I'm number one
On the naughty list, then, some call it divine intervention
Others say entertainment, I say sacrilege to the manes
In the hidden darkness of the guarding night,
Where the silent world holds its breath at dusk,
Lies a deep and undeciphered secret,
An untold story where love and destiny meet.
On the unseen path where shadows dance,
We were like two spirits lost in an ancient spell,
Seeking the answer in the undying flame of a candle,
In an unbroken dance of dreams and promises.
The whisper of leaves and the song of the wind guided us,
Through the corridors of time where reality and fantasy intertwine.
We were like two comets traveling through the cosmic sea,
Searching for that meeting point where stories become real.
Under the dome of the starry sky, where mystery watches,
I felt your secret, emerging from the depths of times gone by.
In the mystical silence, we both felt the burning longing,
An unbounded desire to find what seems lost.
I miss that night, the enchantment that enveloped us,
The promise of a love that died in the heart of the night.
Yet, in the cosmic abyss where the mystery persists,
I continue to seek you in an unseen world where love exists.
the sun hides behind clouds
the prism of reality out of reach
~ I try to stay positive
Wordku: 5-7-5 words
AP: Honorable Mention 2025
Scars heal faster in the dark
but we were told to seek healing
in the glorious power of light!
What if angels live in the dark
& demons in the light?
What if the map- our guide-
our search in the direction of light
points towards the dark?
Why do we have to come
and go' in the dark?
Why is the key to
miraculous transformation
hidden in the dark?
I think the truth lies in the dark
& that is why it is hardly recognised.
But easier for those who have got used
to lying and being lied to, in the dark.
In the end, everything has a dead end
& all dead ends reside in the dark!
Your fur is worn thin now,
patches where love pressed too hard,
but to me you were never just a toy -
you were the voice of courage
when the dark grew too loud.
I held you like a secret shield,
breathing into your sewed ear
the worries I dared not share with my mother.
You guarded them in silence,
never speaking a word
but somehow - I always slept easier.
In daylight you became a friend
sailing ships across blankets,
chasing clouds across the plaster sky,
celebrating every victory
in make-believe wars you alone could prove
Even now,
you linger on my shelf,
a gentle witness that love
is stitched to last
beyond the years.
Bring t’me seed of darkness special,
I’ll from dawn, of brightness special.
Thoughts crowd the mind dressed as special,
Some more so, some are less special.
What to wear, what not’s worth weighing,
In merit, one’s dress is special.
In today’s times of power and puff,
No less is one’s address special.
Bring to me a man bogged with blame,
Confess he’ll, goodness is special.
___________________________
Ghazal |03.09.2025| dress, bless, goodness, riddle
a single spark lights up the darkest night,
and lifts our timid hearts to fearless flight.
It’s whispers.
Can you hear them?
I don’t want to,
but they force me to.
Sitting in an empty room,
with no one—
just a cigarette in my hand.
Every time it touches my lips,
it kills me
and makes me want to avoid it—
I know that cigarette is not good for me,
but I like doing something
I know is going to kill me.
But he likes that I do that—
killing myself, he whispered to me,
saying, “Can we switch places?”
I said, “How can I get into the wall?
You are a shadow.”
But how…
I was talking to a shadow
in a room
completely empty and dark.
The whispers say to me:
“Look at me.
Look at the darkness,
and feel both sides of it
that you don’t think exist.”
I thought something was wrong.
I kept hearing him
until he said:
“Come closer…
to someone else in the room,
because my name isn’t dead.”
When I turned on the light,
I saw nothing
but my shadow dancing in front of me,
my body frozen, watching.
And when I looked back,
something was coming out of the wall
with a cigarette,
saying to me:
“I like doing something
I know is going to kill me."
Yet again another light appears in the dead of night , Waking me from sleep with a majestic sigh
Yet a sigh I’m unable to grasp, gazing into the light, dwelling while it lasts
But I know the beam will soon die out, the light will be dimmed amidst the clouds
I will tilt my head and stare as the light fades away, wondering why such a sigh can never stay
Once again the night returns before my eyes, no longer consumed by the lies of the light
The deception that captivated my brain, must have been a delusion I made in vain
I’ll remind myself the simple truth, there was no light, there is simply darkness in the dead of night
And yet I know tonight, I’ll stay awake eager to see the sigh, waiting for my eyes to illuminated by the beauty of the light
I’ll wait for what is nothing but an illusion, I’ll stare into the darkness, trees and pollution.
Waiting for a so called “light” to return once again to conquer the night.
When life goes right
it somehow never fails
that something from the past
tries to return and bite you in the tail.
Try as it may
I stand strong and stay
on the path set before me
and nothing will get in the way.
I've been steadfast on this journey so far.
There is no way I can fall off the radar.
I've lived and loved and grown so much
that even the devil should shudder from my touch.
God got me here
and will get me there,
No matter what is thrown at me,
I will show no fear.
I've played in the dark.
Pain was all I knew.
Now I have been established as something new.
So shiny and warm where God has His arms
that no enemy can come against me.
No weapon will cause me harm.
So the darkness doesn't scare me.
The pain is already known.
I will not be swallowed up again
by the recesses of the dark.
I was made to swim
and I will not drown.
I was never alone.
Now look at how much I have truly gorwn.
Last night silence spoke,
with fear and with dread,
a language whispered
only in the dark,
spoken by shadows,
heard mainly by kids.
Few adults could hear
what light would not bear
but darkness conveyed—
that language of fear
spoken in silence.
But who taught us
how to speak and hear?
What spirits cannot spit,
yet phantoms cry out,
to our trembling ears.
The night holds its breath,
its secrets confined,
trees bend to listen,
their shadows arise,
to echo the hush.
Fears stagger and fall,
as silence takes shape,
a face without form,
a voice without sound,
that silence still dread.
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