One door closes, another opens
different phases oft find us half-asleep
Like the moon, they wax and wane regularly
though folks don’t always see
Conditioned to think they’re spread out
they can come in bunches
Disrupting our mindsets
evading our hunches
And when we think we’ve reached the end
another phase may lie around the bend
To shake us from complacency
to stir the pot ~ to bury reverie
dear tall child,
your bones probably don't fit your frame yet;
they shift awkwardly,
and your spine hunches and slopes.
your hands are likely to be dry and grimy,
legs speckled with ant bites
that sting like fire.
spending those arid days snatching lizards off the hot terracotta wall,
next to the withered rose garden belonging to your shouting mother.
unfortunately for you,
the shouting will never stop;
your mother will bleed her vocal chords raw
trying to scare out your soul to place of her own.
there will be so much hardship,
but you will learn so so much.
so much.
to drown the world out,
just think about horses.
she will see you as strange
no matter what you do
just hop in the saddle
tighten the reins, grip the mane,
put your filthy Velcro sneakers into the stirrups,
and think about horses.
you will be a weird girl, it will hurt.
but suffering is just suffering,
and voices are just words.
you will become a strange young man, dear cowboy-
but you will always be that tall child.
a dear,
dear tall child
She misses the time before she was a mother,
the life she once had now hidden, under cover.
Before pasta and paint, and plastic packed lunches
replaced lie ins and coffees, and trusting her own hunches.
She yearns for washed hair and fresh eyes without lines,
but knows, deep down, it’s for him her heart pines.
Within the dark mystery of evening,
he listens to two interchangeable discourses
One the gentle persuader, the other, life's ultimate blamer.
Troubled by these seething exchanges,
both conscious and unconscious currents resound,
As the master's inner thoughts boom,
pounding into trails of indecision
with wired quizzes on his mind.
In silence, he weighs dark and light perspectives-
question left unanswered in the din
of reflection,
and through gradual flow of spontaneous musings,
Logic nags his cerebral strains-
scientific, structured assessment of matters which do not really matter...
Somehow, amid the debate where reason pauses with the fragile voice of instinct, the heart remains silent
offering gentle hunches revealing the
wisdom born from honesty, truth...
Slowly, this inner prompting arises
as the master in quiet introspection
realizes: the mind can lie , pride is ego- based ...but the heart, can it in conscience cope with deceit?
Deep voice cradled with tender
Rough hands smoothing it better
The fears hunches my back,
He arches it again with sweet words of wonder
When I doubt all I am
He hugs my angels and my monsters
Reminds me of parts I have stop loving
His calm eyes find my frightened
So he lets me see the storm brewing within
He is chaos reining in to wash my worries
Burning passion with worship so deep
In awe I am as I weep
With joy and want and a thousand more things
Like kisses on the blade of my shoulder
To relax them for a moment
Before the world jumps on it
Or a silent confession of love
From eyes that are afraid to hurt
I relax like water finally meeting
The golden bowl it dreamt of
And let myself be the thirst
That craves those little moments
In a world full of grand ones.
Blue
twinges
of lament
cast gaunt shadow
o’er my dreadful pang
as a grim mist segued
into dark claustrophobic
cantons where rabid zeal of hearts
once smouldered from magma’s deep red vein
Yet I cling to golden dawn recall
of lazy strolls in lush green mead
wild sniff of purple heather
neath sun-drenched sky aflame
gusts of joy rippling
froth-rim brook waltz
now toilworn
gaudy
dream
Haze
born of
mellow flight
as hunches splay
across foamed pool morn
plop of jaspers echo
icy shriek as chalk mark toe
dips into a whirlpool eddy
to soothe stark reflections so forlorn
Those august palpitating heartbeats
etched in vivid ripple canvass
entwined that fleeting pearl drop
bead keen ink glint token
a pledge once fervent
now rose tinted
phase on brink
of times
lapsed
I hail each bronze, red, and blue coloured dawn,
as pulsing heart mould torch flame of bliss,
to gaze across some awestruck mint sprig lawn,
that golden birthright never goes amiss
Eye beam urban verve one duly savours,
coruscating joie de vivre street life,
bursts of swift dash coffee’s hazel flavours,
cell-phone upbeat day ahead hubbub rife
Blue robin high pitch chirp from chimney top,
sets the tone for morning wonders brightly,
activate those spark prompt hunches nonstop,
schedules met in narrow windows tightly
In suburb or in city centre fair,
skies and pavements segue with deft flourish,
your dreamland ticket ace broad daylight flair,
groundbreaking spurt fantastic, let us nourish
Dynamic itch to stray amid blind alley,
lurk within some parboiled notion latent,
steel clad zone that mosaic sculpted tally,
animated focus me the claimant
He puffs in the nightly brume
His noctambulous proclivity
He calls it, a force of habit
Something automatic
Tonight is especially morbid
Atrabilious even
As he hunches gaunt
Over her headstone
That has grown verdant
Of many a night waxed lachrymose
The midnight wind is severe
A morbid creak fills his ears
He calls it his familiar
His body enervated
A chiliad of nights and tears
Have taken their toll
Gaunt from endless prayers
Then an icy apparition so clear
A familiar, sum of his fears,
Appears, standing in the midnight air
An icy depth and an icy glare his familiar
A formication forms in his chest
As usual no words exchanged
The wind blows the mist away
And soft rain begins to fall
And the owl begins to howl
She is gone, she is gone!
My thoughts are mine, I cherish them
Unruly as they are
They freely keep me company
I keep my mind ajar
Too much are these sensations
These hunches, these ideas
Much wilder than the tempests
That heave the mighty seas
My thoughts come in like thunder
They blast in with quick pace
My mind is forced to take it in
And gives up all her space
And there she is, poor mind of mine
The torture is severe
But this time too she will endure
Until the air is clear.
Wendy Nipas
You're throwing one set of punches
Barely acting on your hunches.
You can't be lucky with left hooks.
They'll, sure, connect them: Boxer Crooks:
Perhaps, then, stop to at you grin
Like Spinks had at Homes for a win...
The point: stop launching lame attacks
Or you watch out as your skull cracks:
In Boxing, the Dreamer Joseph
Should questions ask starting with 'if ...?'
The Ring Business: Dangerous sport;
Killers rarely appeared in court...
She is a beautiful girl
As she walks through the Valley of Trust
With her parents
At eleven
She becomes more graceful
As she sprints through the Grasslands of Independence
Without her parents due to a dispute
At twelve
She hunches her back
As she swims through the River of Sadness, fighting the current
Half of her trying to get back to shore, the other half surrendering
At thirteen
She is crumpled
As she floats into the Sea of Depression
Not even trying to get away
All alone
At fourteen
She is stronger than one thinks
As she gets into the Jungle of Uncertainty
Announcing her presence, willing to fight for what is right
At fifteen
She is scarred but stands tall
As she climbs the Mountain of Bravery
She is Alone but Doesn’t Care
At sixteen
Her name is America
And this is her journey
By the gloating rocks once its refuge,
The sun wallows in scarlet rages;
Glovers at the ticky-tacky cages,
Who feel naught of the coming deluge
From the lurching stream that knows no rest.
Each ripple is a Mont Blanc unsung
With snow-hunches grown out of dark grace,
The cragginess of each jagged face;
Burnt with the weight of burdens unflung,
More formidable than Everest
Blades of grass growing out of cement,
They ever knew passion, knew the pain
Of lorn oaths broken oft and again;
Thus Marianne from her Sherwood rent,
By the dripping of socks found her quest
As her sister shed a skin of ice,
And tucked it under an arm to walk;
Glided on water in flesh of chalk,
To see her crush pigments like head-lice,
Wring back stolen blood with savage zest.
[Written in response to Women in Black, by Marianne von Werefkin]
[First published by The Ekphrastic Review]
“Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving. What you have caught on film is captured forever… It remembers little things, long after you have forgotten everything.”
— Aaron Siskind
It is my graduation at age 50
There she stands with me, graying
Reminding me of her age these days
Not Me without Her!
She’s love and compassion, miracles
That happen when you’re a mom
I stand beside her, to the right
My cap sideways with a smile
That speaks of accomplishment
Not Me without Her!
Her heart seems connected to my own
Interacting through joys and tears
She hunches close to my side
Proud that I have done this thing
That she never did in her lifetime
Not Me without Her!
She races to my aide anytime, night or day,
Always prepared to love without conditions.
Graduation Day Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: craig cornish
Entered on March 4, 2023
They intrude even into his kitchen,
hunting.
Now they loot fruits, nuts, spices, herbs, honey-combs…
Yet he tells them about a *Black Vasa’s medicinal miracle.
They come again,
strip the forest of the flora and fauna
and construct resorts and duplexes.
He’s driven away like a mongoose.
On the top of a bare hill,
he hunches with an empty stomach-pot.
As he takes some rice from their sack,
they collar him
and beat him brutally,
calling THIEF!
Media cook his corpse.
Remember
he was an Adivasi,
the original inhabitant,
yet he’d to live muted in a desert
within the forest.
*Black Vasa – a medicinal plant used in the treatment of arthritis, asthma etc.
First printed in The Literary Hatchet
I have a bad feeling.
It’ll get worse before it gets better.
I’m braced for the worst.
Wordku: 5-7-5 words
AP: Honorable Mention 2025
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