Flaked Poems

The Crack Above

Written: August 25, 2025 

           *********
 
There was a crack in the ceiling.  
Above the lamp, above the silence, a crack—  

thin as a vein,  
but pulsing with something devious.  

At night, I stared upward,  
its jagged line, such a question  

I couldn’t answer.  
The plaster flaked as aged skin,  

and dust fell in slow confession.  
When she climbed the ladder,  

she traced it with a fingertip,  
then with pencil, then with tape—  

measuring the damage  
as if it might reveal a diagnosis.  

She patched it gently,  
not to erase, but to soothe.  

Later, she painted it  
the same soft ivory as before.  

Not to hide it—  
but to let it rest.  

And now, when I look up,  
I perceive nothing.  

Or rather,  
I perceive everything it once held.

Worship

The sodium street lights
Your few striped freckles
The makeshift tattoo on my palm
A couple? Never. It's always been a triple or even a single at best,
A circle of medics healing medics.
This distortion is fine
It's a revolution of entrancing revolts.

Relics ignite for every star in the ground,
Scattered upon my brain.
To my pressed, dear, deadest flowers...
You keep leaving me out!
Crystalise for me, so I can die again for you.

My precious opalite,
Your purity is a miracle.
My beloved flaked obsidian,
Your impurity is a fiasco.
Both are much to be worshipped.
But now what am I to you>
The myriad, or the clone?

You keep me enshrined.
You rekindle yourself.
You say the circle is perfect, but it ends 4 corners behind.
I guess I'm only history.

Set me alight

If you dare.

Time Stands Still

The Faded Garden Swing

If the flaked paint on the old swing 
could speak, it would tell stories of 
days long ago,
Of children's laughter and their bare, 
muddy feet, 
Of fireflies caught and imprisoned in 
empty jam jars, 
Like the fireflies, my memory flickers, 
trying to recall who lived across the 
street.

The faded swing’s rusty chains  creaked 
loudly under my weight, an old familiar
song, 
And the scent in the air from the aged 
honeysuckle, still going strong, 
An old familiar perfume of yesteryear,
At this moment, suspended between 
the then and now, time stands still.

Once the echoes of children’s giggles, 
now a silent yard, 
Images of scraped knees, loud cries
and a lemonade stall,
In the distance, the sound of an old 
church bell rings,
Here, on this faded garden swing, 
I sit in the past with the weight of 
what was and of what can never be 
again.

Now, shadows linger in silence,
Where children once soared with 
dreams,
Oh, faded swing, a keeper of stories 
of joy and pain,
You hold the essence where memories
 remain,
At last, I am home, in the place where 
time stands still.

Winter Tidings

Midwinter - means
transparent ice walls
pressed against shrinking skin.

Dead-eyed horses are revived
only by the steam of their nostrils.

No one predicts a beginning or an end,
'mid' is a frozen idea
in an ice-locked fountain pen,
it will not write even in warm hands.

Killer clowns' shelter behind
their fixed, blood flaked grimaces,
the whites of their eyes
reflect pinpoints
of a dawning apprehension.

Roads decelerate,
creaking through knuckled hands.
Chilled mounds toboggan off rooftops,
dump malformed snowmen
through unmeasured backyard graves.

At the hazy horizon of each grinding day.
midwinter blurs perspective.
This is the middling 'Mid'
a middle where the mind stops flowing
up or down.

Favours from the ancient of days

Those lines of waters, on my face, now dry,
They were left there by my tears that didn't cry,
They were the tears of good things God has done,
They are for battles that have just been won.

Those cakes of mucus, in my nose, now flaked,
They were from pains of a head that once ached,
They were left there by too much cry of joy,
They are for good things that I now enjoy.

Those funny cracks in my voice, when I speak,
They were from laughters just played on my cheek,
They were left there by too much joy of love,
They are for blessings just sent from above.

Those muscle weakness, on my legs, you see,
They were from the dance steps that bent my knee,
They were left there by lots of praise to God,
They are for success God placed where I trod.

Those dry sweats, on my body, you observe,
They were from the shouts of cheers I deserve,
They were from my thanksgiving and my praise,
Just for favours from the ancient of days.

Hadrons Tiles

8 soft boiled eggs peeled
2 cup of cream cheese
1/4 cup of heavy cream
41/4 of melted butter
1/3 chopped mushrooms
3 tablespoon of minced garlic
1/4 cup of dehydrated onions
3 egg yolks
1/2 cup of flaked steamed salmon 
4 tablespoon of chopped dill
2 tablespoon of lemon juice 
1 tablespoon of cumin
1 tablespoon of cayenne pepper 
1/4 of diced peeled and seeded
Cucumber
1/2 cooked chopped bacon
1/4 parmesan cheese dried
1/2 tablespoon of apple cider vinegar 
16 slices of procuttio 2x2 inch
16 slices of sliced Swiss cheese 2x2 inch
16 slices of rolled puff pastry
About 5 inches by five inches
( Cut off access after egg washing and filling)
3 egg and 1/4 cup of water egg wash


Center the pastry dough
Add procuttio 
Top with Swiss
Center egg

In a bowl
Cream the cheese , cream, butter
Add rest of ingredients mix smooth
Using a spatula or a piping bag
Cover the area around the egg
Top with mm Swiss and procuttio 
Use egg wash and add top layer
And using a fork seal the product
Trimming the edges
Bake until golden brown
Serve at room temperture

what is it

The marble block before me
Chipped away enough to look busy
Stood proudly
Dust and marble flaked
Hammer and chisel in hand

As passersby asked:
“what is it”

I told them:
” it is a thought
Lost in the illusion
Of an artists desire
To conquer
Perfection”

//what would you have told them//

Shorn of rights

What was celebration years ago
people's hearts were to their birth
I walked and plagued my mind
west was born as an after thought
supplanting all others
to pleasant lands we betrothed
the winds came gently
october sneered in a umpirish manner
friends flaked the golden daffodils
refugees shorn of rights
to the dim lands
shorn to the apology of the east
now we are alone
nothing to think

We sat Fused

2.5 cups of chickpeas
2 egg yolks
3 t of lime juice
4 tablespoons of garlic
1/2 onion
1/2 flaked fish
1/2 t of dried thyme
4 T shredded coconut
1 teaspoon of smoked paprika
4 T toasted sesame seeds
2 Tablespoons of flour
2 T cornstarch
deep fat fry in
a mixture of
olive oil and avocado oil.
2 T cayenne
4 tablespoons of powdered cream cheese
drain pea
ground in f. processer
add spices vegies and fish
pulse. add yolk lime juice
make sheres, refrigerate, 
deep fry in olive oil and avocado oil.

mayo
relish
T sour cream
chives
1 T. cognac
dilute spirt with lemon juice.
and honey.

we boiled the country ribs
seasoned them when they were done
and BBQ'd them under a broiler with
a tangy BBQ sauce 

steamed asparagus with
garlic lemon butter

Hazelnut and pound cake
cupcakes with marzipone topping and vanilla icecream dessert.

Torn

Tattered edges
	yellowed with time
stains long forgotten
	just memories lost

binding is cracked
	paint flaked away
fine cotton string
	loops empty and broke

pages are missing
	memories ripped away
words half remembered
	stories fading away

years since it once was
	new on the shelf
wonders unknown yet
	still waiting to be read

pages are lost now
	cruelly torn away
fate is uncaring
	of tears shed in pain

long are the nights now
	and empty the days
sorrow and tears fill them
	yet pain still remains

empty the shelf now
	all lost in time
cracked words on the binding
	all that remain

There Is a Tree of Copper Leaves

there is a tree of copper leaves
presentation most fervent in Winter season
after all of crepe and oak are bare
my eyes turn bronze
this tree turns me on
i can’t look away

when pines are flaked with snow
or rendered seussical,
having a topside arch &
their downy needles decorated
my eye hues green with white
and the whimsy I feel
in my scarf and wind
a perpetual tease

the flicker of lights from house to house
the darkness loses its sight
the ho ho ho & merry flight
jingle bells down to my toes

i like fall
but i fall for winter
season of the sweater
& wool of wisdom

we follow the lamb
the shepherd leads

through blinding snow
teaching us which way to go

12/5/2022

Oh the Hell With It Its a Holiday

Oh the Hell with it   It’s a Holiday
David J Walker
 
Knowing that
I am going
 
On a diet but that
Fat or slim
 
I will die anyway
But try not to stray
 
Into the fast foods
And savory flavors
 
Tempting me with
Deep fried
 
Culinary favors from
A Pied eyed Piper Pedaling
 
Perfectly baked
Buttery dishes
 
Cornmeal flaked and
Best wishes
 
For a man like me
Preferring deep
 
Fried catfishes to
Any kind of sushi
 
Oh….
            The hell with it
It’s a holiday

Love and Hate

as sugar generates cancer
you generate the most severe feelings in me
you are my sugar, my joy, 
and my cancer, my illness. 

I am compelled to love you
in the midst of loathing 
you are the fishhook I bite into
in the middle of a delicious slice of flaked catfish

you are the puncture in my brand new tire
while retaining your position as my new car itself

how can I love you this intensely and not despise you?
That’s the question my love.
Ah, that is the question.

The Arrival of Sound

Once upon a long time,
The silence blanketed my world
Like snow covering an arctic forest.

The nooks and crannies of my days
Were filled with the wispy webs of quietude 
Worked by whispering limbs

Mine was a vast tundra
Of silence
Across which great unheard herds 
Of thoughts could roam
Freely, gambol and graze
Encountering nothing to disturb them

Rivulets of words
Gathered and trickled
Over the schisty shingles
Of my mind

Eons passed

But one cold, silent, snow flaked January morning
A pioneer strode manfully, meaningfully
Into my wilderness without warning.

Falling in love with all that he saw
He began to sharpen his axe.

Now the hordes of herds have all but disappeared
And the rivulets have been dammed and channelled
Into a thousand subterranean pipes
And there is TV and MTV and DVD and MP3
And my world
Is rich with sound.

The Arrival of Sound

Once upon a long time,
The silence blanketed my world
Like snow covering an arctic forest.

The nooks and crannies of my days
Were filled with the wispy webs of quietude 
Worked by whispering limbs

Mine was a vast tundra
Of silence
Across which great unheard herds 
Of thoughts could roam
Freely, gambol and graze
Encountering nothing to disturb them

Rivulets of words
Gathered and trickled
Over the schisty shingles
Of my mind

Eons passed

But one cold, silent, snow flaked January morning
A pioneer strode manfully, meaningfully
Into my wilderness without warning.

Falling in love with all that he saw
He began to sharpen his axe.

Now the hordes of herds have all but disappeared
And the rivulets have been dammed and channelled
Into a thousand subterranean pipes
And there is TV and MTV and DVD and MP3
And my world
Is rich with sound.

© Barry Freeman – April 1984

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