Faint,
spark,
smothered,
frail flicker,
doused by wanton strafe,
of bogus blitz on firefly swarm,
whose sintered flecks luminous once a mint meadow rash,
fetid stench on sombre marsh morgue deathly plummet in wet woodland, squelching plot interred,
winsome wing glow worm surreal,
larval lantern love, a spring twilight trail flash mate signal in mid-flight flare, haphazard helix of red flame,
lightning mimicry from maiden whose passion quest quenched querulous by nightmarish callous earthling hand clamped coffin dull click, twilight yellow, blue ghost, witching hour green tint spectaclenow grave entombment, mourning planet sheds tears
Fetid, smelly crow
struts across the yard. He pops
to his own drawn bath.
This casket's tight, I can hardly scream
But clearly that's not how it looks
All I can hear are cries and my tight breaths
Shuddering as I begin to be lowered
My limbs are darkening
All of my flesh is fetid and slimy
Melting with the hope I'll make it
God, I can't feel my head now
I gasp for air like I'm drowning
And my loved ones are holding my head underwater
My head rolls back against the wood
Like dice thrown onto a table
My eyes, they can't shut
It's my brain's last resort
I feel rocks and earth covering me
Shouldn't I be gone by now?
Instead, I'm just dizzy, head filled with helium
I let out the gasp a mortician never did
I hear the children singing out:
"Goodbye love, we hold you dear"
"But our voice you will not hear"
"So take these flowers as a gift"
"As your soul begins to sift."
Hueless is the painter
a writer void of words
bleached is the rainbow
silenced are the birds.
Leafless are the mountains
sunless is the falling sky
parched is the fountain
opaque are the eyes.
Faithless is the priest
temptation prunes all wings
throbbing is the fetid soul
of the grinning beast.
Childless are the parks
can any hear the sound
hollow face and needle
shine less on the ground.
Compassionless are the smiles
poisoning the emerald pools
famished is the human race
sated are ogres and ghouls.
There is a deep hum in the abyss at which you found paradise
Death is nigh – fetid, still, and dreads just slowly enough
Before we find ourselves, despairingly alone
Haunted by action, and dreading apathy –
Perhaps life was sweet, drearily idyllic
Yet as stench sank slowly into my soul,
Your face haunts me still in possibly. . .
The most beautiful way possible.
Words are enough.
They don't some overdramatized definition of them,
Don't be a fool to explain it to me.
I'd rather die a lonely and cruel death, by my own hands.
Words —
They don't come easy, do they?
The blurry effect on my left iris left me partially blind.
It tears my other eye to see it in the mirror.
Words, they are spat out like fetid, rotting chunder,
Why do they taste so putrid and smell so obnoxious?
When I try to let them out, they escape through my eye,
Leaking and spewing festering dross.
Technicolor yawn mimics the man in the mirror and then
He would call in sick the next day.
As the pus decay in the drought and barren land of my eye,
I was recommended using Ciprofloxacin.
Words —
Words like "I need help" and "why does it hurt so bad?"
I wish I never knew how to speak.
Instead of the infection of my worm-eaten and vile eye,
I desiderate it be my mouth rather.
Words like these are what made me feel how I feel now,
Enervated and debilitated.
O, vilest of vile high-haughty poems
To you professors’ studies are so oft homes
The fetid waters of PhD’s, nekkid, you swim well in
~ Though the proper home for you is in the trash bin
Stopping in an alley on a summer day
rainbow trash exhaling its hot fetid breath
a scamper of invisible residents
searching for the remains of elegant dining
the Nordic hum of struggling A/C units
as an evening sun seems to avoid entry
music drifts from an open window
slowly fades in the humidity
peeking over my shoulder
I slide behind the dumpster…
Truth be told I knew what it was
When it was pushed to the back of “that” draw
That place where cucumbers of thought turn to mush
They once held value, that thought, that cucumber
Yet somehow slipped from the consciousness of concern
There will be no “oh, poor baby” recollections
No prodigal thought reunions
No recognition of what they might have become
Only an urgent desire to deny the fetid stench of failure
No candles will be lit, no incense filtered into the air
For they were what they were
Are what they are
Will never be …Again
Written: July 06, 2025, for contest Sponsored by: Craig Cornish
*****************
My path was unkempt, with cracked and bent signs
The once-azure sky turned gray, and my muse faded
Cursed seraphs hovered under lifeless skies, weeping.
In the mahonia mist of nestled truths and lost couplets in periwinkle poetry
I shoved in a cacophonous frenzy, confused—
Vade mecum was fetid with an epiphany of deceit
Silence echoed dread, and each scab was a guess
Iridescent smears of fervent deceit,
and Cupid's canopy engulfed the cetacean sonnets
A mocking wind bade shattering moans,
having learned to flaunt their tethered words
With my russet roots, I'm not a flashy flower,
but, I felt awful pain from distant love acronyms.
What if the cloudburst refrain bears no scars?
Or phosphene verses adorned with blue poppies,
might leave glowing traces on midnight shores?
I walked for miles to find that starting stanza.
Yet, despite such raucous, cataclysmic pain,
An earthquake faltered the stratus sky—
Not all who veer from the path must shatter
Obsessed, some must comply with the jostle of life.
solutions unfound
archaic unchanged condemns~
d
e c r e p i t fetid
the underworld rumbles and summons
beckoning in groveled whispers
with undertones of shady pretenses
haunted by gods and demons
who brazenly wave their book of souls
tormentors do the dirty work in afterlife
meanwhile here kings and rulers
wealth in pocket pauper in heart
build their towers to climb to heaven
every last of these towers of babylon
will one day come apart at the seams
they’ll disintegrate and fall to dust
greed and hate and malice
feed self-fulfilling prophecies
of wars designed to never end
man’s self-destruction on auto-pilot
will one day rise their corpses from fetid ashes
and lead their crusade into eternal damnation
AP: Honorable Mention 2025
I sense here some things sinister—a scent
of sulphur, sulking in a sultry pit;
a serpent’s hiss, expressed from space unlit;
a warm spell spilling from some seething vent;
I find now some things filthy—foul ferment
foaming, frothing; a gaseous, gurgling slit
discharging fetid, festering, sour spit;
malignant mold in cold, cracking cement;
So languid, loath, obtuse I trepidate
on into the black bowels of my home.
Gagging back a nausea’s tepid bubble,
shivering a shudder that won’t abate,
discover I a gory catacomb.—
Woah… I see well now how bad my trouble!
time doesn't wait for our pleasure,
nor the patience of neglect to
~ endure forever...
because it knows and feels,
none of this, nor
how regret births tomorrow's measure!
forgotten fruits fall and wither and
know nothing of those who may have
celebrated their perfection
~ they simply live and die,
never to have wondered why?
Yet, is it our curse to do so,
to eat that fetid fruit that yesterday
would have nourished tomorrow,
left alone in wasted sorrow?
or...will the seeds stuck between
our teeth and toes still grow?
~ who knows?...
The foreign fiend, of feckless faith and folk,
Is feigning fealty to our fair fortress;—
To force his form and fold on finished fact,
He’ll find fit fashion of fetid fetish.
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