I'm on a two hour flight
Window seat
Middle seat vacant.
A no mans land between a woman,
unknown to me at the isle,
Her head absorbed in a paperback
Later she arises, goes to the toilet.
The book lies, its pages spread open,
On the vacant, warm seat.
Tempted by curiosity
My fingers nimbly
Flip it over to read the title,
Fifty Shades of Grey.
She returns, unaware
I'd discovered her,guilty pleasure.
Takes up where she'd left off,
Devouring Fifty Shades of Grey.
And not a word did we exchange
Neither on,take off
Nor during short spasms of,
Turbulent vibrations.
Nor on the bumpy landing.
However, all the while
I was tempted to ask,
' On a scale of one to ten,
how aroused have you been
For the duration of this pleasant flight?'
Close to this sleeping root, in its flesh of ancient earth,
something struggles silently to become light again, to be born anew from shadow.
And we remain, with our thoughts hanging like a rope torn from the sky,
wondering whether to overlook its gentleness, sweet and annihilating.
A tumbling of black waters follows, over the forehead of my memory,
a shaken clarity, like a lightning bolt that lies, falsifies, and forgets.
Then I barely recognize the electric grace of the men from long ago,
whom I had seen carrying their rusted shirts through the swamp that scorched them,
planting themselves in the ground with arms outstretched like a cross, a condor on each shoulder,
men who wanted to die beautifully, shattering their bones like ancient bells,
their eyes extinguished like burnt amber, silent as icons forgotten by prayer —
and I feel them smoldering within me, like a root that refuses to sleep.
And I walk out into this magical, phosphorescent rain, mystical and cold,
to untie the rope that binds me across centuries and dreams,
to roll myself back into the root from which all that I am has struggled to become again.
In the shadow of the colossal sphere, where ancient echoes sleep,
Vaeloria fades into the dark, a secret it must keep.
The watchers put their scopes away, the screens fade out to grey,
As morning calls the busy streets to meet another day.
No scholar marks the turning tide, no profit in the view,
For men forget the distant stars to chase what is brand new.
They walk through cities built of glass, untroubled, blind, and proud,
Unknowing that the selfsame veil is gathering like a cloud.
The rot that choked the Aethel Sea now crawls along their strand,
An unremembered resonance that slips across the land.
As silent as the giant orb that hid the world before,
The shadow comes to take their home, and lock them in its lore.
Through lenses cold and ground from mountain glass,
We watched the dying worlds of iron pass.
For generations, every spark we found
Was tethered to a bleeding, broken ground—
The sudden flash of silo doors undone,
The brief, horrific birthing of a sun,
Then ash that drifted like a heavy shroud
To lock a planet in a toxic cloud.
We turned our mirrors to the northern sky,
Expecting just another world to die,
To see Vaeloria’s final signature
Be etched in fire, black and premature.
We braced for the familiar, sudden glare
Of empires burning down their final air.
But what we found across the cosmic deep
Was not the final, static-riddled sleep.
The planet did not burn; it started glowing,
A quiet, silver respiration growing,
As if a willow made of starlight grew
And drank the poison till the sky turned blue.
No high radiation tore the night,
But pulses of a deep, organic light.
A lonely mind had stitched the broken spheres,
And washed away a century of fears.
We leaned into our sights, amazed to see
A world redeemed by a single tree.
The borders fell like fever from a long-tormented frame,
No steel was turned, no legions marched, no decree spoke their name.
For when the node of silver wood began its quiet rise,
The phantom lines of sovereign pride dissolved before their eyes.
The ancient ghosts of territory, of fortress, and of crest,
Like winter frost before the sun, sank deep into the breast.
The pain that once had armed the hand and built the concrete wall
Was opened to the anchor node, unmetered, shared by all.
A mother’s cry in Sector One, the drought of Sector Four,
No longer stopped at checkpoints or the barricaded door.
The collective mind, in empathy, received the bitter sting,
And wove the ache of centuries into a single string.
Where once the barbed dividers stood to guard the hollow grain,
Now surged a tide of healing hands to wash away the stain.
The map of old Vaeloria, where blood-bought nations bled,
Became a tapestry of care, by quiet mercy fed.
No citizen was left an island, stranded in their grief;
The shared scar of the species brought its ultimate relief.
( extended sonnet )
o there's a twilight magic midst the mist
it floats between the eventide and dawn
attending winds of fancy, heaven-kissed
that billow with sweet breaths of Avalon
so waiting on a hope 'til gloaming's gone
a sea of suns to cast your dreams upon
o there is an enchantment thru the night
that dances with dark charm and reverie
it holds all yearnings in its bosom, bright
and waits for your desire to set them free
to plumb the inky depths of midnight sea
and loose your sleep's imaginings-to-be
o there are wonders in the evening’s air
thus brought to full fruition in your sleep
all spun to threads of artfulness and care
and woven into wishes, grand and deep
a tapestry of moonbeams meant to keep
the secrets of the twilight in its creep …
and ev’ry soul who tends that great expanse
obliges your sweet dreaming … as they dance.
~ POETRY AGAINST POVERTY ~
( photographic art created copyright-free by the author with Gemini AI / Meta AI software )
cuckoo bystander
hippies hound
desecrate passing
shrewdly badmouth
siegfried bobcat
wake european
spirits enlisting
the globally
fortuitousness by
reading rhythmic
confrontation dutifully
fluster fission
spat and
unite your
sourness unlearned
(Weekly Magnetic Poetry Challenge • September 7–13, 2026)
Shine with a bright smile my dear
Shimmering with warmth of sun
Spark emerging in eyes full of emotions
Small flashes of decorations like glitter.
In the garment factory
bloom the
delicate young women.
I live in a rented house.
When the bear-dance
comes to an end,
drawing
zeros
again and again,
I must return
from the school
of the bees.
Rivers
brush their teeth
with neem twigs
deep within
their waters,
there is
a secret
world:
horses and fireflies,
and a rain-wet
shiuli tree,
a vast
fragment
of stone,
all alone,
beneath
the vastness of space.
The jellyfish boats
are returning home.
Beyond the rooftop
of the three-storeyed house,
a pine tree
stands,
in its own mood,
the monsoon clouds.
Having dived
deep into
the depths
of my own being,
near the burnt-out
stub of a cigarette,
I find myself
wondering:
Should I
write anew
Goanna and Twilight?
A faerie tale, folk lore, imaginary thoughts
and rhymes to live beyond the ordinary days
of a life destined to become immortal.
Filled with true love from a prince among men,
loyal cohorts, trustworthy, kind and generous
with all their gifts and love;
still sharing the adventure to the end.
Feats of daring-do, fables,
foibles and defeats, dragons slayed,
evil witches left behind to bask
in the caldron they turned life into;
Wizards teaching subtle ways
to make it through the never-ending days
of dread pirates who build their fortunes
in such illusive ways.
Avoiding superstition on a path
to happily ever after,
where waltzing on the rainbows
casts a spell of magic
across the landscape of the past.
Patching together the fabrications
saved unto the end;
spinning a yarn that’s hard to imagine -
yet - happens now and then.
All my charmed days
now dreamlike on cloud nine
where the fanciful quest continues
and - I
become a legend in my own mind.
May the rising sun warm your path,
And the whispering leaves sing wisdom to your mind.
May the waters flow clear with peace,
And the oak stand steadfast beside you.
May Awen inspire your heart,
As flowers unfold gracefully and joyfully.
Let the morning greet you with renewal and strength.
May your journey forever be guided by gentle light
And purpose!
The Mercury Tree
Between dream and ashes, the moon sheds its old skin,
Under my temples lanterns grow like blue wounds,
And time, a faceless child, calls out through the cold walls,
I walk through myself as through a strange palace of mercury.
In memory's attic, moths dig their tunnels,
And every silence searches for a name inside me,
A god with eyes of ash throws the windows wide open,
And my shadows pour onto my tongue, like sick honey.
Beneath the city's skin sleeps a violet horse, starving,
It bites into the stars, leaving stations and mirrors in our blood,
We are born seven times from the first, foreign light,
And we die back, like a mute song forgotten in water.
Then the white garden of nerves rises out of sleep,
The silent trees exchange their roots with one another,
And the hand of fate stitches us into cold light,
And every wound becomes a threshold of smoke toward us.
Morning finds us with eyes of salt and heavy sleep,
And we carry, in silence, a nameless bird,
When the extinguished light returns to us from the depths,
And the secret, like a raspberry, cracks in memory's ember.
Vivid scrolls,
in tantalising yarns,
fantastic that reveal,
exotic envelopes of vista,
that have me transfixed,
and transported,
my brown hazel eyed,
gladsone gaze,
oe’r lush depiction,
bold brushstroke of,
myriad science fiction,
vibrant character snapshots,
that dispel monotony,
douse mundane patterns,
gap-filler of trite,
vacuous daily plod,
as I clasp otherworld,
enchantment in a dash,
novelists who exude,
endowed flourish with,
pockets of fly plots,
misleading labyrinth,
convoluted and intricate,
shady, cagy, fly-by-night,
side routes veering off,
adding riddles shadowy,
step by echoe’d step,
in hair-raising soundscape,
rushes of exhilaration,
stoke and fire,
iridescent wonderland,
escape into mythic mists,
entwined flames of romance,
laced with sumptuous,
dream moon flotillas,
a swooning heart march past,
yet I bystander engrossed,
by segue after segue.
I cannot remember
The first book I read.
The first time I felt
Alive.
That's what it is, always has been
To me.
A story, a narrative, a journey,
More real than the hand holding the book.
I open a book,
And feel at home.
For as long as I can remember,
Interaction, daily necessities,
Have felt
Forced.
But when the page turns,
My heart flutters.
Life is hard,
To one and all.
But books are constant,
And speak to the soul.
(Written 11th September 2026)
Old and Alone Through the City
Old and alone, autumn wanders bare through the city,
A smoke of memories coiling around the streetlamps,
The woman dissolved into the arms of another mirage,
And the dog grew old begging for the warmth of days.
The child who was never born wanders through the fog,
A bodyless shadow knocking at autumn's gates,
And the wind and the sun, old brothers of a lifetime,
Lean on each other on the steps of forgetting.
The old organ-grinder, with his leg of wood and dream,
Cranks out a melody rusted like a wound,
The old prostitute sells her shadow, the unclosed
Coffin of her longing under a pagan moon.
Someone in a graveyard whispers a song of wax,
An old head trembles, hollow as a scorched bell tower,
The tree shakes its leaves like a final summer,
The idiot from the commercial smiles, a wounded mask.
The whole city trembles, full of loneliness,
Crowds of old young people flow like a river of wax,
All of them, everything, old and alone, carrying in their chests a fortress
Of silences fallen to their knees, under the same bitter snowfall.
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