As interlude of turmoil swerves
on my mind
leading me to reach for waning hours ,
there is a lull of evening's heave
grating within the ledge of isolation,
until gazing long enough
into darkness, I blink to recall
the revelries trapped in dried blossoms
of ardor now enmeshed ,entangled:
These haunting screams jut out
from a frame of hardened boughs
buried deep among frigid weeds-- and I wail,
stripping night's foliage of farewell
with knots of abandonment ...
and autumn loses its elegance,
those misted tears invading the glint
behind our past trysts --
that I learn how desolate this stained time
retreats when he fades away
like a ghastly ghost,
when the soul-stars dream and die...
knowing in fall's requiem,
I am no longer there.
You mock me again
as fevered wrist begins to pulse
from the hinges... barbed vignettes glide,
while swoosh of rain 's ink
bathes upon the sill's lattice...
I reach for its nectar ,
this breath sipping the language of words
yearning to be born :
From my window,
a gush filters through hooks
... muddying my quill on shingles
your verses bouncing around, round
to tumble into drafts of musings
searching for silence In chaos--
for moist within my drying cave ;
and from this irreverent place,
I allow the grace of muse's charm
to open my soul's voice like an outpour
of virginal dew...
a promise to cruise into your unknown trails,
this papyrus enticed, lines mocking me again :
Somehow, late dusk arrives with tinge of lamplight
bringing a thrill along my fingers ,
sensualidad grating , yes...rising like so,
ready to greet the ache, the tremble,
the ravaged beginnings
of pain's melody... half-desecrated, half-wise.
This modern machine age
Wakes a noise
If not of Hell, inhuman
Inspired by.
In the general uproar
That flame-shot
With lost souls filled, convulsive
Hear; and sigh.
In each separate whine,
Rough grating
Those cave-shackled; those drag chains
Pains, more I.
How brittle can the ruin of this heart slay
Like furrowed weeds burned into cinder ,
When church's flowers turn ebon and droop
As winds do not return... nothing moves
Not even air- chimes in their hazy curves:
*
I watch my own body... it becomes a stranger Melting like an anonymous outline
That enters the dark through crushed wails...
He is nowhere , not even a shadow flapping
While a eulogy of abandonment goes unsung, *
*
My fingers quiver in front of an altar…
pain grating the most benevolent
of prayers , chafed by slices of eve
that have no syllables for me…
For on this day, a deserted betrothal
leaves me hanging , hanging on a choir's loft.
And night breezes wash over me vanishing,
That I gaze at my bridal bouquet slowly astir...
A shattered vow, a runaway groom
Cry I must, in solo of dreaded season,
Waiting for hushabye to put me to sleep.
I crave no longer lonesomeness,
I no longer wish for quiet,
for in the darkest pits of night
I yearn for love requited.
The angels weep,
I try to sleep,
but I'm only met with silence.
My pain is echoed back to me
so loudly in this quiet.
My heart, it aches.
My shoulders shake.
I crave to hear your voice-
Any noise, just anything-
Anything but quiet.
The solemnity of silence.
The pestering of nothing.
The aching, grating pain you feel
from the lack of loving.
I'm five and it's a fire-dive -
sweaty-skinned and flambé-limbed,
kindling tingling in my throat,
matches scratching sandpaper skin.
Lying on the terracotta velour settee
watching sparky scenes igniting the room -
a terracotta army of sparks
marching through the grate,
grating like bars on the old forest gate,
black bars of night growing tall on the wall
and I'm always up against it
hearing echoes of the ethereal eternal
Help us help us we'll help you...
I want to be well, to enter the well
cooling the heat and heart of the house,
dousing bouquets of firelight
petals flickering on amber glass bottles of medicine,
her hooked hands feeding me aspirin, penicillin,
cream and green torpedo tablets
fever-spearing, strobing swirling the room.
Now nightshade creepers spine-twine in dark dreams
black echoes build on a sonograph screen
descending into the no-way-out well,
the inescapable hell of not well.
Avoiding the girl-scouts
I hasten out of the store
trying hard not to see the people
huddled in their thin coats
as they wait for an infrequent bus.
This ice-chilled evening
with its stark revelations
is like the nag of an irregular heartbeat
sheathed like a thorn in my shoe.
Later, by a warm fire
sitting in an upholstered armchair,
a despondency chews at my breastbone,
it is a reaction hard to pin down,
to objectify,
a lingering presence.
My mind shifts through a symbolic iconography
effigies depicting:
a lost and hungry dog,
an ill-treated child,
a stranger I refuse to call brother,
places long deserted,
places found far too late.
A love unpicked from a now withering vine.
That same presence
sets a table and chair before me
that I may write, try to explain
this tumbleweed of unnamable sorrows,
a phantom, that even in happier times,
I recognize it as a coarse impression
akin to a grating scar
beneath a tender tongue.
Tomorrow may emerge as a frail old lady,
struggling with full shopping bags,
head bent to a cold uncaring wind.
Many might offer her a lift
but in my present brittle mood
I probably would frighten her,
so,
I don’t.
Glassy lamp flickers come midnight
to expose her quiet charm
while fingers thumb tingle of brass--
Her sway a quavering string
in beats of harp - plucked interludes ,
gently grating strummed goodbye.
Connect The Dots
Sponsor: Nette Onclaud Jan 30, 2026
Into the Hatch, drop by drop
The metal melted like the crop
Sizzling ooze falls onto a floor
And begins to feel a little sore
Still no eyes, no lungs, no aim
Digits pull and push its frame
Outward sounds, crashes, pounds
Begin to be heard, as fear surrounds
Ears, but not quite shaped like ours
Are the next to form in these early hours
Yet just as green and red get comfy
A grating shrill comes from newfound company
Their location is hard to properly state
This starless cavern below the Fate
Forgers don't dare stoop this low
Whatever is here won't approach slow
The sounds in the silence, let words free
"WrIgGlE aBoUt, WiThOuT We?"
Tumbling turns to playful pursuit
When from a stomach protrudes a foot
It winds its ankle, without a crack
And stamps down harsh, with an attack
The Smith is pinned, spreading his patch
While five more digits manage to snatch.
Written: November 15, 2025
*******************
I am no feeling thing—
a moribund pastiche
of dulled mornings,
threadbare in soul,
writhed into silence.
No reason.
No why.
Just the torque of transience
grating against my sacred sapidity,
a palimpsest of vanished warmth.
Someone—
pinch me past this paucity.
I need your touch,
your rubicund ripple
to resile my wilted mettle.
Let your finger feel
be my panacea,
a seraphic catharsis
to evanesce this numb imbroglio
where even grief feels distant.
Come—
at your behest,
I will abase my hubris,
prowl through the seraglio
of memory’s panoply,
and rake through the riparian dusk
for one scintilla of you.
Let me feel again—
not the panoply of pain,
but the luster of being,
the emollient ache of presence,
the dulcet burden of love.
Step a little too far
If I wanted the easy way out I know you could never talk me down
To step a little too far and breathe in that familiar feeling
Ecstasy in the blood of becoming forgotten
To which incases the reply and decision
To live up to expectations, to urge towards being understood
But being understood would mean I was never really there
Contradictory is what life becomes
Perhaps a new melody that rings into the quiet of night
A stinging hum that only numbs what cannot die
Until even your heartbeat seems only to beat to bother your mind
A grating motor that beats seemingly forever
Step a little too far
When untamed wind roughens fine wisp of day
and grating the bite of late twilight sky--
O woeful eyes quiver and turn away
from hours' piercing ordeals that darkly sigh ,
like fragile mirrors thrown into the air
my aloneness bleak as clenched shadow's jaw,
while ominous vapor darts from nowhere
to cast upon life wrecked by sharpened claw:
Yet above, tiny stars could not resist
their flicker of blinks, a luster divine
that I find comfort in dear heaven's mist
absorbing tender solace quite benign.
How beautiful a gentle eve when viewed,
Through life's unclenched jaw... now truly imbued.
Mother lowers her sullen face
against a volatile wind,
tasting the insolence
of a heavy laden gust
As she heaves quietly
from musings of unaswered dreams
grating her senses -- hope clinging--
through pits of lonely thoughts
delicately cleansing snarled faith
and disheveled pauses...
where hours impairs near death
as uncertain answers grow pale
...Waking her slow breaths flowing
from tears... Dad in a stupor :
I dreamed within her own dream
a fervent wish of life restored
that she hears my silent words
her boney figure collapsing --
through the bleakest of bleak nights
numbed from pain ...from agony,
That under panels of glass,
...we clutch onto that wish for life
My dream blending with her plea...
and realize she has learned
to pray with me in the rain.
One glorious, sun-drenched, thirsty December day,
I sat, numbed with the agedness of a visitor, and
Fumed eloquently with joy for the benefit of the
Seine – the ointment of Paris.
Somewhere along the gritty line laid bare by sere weeds
Of winter,
A restless tranter eulogised:
“Ce est Paris!”
From the whistling, grating metro to the navel of
Elevated Eiffel, the tall, metallic maiden,
I saw frantic beauty.
I inhaled the peace of the atrium, sighting
Our Dame....
“Ce est Paris!”
The voice, girly, and with the earnestness
Of chivalrous youth, came again, cold and soft,
Just the way of a sprightly winter.
Turning, I saw Paris in full nakedness of her beauty, like
A priceless fresco hanging from the sky.
“Do you need company?” The tranter anglicised her French.
In one gulp I swallowed the pride of Paris.
“Hmmm!” I grunted, wincing loudly from brio,
Counting my woes should I plod away to the red light areas,
“Give me Shakespeare and Company”.
In ghostly white of midnight as
sky- shadows trace gossamer streaks ,
I become a recluse,
losing tracks of stars' grave hues
and the flavor of meadows
in snow grows bitter...the bronze gate
reeking of metal cold, again --frozen
like my rusty, numb thoughts.
Must I remember
how they were slain? The wails come
to haunt those Godforsaken eves
when the lane flooded groaning voices,
ramming our old grills from darn
collision of cars--- in a flash.
And now, dim clouds reflect frozen
bodies of kin like grief stricken portraits ,
pale as folded , bloodied sheets...
and I turn away from this mashed
scene on a vintage gate, grating
flesh in drills of shock
...my recluse core, seething
' Leave me alone...'
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