The total bummer of our wasted Test summer….ahem
Does jar well below par no cigar not even a cafe creme
After another dafter dumber and dumber apophthegm
The tedium of this charlatan medium saying carpe diem
Couldn’t be any glummer still will take Baz to the ATM
Laughter him on a whim mending a forlorn torn hem
We pleaded tree needed to go not the Root but stem
Pretending will be happy ending Bazball’s Bethlehem
ECB & Key glib in tandem fib as random as a Lib Dem
English cricket’s viral spiral now coughing up phlegm
The gory gashes from Ashes lashes will still condemn
Then Stokes says that’s all folks was absolute mayhem
Jokes he’ll back in the 2027 eleven it’s us versus them
After hoax new Kiwi bloke evokes masterstrokes a gem
No longer going for broke a stronger bespoke requiem
Will coax the magic unlike the tragic Bazball "La Boheme"
No superhero cloaks as from acorns grow oaks says Flem
I've finally found my path again,
Feeling inspired with paper and pen.
Building a future, a community,
Seizing newfound opportunity.
Lost precious moments to darkness and depression,
Feelings of worthlessness and acts of aggression.
I hit my rock bottom with significant force,
Then spiraled so much further than I should have, of course.
But like the Phoenix, I rise from the ashes,
I rebuild myself, I heal these gashes.
With what I create, I will make my boys proud,
They will know that I love them, they'll know the field I have ploughed.
* 'Me In Three' Poetry Contest
* Sponsored by: Julianne Williams
* Entered on: 11/23/2025
Come here please
so all can see
how beautiful, sensual
and irresistible you are to me.
You move very slowly
like a cunning cat,
your fur looks so inviting
but your claws are intact.
Is my chain mail
strong enough to engage,
will I be able to come of age.
We brush by one another,
the scent is hypnotic,
I know now
my armor is just idiotic.
Your claws are erect
they rip through my skin and bones,
I am completely tattered,
battered, and left alone.
I pick myself up
and tend to my wounds,
I was a gallant knight,
but now completely bestrewn.
These gashes I received,
tearing my soul apart,
will never fully heal,
always having a wounded heart.
I will move forward in this state
as most must do,
never fully allowing
one’s passionate dreams
come true.
Fingers pull at the gashes and scars that litter the body.
They are red,
harsh against the doughy skin they have claimed.
They run so deep into the soul,
Like wells of memory,
easy to fall into.
Then barbed wire,
Displayed as tears,
scratching inside of his throat.
Thumbs lick the roughness of past pain,
eating the contrast of texture between them,
And who he remembers being.
There is no softness left,
his mind whispers,
still trying not to fall into the darkness of the past.
The cave of history is full of rocks,
Sharp with his old blood,
Wet with the waves of depression his therapist begged him to ride instead of drown in.
He wonders about the cave when the tide draws back,
Angry at the darkness,
forcing his fingers to dig into the crevasse of a scab.
He flinches at the freshness of pain,
And watches the light glimmer off the thick liquid dancing down his leg.
He closes his eyes and whispers,
Maybe,
The wound is the place where the light enters you.
Autumn
….. is mortally wounded!
It stumbles, tumbles
across the silken, rouged sky
quivering over rusted hedges
shivering through shouldered trees,
splattering, smattering
everything in blood-red.
On it goes, on it flows
gasping and grasping
at clouds of bandages,
hobbling, wobbling
suffering deep gashes;
haemorrhaging life
in crimson splashes.
While winter;
with the sly smile
of an Arctic fox,
coldheartedly waits for autumn’s
shredded, dreaded last breath!
Ian Souter 2025
My battle to keep you is over.
A checkmate, without any closure.
My skin is bruised and beaten
and battered and scarred and weakened.
I can't shake the guilt
or the images of the life we built
in the days before the war,
before we weren't us anymore.
The world turned to ashes.
Memories of the past left like open gashes
from before the sky turned red,
leaving all our words unsaid.
I didn't know if you were fighting for or against me,
On whose side you'd be.
Or did you not notice the battle at all?
As the mountain between us grew mighty and tall.
Were the bleeding skies
visible to only my eyes?
Did the sirens sound in only my ears?
Did you never notice my silent tears?
Were you embarrassed by me
when my eyes met yours in silent plea?
Did the enemy force you out, or did you slip into the night?
Maybe you never thought I was worth the fight.
The silent woman watches,
Shifting in the cold.
Holding coffee in hand,
Watching over the land.
Swiftly through the falling leaves,
Laying in the water.
Boats carving gashes,
Froth burbling up,
In their wake.
The silent woman watches,
As the dock begins to shake.
Glimpses of egrets,
Scream their distaste.
The waves wash up.
Sea oats fall down.
Debris is scattered all around.
The silent woman watches,
Mud roils in the water.
Fish can't breathe,
No more river otter.
The silent woman watches,
The no wake zone.
She moans as the river groans,
Beauty chiseled away.
Some cats mark their territory with claw marks
Shredding your couch, putting gashes in your vinyl seats.
Other cats leave strong urine in their zone,
a warning to others to “keep out!”
My own cat uses her spray paints and paints murals
Some call it graffiti, I call it "aggressively territorial”.
Coagulation Starter – 3-28-24
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Coagulation
Finally, my blood began to coagulate,
Flowing like insomnia
Between the wounds of dawn and dusk
When wounded memories drip pools of enigmas,
Fleeting gossamers of absolutes,
Drying into sticky puzzles.
Bloodied dreams wander labyrinths,
With no exits,
Leaving spatters of millstones
For ruminating relics to follow,
Thin images of wispy encounters
Fade
In lost chords of words,
Ghosts gel from gashes.
Impostors of reality
Spit rebellious clots into ruminating plateaus,
And phantoms,
To leave a crimson stain
On unwelcomed daylight and martyred Mondays
Stirring penance from clotting confessions.
Tourniquets unbound,
Veins transfused congeal in coalescence
As platelets and corpuscles gather yesterday
Into the flow, a cadence, blood pressure restored,
The pulse of reminiscence throbs
Memoirs course through venous vessels,
Then seek a place
To dream.
after taking classes
to make pancakes with molasses
we must move our asses
(while making advances)
(we were all aghast)
(were burned to ashes)
(against head bashes)
(have been on branches)
(cooked in clay by Cassius)
(we made mad dashes)
(elegant and enhances)
(eaten by Erasmus)
(received from a Fascist)
(found by Pope Francis)
(get to see the gashes)
(stuck with long lances)
(on them all passes)
(head against smashes)
(seen flying through sashes)
(they left you in long trances)
(found in famous people's trashes)
(when talking trashes)
(terrible thrown in trashes)
If I were to close my eyes or dare to blink
I'd sink in salty rivers of tears on my cheeks
I wonder how long the flow will continue to linger
My fingers tire but cannot wipe them all away
I feel the burdened weight of my sodden lashes
fearing the gashes in my heart will go on bleeding
June 6, 2023
Bite Size no 65 Contest
Sponsored by Line Gauthier
The men went through the fields and gardens,
Ripping the weeping petals off of flowers
Which had not yet blossomed,
Claiming their beauty was not right.
The men shouted until their voices grew tight and ragged,
Pulling wild horses by their manes to the stables,
Angry that they ran and bucked.
The men sharpened their swords,
And scored one another with gashes and scars,
Each to triumph in the skill of his violence.
The men did all this while the women sat quietly,
Sowing seeds and feeding horses and cleaning blood away,
And then the men came into their houses,
With their daughters and mothers and wives,
And cried and cried and cried that they
Never knew love
DEAD WAIT
You brave enough child
You brave enough man
Just because you will it
Just because you can
To pierce the everchanging rock
To crack the patterned egg
To peer into the center
To witness then to beg
Yes, he left your mother
Said he disappeared
Said I stole him from her
Decidedly, flipped fear
Then drip drip drip
The trickle
Drip drip drip the bleed
Gashes gush from every side
Every blatant need
Vigilant servant lover
Wishful injured steed
No blessed nor glory's cover
Just bog like tacky weed
Snares at every crossing
Babies become boss
Grace shimmers only briefly
Persecution circumvents the cross
Not the matter of morbidity (matter does matter there!)
But of humanity pushing inhumanity on the Other
We die a little; we die more when we loved the "other" before
Avarice, Impatience, Unkindness, Arrogance ... all that ego
Kills word by word, thought by thought; slashes and red gashes echo
(The Potter's love for clay and art; we pretend we do not care)
We die to Spirit every day with unkind bombs ... word daggers we say
Nostalgia, it's a fruit
that doesn't rot...
Always present,
always bitter...
it's not thorn
not even rose,
but in the soul,
always causes
gashes... !
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