They brought them back in the Age of Dust,
when crops failed and gods went quiet.
With DNA teased from marrow’s crust,
they rose--reborn, and violent.
In glass-born labs beneath dead cities,
the scientists whispered hope.
“Guardians,” they said, “not beasts nor pity,”
as they cut through time’s old rope.
But the wolves remembered ice and blood,
the hunt, the pack, the kill--
they moved like ghosts through ash and mud,
with a hunger time couldn’t still.
The world grew wild beneath their gaze,
old fences fell to claw and fang.
The sky turned gray for endless days,
and silence bloomed where children sang.
We learned to speak in signal fire,
to tread the earth with care--
for the alphas ruled from mountain spire,
and no one dares go there.
Now laws are written in howl and tooth,
in scent and scar and chase.
The price of playing God, in truth,
was the loss of the human race.
They roam where cities used to burn,
where glass lies sharp in bone--
and every full moon, we return
to pray they leave us alone.
I have often witnessed death
though not ever the last breath;
field mice frozen in a jar;
slaughtered lambs in abattoir,
dissected frogs in school labs,
cruel boiling of live crabs
for important luncheon meets.
Piglets torn from mother’s teats
roasted at a football game.
Hungry lions eat the lame
garden’s serpent kills the truth
mothers’s love that kills your youth;
little bug just stepped upon;
“don’t destroy my sweet salon.”
To embrace a death without;
that is just to be Boy Scout.
To embrace a death within;
to my father, was a sin.
Where have all my years gone?
there I was a mere young twenty-.one
now in a moment it seems 50 years gone
here grey haired bones ache nothing won
I've no memory of these lost years
they are frozen stiff completely still
I had many desires set to accomplish
but content I shall be, whatever it will
My memory is still alive up till the freeze
there I was my stammer still holding me down
now so far it seems to have gone far away
maybe the ice squashed it without a sound
Frustrations abound about my future
I seem to like poetry for I never did before
where did I get it, not even at school
did the freeze open up some closed door
I now feel a divine presence
never known before, God is here
freeze me anytime for this is nice
hey, my deafness is gone as sounds I hear
Life takes many turns and twists
even ice pins you to its wall
I look back now on life as it was
50 years amiss, You can't win them all
(This is an imaginary story that I was frozen solid in cryogenic
labs at age 21, in 1975.
Now, fifty years later, I have been defrosted and the experiment was a success, except for a few tweaks.)
Old wisdom runs deep
Like rivers through our bodies
Heart speaks what mind knows
Blood carries stories forward
Through time's gentle flow
Love flows in our veins
Like songs sung by our parents
Nature keeps its course
What we learn in quiet labs
Hearts knew all along
Joy dances inside
Breaking walls we build so high
Love proves its strength
Each small part tells bigger tales
Of hearts growing close
Minds light up like stars
When we share each other's joy
Friends grow strong as one
Learning shows us day by day
How hearts learn to dance
Old paths glow like dawn
In minds that remember love
Finding the way back home
Children carry forward now
These heart-written truths
Hearts mix and match well
Like colours in rainbow light
Love flows pure and true
Through eyes that see deep within
Nature shows love's way
On Doctor’s day
(dedicated to all doctors who heal the society)
Busy wards
where noise fills the air,
those steady hands
and humble hearts that care;
Doctors help you walk
through the path of light,
amidst darkest days
and long sleepless nights.
With stethoscopes
they catch a tender beat,
mend thy hearts
and cure the disease;
All eyes,
they see the silent plea,
and strive to get
patients disease free.
As wisdom guides,
with every word,
a hope renewed,
a spirit stirred;
They battle illness,
fear and pain,
in quest for health,
breaking every chain.
From labs where
breakthroughs make hay,
to clinics where
the children play;
In every corner,
in every street,
their very being
makes our lives complete.
Through trials harsh
and victories sweet,
in every pulse,
in each heartbeat;
Doctors heal
with grace and might,
they are the saviours,
bringing us light.
So here's to those
who wear the white,
with courage bold
and vision so bright,
In gratitude,
we sing their praise;
For doctors' hands,
our lives they raise.
Written July 1, 2024
© Dr Upma A Sharma
If you could look into your future and choose one day to see what would happen, what day would that be and why...
I pick tomorrow.
I wake up, have my coffee, sugar, and cream, then read emails, and messages, open up poetrysoup and read poems, and comments, then write comments, and poems or go shopping, pick up meds, post office get mail, eat out, doctors, labs, x-rays, physical & occupational therapy visits, and those unexpected visits like a salesman. Then there's the neighbor, a longtime friend, and of course the, few and far in-between family visits. There are also some sports events or an interesting movie on the TV.
Then, that routine that I've accustomed myself to -- suddenly stopped, and the probability it would most likely concern a medical issue.
Given my present conditions, what would happen...is the question being asked of me for an answer.
I fear that the aforementioned routine will come to a catastrophic and prolonged medical end.
If not The End...
I live in a "Methed" up world.
Where the air is thick with smoke,
And the streets are filled with broken dreams.
The smell of chemicals lingers,
As people chase their next high.
Neighbors turn into strangers,
As they disappear into their own highs.
Children grow up too fast,
With parents who are lost in their addiction.
They learn to fend for themselves,
In a world that's full of friction.
Crime rates soar,
As desperation takes over.
Families torn apart,
By this powerful drug that they can't recover.
Homes become labs,
And dealers rule the streets.
Innocent lives are taken,
By this destructive beast.
The government turns a blind eye,
As the epidemic spreads.
Leaving behind a trail of destruction,
And shattered lives in its stead.
I long for a world without "meth",
Where families can heal and thrive.
But until then, I'll continue to live,
In this "methed" up world, barely surviving.
You can only spend so many hours in labs, study groups and classrooms - under relentless, fluorescent lighting - before you start feeling life withdrawal.
When I hit that stresshold, I need to rebalance myself.
I could go to the New Haven harbor - I find the ocean endlessly relaxing - or for a quick fix, I can always rely on the warmth of multicolored product packaging.
For the last one, a grocery store will do. I’ll walk the bright, prismatic cereal aisle, and run my finger gently along the gratuitous, rainbowed variety of selections.
It’s a soothing gesture that I repeat several times. A reminder that there are still beautiful, shiny things out there, on demand, in the uncomplicated, non-academic world.
Dogs growl with their eyes.
Kittens, bleat like sleeping lions.
Simplicity says nothing,
the wise listen.
Everything is a conversation,
nothing matters.
The land is for sale,
The dead plant their
alien hearts deep,
spaceships orbit as empty
as long locked museums.
The future conspires
to be a conspiracy,
everyone knows,
yet the hurricanes
keep coming.
Now its winter
that is a problem.
Now it's summer,
millions die complaining.
Rats in labs bathe under
radioactive lamps.
They thrive.
It's science,
its global idiocy,
there is no mercy
for the dissenting.
it's any day, that ends in
a sleepless night
of near extinction.
In the beginning quasars burst forth, primal stars born
Ionised light suffused, a cosmic primeval dawn
Later man came along, looked west, awestruck by the sun
One morn an eclipse came to pass, blotting out his sun
Man huddled together, fear of the unknown was born
They surmised god was in the sky, controlling the dawn
Intelligence was naive, as sense was yet to dawn
Eons passed, man grew quite clever, unlocking the sun
Now splits atoms in labs, with AI primed to be born
We had no choice but to be born, wake up one dawn, feel god and the sun
Soul Fingerprints
By Mark Stucky
From the midst of multitudes,
elusive, unique fingerprints
identify individuals
as owners of their surface smudges.
Beyond their barely discernable
two-dimensions on smooth surfaces,
memories of casual causal touches,
ethereal fingerprints possess power
to unlock phones storing private secrets
and to solve whodunit murder mysteries.
God’s mysterious, stealthy fingerprints
invisibly mark creation and our lives,
at the core, below the surface.
No ridged whorls outwardly appear,
but those uniquely hidden codes
identify their covert Owner.
Distinguishing fingerprints
requires crime labs no longer.
My fingerprint unlocks my phone.
God’s fingerprint unlocks my heart.
(First published as “Fingerprints” in Agape Review, 6 April 2023. See also my poems "The Invention of Love" and "Gloria in Eggshellsis.")
(Photo by ar130405 on Pixabay.com.)
If my usual wasn't so ordinary
And didn't span great feats of generic
It may just be shy of extraordinary
A mediocrity so bland I'm hysteric
Enormity in normalcy's highest gear
Worked out so hard and never got abs
Without an ear my regular cannot hear
I'm the base tested against in labs
An everyday, workaday, 10 of a kind
Fantastically, head over heels habitual
Frequency, ooze from me, for oddness I pined
This middle of the road, uniform fool
An average in math I lack sum of the fun
My highest point is the peak of just typical
If my usual started with "un", not a prefix of none
This run of the mill status is biblical
I'm routinely symmetrical time and again
Burst at the seams in familiarity
A dullery so wild it verges on zen
Like a quietness without any clarity
I've searched the great depths of the known
Looked for an in but found not a trace
For my explicable or scrutable down to the bone
Destined to be dazzlingly commonplace.
1/20/23
Continually facing struggles
Remaining puzzled
Going too hard straining muscles
Punks always out making trouble
Many in labs out to clone, attempts at creating doubles
So many shell-shocked
Others being fools while well off
Too many people quick to tell lots
They either say truth or sell crock
Had to change this
Less of the same
It took an occasional lane switch
Problems incoming, I took on and faced quick
Regardless if you understand the main gist
A lot of phenomenon and this world can't explain it
Don't be an ignoramus
It's not conspiracy or about getting famous
Why do continual acts occur that are heinous
Times were very far from the greatest
I was headed towards the grave if
I didn't get wiser and become one of the bravest
It's been difficult on a daily basis
I need to jump into a lake
Take a break
Gosh dangit
A heart of gold or soul cold like polar ice
To this day, so much is overhyped
And overpriced
Just not the same as prototypes
On top of that we got all these socialites
It never has been so polite
When it came to voting rights
The doctor follows me out of her office.
You know where the labs are, right?
Dang! I had forgotten I was getting labs.
Had she read my mind?
She points to a tiny room.
Sign up in there.
Okay, I say, watching her carefully.
Wondering how many minutes she will still be watching me.
Wife is helping her husband fill out the forms for labs.
It says doctor’s name she tells him.
I can read! He snaps.
So put it down, she says.
I don’t know the doctor’s name.
Davis, says she.
Then she leans in closer.
Put no there. Put yes there, check that box. Your blood type is B.
Where do I put that? He asks.
I feel sorry for his wife who has now also become his mother.
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