'Tis another sunrise, bright and yellow.
Yet the world that holds me feels so hollow.
My ev'ry breath is but an empty cask.
Yet ev'ry step I take bears a full flask.
Ev'ry thought that I hold makes the ground quake.
Ev'ry conviction makes the wide sky break.
The path I chose remained a cracked tankard.
Yet my journey is a brimming tankard.
All certainty dissolved, and naught remains.
Each thought gives birth to thought in endless chains.
My life is but a bottle with no hole.
I am the sot who wholly lacks control.
Who am I now to stay here, bound in doubt?
To drink, to think—and still to go without?
Part of my inheritance I did receive,
Though unworthy was I that gift to conceive;
Younger in mind, and wilful in thought,
I went to a distant land and squandered what I brought.
I wasted my Father’s gift in a wanton way;
From Grace I departed, and fell far astray.
Then, passing into spiritual insensibility,
The husks of the swine I desired to share,
Whose keeper I was—yet none would spare;
I longed to eat what they were given,
Yet no man gave me aught, though I was driven.
Thus was my soul perishing, bereft of all answer,
Having lost the dignity of sonship I bore;
Not merely as a hireling, for some wage,
But even as an unworthy slave.
How shall I return, when I have no boldness to plead?
I see how my brethren thy commandments heed;
Their obedience they keep, without blame,
While I have cast away my sonship and name.
O Father, I have sinned; I have gone astray—
Yet behold my repentance, and look on me, I pray.
Written: July 30th, 2026, for a contest sponsored by Seth Pina
*********
Your very skeleton
is not spun from cotton and polyester.
No, it is not carved from wood,
nor forged from metal or steel.
Its substance is—nerve endings,
tissue, and blood—
circulatory systems,
bound,
but not from woven fabric.
A lethal lotus languishes,
lamenting in its limbo,
crouched on bended knee.
A curved carcass, prostrate
beneath time’s passing wheel.
Its chalk-white bones
measure the slow decay,
where darkness lingers
in the hollow space within.
Cyborg of a cyber-skeleton.
Coiled with a steel-stitch
sprocket of subjugation.
Its spinal cord, bound in circuitry,
hums with sorrow.
A crestfallen cranium,
a heavy, hollowed
moon-orb weighed down
by the gravity of grief
in synthesized solitude.
Amidst this woeful wheel,
supplications of skinless steel
fuse forgotten fragility and fortitude
into a fatalistic future.
For you were neither tool nor tree,
but a tight-furled tapestry of flesh—
a weeping engine, bound in bone,
where the wild pulse fights the gear,
and slowly fades to rust.
Upon the midnight moor I roam,
beneath the stormy sky;
a black cat sings a sorrowful tune,
where restless shadows fly.
He prowls along the ancient way,
with tales of grief and flame;
a rogue of claw and velvet coat,
who bears a haunted name.
The old trail calls across the vale,
the thunder rolls afar;
his song rides wild through every gale,
beneath a broken star.
He tells of ships and savage seas,
of battles lost and won;
of wanderers who chased the dawn,
then vanished from the sun.
The hunter hears the midnight song,
and halts beside the heath;
for legends born in darkest hours
hold secrets underneath.
The black cat cries a rebel hymn,
a ballad fierce and free;
a lonely soul with burning pride,
beneath the ancient tree.
So raise your gaze, ye souls of grit,
who march through storm and rain;
for every heart may find a song
inside its deepest pain.
Horror movies no longer do their job
No longer do they instill fear
Nor do they shake my bones
All they manage is to annoy to no end
Sending me screaming at the TV
To just use the car
Or ensure the Killers drawn their last breath
But all that happens is im left feeling
Like the teacher trying to explain
Something as simple as the ABC
Without any success
Broken promises, broken heart,
Deep within sears the pain,
I trusted your truth from the start,
Instead you tied me to the train.
Drowned in the waves of feelings chained,
Like falling leaves, I am tossed,
Washed upon the shore, colourless and drained,
Unable to reclaim myself, my freedom lost.
Now every memory feels unstable,
I played by your rules, never fair or just,
Your words now just a bitter fable,
Now my life lies in the dust.
Smile and pretend everything is normal,
Laugh so the tears are disguised,
Withdraw deep within the abnormal,
All my dreams are denied.
How do I rebuild for a future?
How can something broken remain?
Can it be healed with a suture,
Or are feelings hardened by pain?
My life is stripped of all meaning,
Each thought pulls me further away,
No comfort is found in dreaming,
As I disappear a little more every day.
Don't bastardise the limerick form
and deviate from Edward Lear's norm
Poet’s writing form wrong
Should not deserve a gong
Some efforts were just truly lukewarm
The syllable count and rhyme scheme
Ain’t something that folk should demean
Limericks can be rudish
Not designed for folk prudish
Of writing poop poems I'm Queen!
Testing sucks for both you and me
On that I think all can agree
Stuck in with nothing but a pen
Constantly wondering when will this test end
At first you may try to be right but it won't be long
Before your saying eh i could be wrong
Boredom shapes the gambler’s curse—
a chafing itch burrows the skin,
and promises of bounties full
draws loss and piteous hunger in.
It wagers not on sense but need,
all wisdom choked at galloping speed-
that trades frail patience in a pulse,
mistaking want for feckless greed.
Tidal leaps the wave, a beast enraged
the shifting boards ,a sweep of losses tilt-
that stilts no longer shudderproof engaged
foundations fall and nothing left but guilt.
The naked woman is lying
on the chocolate floor,
stretching her hand to meet
that of her lifeless child.
Look at her
the agony in her eyes
as she sheds her final tears.
"My child!"
she screamed in despair,
for the chances she missed
to love him more.
See his battered skull, like ogbono,
his skin like cassava.
What brutality is this?
A shredded piece of the land I fought for
Where is the mother land you speak of?
Where is the honey flowing?
I have searched a thousand years
for melted happiness.
I am no queen,
but Lord, dear Lord,
save this poor child.
How can I go on?
I reach out for you
To be in your arms
But then I awake
My tears start to flow
I'm trapped here in life.
Upon the jagged coast, I weep,
A mournful cry the sea does keep.
My sealskin, hidden in the sand,
Keeps me bound to this hard land.
My children call, their faces pale,
A human life, a sorrowful tale.
They yearn for waves, the ocean deep,
While I must watch, and I must weep.
The hearth is warm, the fire bright,
But in my dreams, I swim all night.
I taste the salt, the kelp's embrace,
A sea-born ghost in this cold place.
He loves me well, my mortal man,
But cannot grasp the ocean's plan.
He sees my sadness in my eyes,
And whispers gentle, heartfelt lies.
One day, perhaps, the moon will guide,
My skin back to me, from where it hides.
I'll leave them sleeping, soft and deep,
And vanish back into the keep
Of boundless ocean, home at last
The memory and longing cast
Away to join my own true kind
The peace I once thought I left behind
(Form Deibide)
Days of poet motivate calm compassion.
Sheer injustice evident—every turnpike
manned by soldiers’ wild unfamiliar passion
planned around harsh Strike.
Summonsed lamb to slaughter, but still respecting
burning bush—obedience lit by daydream,
Ares now advance with his pride, suspecting
alter in regime.
Bending truth to suit the occasion’s essence,
whispers coil in shadows of veiled renitence.
Glow of waters lap at the swirling valence.
Ebbing of sentience.
Psappho wept—her dream has dispersed as token.
Rose-fingered moon’s face will exceed all starlight.*
Silence now descends tableau muffled, Brocken
Spectre of moonlight.
Though many those who court the muse,
There's only few that she will choose.
I wish that my light
Could shine here more bright,
But love unrequited's the news.
CHORUS
We lost Brigitte Bardot
Oh no! Oh no!
Now she can talk to Judy Dench
(Of course she can’t: she’s French!)
VERSE 1
You stayed at home
and learned to dance
when Germany invaded France.
You grew up with
a curvy corps
and quickly learned
what it was for.
BRIDGE
Sartre famous for his jokes,
Piaf sang a song or two:
Picasso stunned us with his strokes,
and you we’d simply like to screw.
VERSE 2
When the Germans
had to leave,
that’s when God
created Eve!
Lovely parts,
lovely pout,
and not afraid
to get them out!
Sub Categories
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