Words echoed that should never have been spoken.
Fiery accusations leaving hearts broken.
Twirled anger erupted, stabbing as if by a sword.
Vile innuendo from both of them, poured.
Shattered crystal, the statue she threw.
He barely recognised her, behaving like a shrew.
He glared in disbelief at the ugly scene.
Gone now, the adored devotion that once had been.
All culminating in a crescendo of bitter screams.
Her heart pounding, she envisaged her forlorn dreams.
The mirror depicts a virtual war zone.
His departure left her fragile and all alone.
She kicked the crumpled dress, realised her leg was sore.
The smashed perfume bottle still spilling across the floor.
The Failure
It is about vanity, a need to see one's name in print
The shortest of glory, five seconds, ten?
Switch off at that point of glory, and the fame can last
until someone else demands to use the tablet
A book of poetry, published in a small town in India
61 pages, and the editor and owner of the press
tells us the poems are great, not panegyrical, but ok
Sitting down to read one's thoughts only to discover
misspelling and less elegant sentences, what
The eyes had not seen before glared up with a smirk
Oh, the shame of this must keep it a secret, not tell
Should anyone ask, say the book was not published
this year and turn the talk to something else, like
The high electricity prices
The silent echoing sound
Of rhythm I could hear forever,
Attuned eyes glared in wonder
As I swirled in sanity profound
To rhythm of wishful thought
The beautiful ray on bare skin,
As you held me close to your embrace
I saw forever in your longing eyes
Maybe the sun mocks my delusion
I stare in loss of the path to walk,
Path of forever not mine to take.
What we had was carved in mist,
A dream too fragile to awake.
Your voice, now a distant hush,
Fades between twilight and ache,
And I, a shadow of once forever,
Hold on to what time couldn’t fake.
The echo sleeps where love once lay
A truth too loud for hearts to say.
You touched my soul, then slipped away.
And so, forever became yesterday.
bewitching she glared
onyx eyes
raven hair
jet black gown
graceful and sinister
with her heart of stone
and poisoned lips
AP: 3rd place 2025
I woke up this morning with my hair in knots.
Lines on my belly mapping where you had been.
Dishes in the sink glared at me as I walked by.
The stove harboring remnants of last nights dinner.
Laundry remained unfolded in the hall.
The washer crying as I added another load.
Motherhood is ugly...
But today you smiled at me.
We walked the mall,
Hand-in-hand.
Your skin warm,
Like a summer night,
As it touched my cold shoulder.
You wrapped your hands around my waist,
In a backwards hug.
Your head brushed my chilling skin,
As you whispered in my ear.
I convinced you to giddy things,
Pleasing my inner child.
I skipped and pulled you along,
Headed to Build-A-Bear.
You looked at me,
Just like you would a kid.
You kissed my forehead,
And made me laugh.
Then we went to get drinks.
I bought us both smoothies.
I was childish yet again,
Blowing my paper straw at you.
It hit your arm,
Skewed away,
And on and on it flew.
I covered my giggle and leaned over,
Trying not to seem rude.
It hit the floor,
As if it were a feather.
A lady glared at us,
And yelled something crude.
I simply laughed.
But you got mad,
Thinking very brood.
I grasped your arm,
Trying to interrupt,
As you pulled away.
But on you go,
So I switched to plan B.
I pulled you over,
Looked in your eyes,
And simply kissed you.
As the music played, eyes strayed,
She moved; she grooved...On fire!
Her hands explored, own flesh adored,
She read then fed my desire.
Together we danced, eyes romanced,
Lust slipped its script to her.
My body baked, hunger ached,
Lips brushed, blood rushed, a blur.
We left the hub, the seething club,
Outside my stride was strong.
Her pad was near, intentions clear,
Clothes ripped, she stripped to a thong.
Fingers dived, on fervor arrived,
Keen hands took command of me.
Fell to her knees, desperate to please,
Die cast, hard and fast her plea.
My hands found hair, torrid affair,
My mind was blind from bliss.
She pulled away, a game to play,
She crawled then called for a kiss.
Clothes were gone, two became one,
Inside my pride did swell.
Hard and deep, heat's tempo we'd keep,
We'd fight for the right to excel.
A war was waged, a battle raged,
Our cries the prize we shared.
I felt it build, almost fulfilled,
Not yet, her threat, eyes glared.
I did respond and went beyond,
I tried, we cried and won.
Together we came, eyes aflame,
Enraptured we'd captured the sun.
I walked to the edge of the universe humming a tune— No one else behind me.
Yet I saw a star, who glared as if my past was right behind me.
I asked him—“What do I do; I moved on yet now I have no start.”
He closed an eye and turned on by to say, “keep walking kid, with that tune to lead you to a new start.”
I stood on a boulder in the Andes
And stared at an albatross flapped
Its wind vane on top a sycamore.
I don't know why it stood there
But I know it struggled to claw
In the jaws of the branches.
Today I clambered same crown
Gawking on the blue empyrean
Then glared at vultures picking entrails
Of the white quills of the cross.
Oh! I don't know the bullets in the chests
Of a black widow.
Squeaking hyenas gathered at the carrion as well.
Oceans welled the furrow of my face
And my red balloons thumped and stamped.
Is that how the sparkling stars feign from the nights?
Is that how the roaring lion whisper in feign silence
While fed upon by black ants and leeches?
Well, I guessed I have to breathe each gas
As my very last with golden wreath.
For dear life is a candle wax that glitters and feign
In the twinkle of crystal balls.
I will thread on the seas and oceans as well
With fragile toes.
generous Gus, Greystone’s glaringly green goblin glided into the glades.
giving Ginny Graceful, a gruesome ghoul a glimpse of glorious shades.
gary, Gryffindor’s ghost glared at them; for where was his grubby gratuity?
goblin and ghost, goaded Gary, giving him grief about Glue city.
grandiose grisly girl-free graphic arts gleefully featured the grimy three.
Gladly giving grotesque features in the glade’s next grimy graphic glossy.
The most romantic city in the world the passenger next to me said
Her girth had oozed into my seat too, for she was super corpulent
I will fall in love, marry a rich Frenchman, live a life of luxury she said.
I was eating a donut in the lobby of the airport when someone sneered at me
American! He said, "are such pigs." I weigh a hundred and forty-two pounds.
Another person walked by and glared. I heard him belittling me in French.
Not sure what he said, but I did know one word, and it was piggish.
I am now wondering if my seatmate’s dreams will come true in France.
Or will she have to travel to Portugal or Mexico for love?
Two men tried to get into my rented flat when I unlocked the door.
I was horrified and turned horrible – yelling, screaming, kicking.
Americans! One said. Horribly nasty fat Americans. Paris is not for me.
Tabby in winter, with a tuft of snow on your head
You got slammed when they came down on that sled
If you get buried, it may be quite a little while
Before we can save you, St Bernard said with a smile
Then he noticed that there were Bernards on her scarf
How bad could she be? He told his friends with an arf.
Tabby in the snow glared at all of those happy dogs.
They ate up her chocolate kibble like untrained old hogs.
I’m sat in the bar with a beer on the table
I’m gazing in rapt contemplation
I need to make sense of it if I am able
I must find a good explanation
My mate’s in the loo, so what am I to do
For there’s nobody here to bear witness
The bartender’s too busy serving a queue
And everyone minds their own business
Did nobody here see my icy cold beer
Grow hands and feet and a big head
It has seven eyes and a devilish sneer
“I dare you to drink me,” it said
It glared up at me with its mad bloodshot eyes
And then did a demonic dance
This amber hued beast of diminutive size
Is what put me into this trance
My God, now there’s two of them, clinking together
They no longer dance… but conspire
Each of them steps a bit closer to me
“Don’t tell or they’ll call you a liar.”
At last my mates coming and soon he’ll be here
He’ll flip at this hullabaloo
But now that beer monster is just plain old beer
I can’t even prove it to you
So I must now seek out a good explanation
Some facts into which I shall delve
Such as why it should happen to just this one beer…
and not to the previous twelve
You first I offered.
The rugged two-hundred-and-sixty-pound guide stared at me.
You are kidding, right?
We had stopped in front of a cave opening.
It’s spring. Bears would not be in there now, right?
He glared at me.
Are you a chicken? I asked nicely.
He pushed me into the dark cave.
I fought him with claws and teeth.
When we met the other guides for lunch he looked gamey.
“Did you encounter a grizzly?” one of them asked him.
“worse,” he said.
It was the last order rush
All full of fun and chat.
As the door swung wide
All turned to look at what.
He wore his hat pulled low
He wore his dark hair long
And his spurs jingle jangled
Like the rhythm to a song.
His leather chaps dragged
And scraped along the floor
And you could cut the tension
As he stood there in the door.
Someone started laughing,
Then another one or two,
Great guffaws and giggles
You know the way you do.
He glared at us with slitted eyes
One hand hovered as if to draw
And as the laughter increased
Glared at us all once more.
The last Gunfighter?
Survivor of the few?
But rather out of place
In a Saturday chippy queue
He walked out defiantly.
Such an amazing sight,
Ok I suppose in Tombstone,
But on a Barnsley boozy night?
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