Born of fire.
Black water.
A singular spine—
I learned how to live unkissed, until...
The Tasman bared its teeth,
A cold, crushing mouth.
The moon is an honest Manipulator,
pulling the tide
like a noose.
grinding the heavy ocean
against my spine.
White surf choking
my basalt throat.
The sky tears open,
it's raining roses and love riots,
soft ruin
on wet basalt.
Let the gale howl
its wrath.
Against my ledges.
I filled the night's chalice with knots of desire.
The tempest cracks
over the peak—
Tie me to your Tongue;
make the storm's voice
the only thing
holding me above the waves.
A fossil of fire.
That gouged the dark.
I ask the heavy air:
If time turns, will scars stain the sky?
651.
The 1st Period of the Pre-Spanish Era of Philippine History:
The 3 Races
Thousands of years ago
Came the first peoples into the Philippine archipelago
They were the Negritos, the Indones & the Malays
They came by feet, by boats & by balangays
The first to come were the Negritos
They came into this land by toes
In times when there were still land bridges
These black-skinned people thrived here for ages
The second to come were the Indones
They came into these islands by boats with ledges
In times when land bridges already submerged
These fair-skinned people here emerged
The third to come were the Malays
They came into this archipelago by balangays
In times when Malaysia was ruled by a cruel sultan
These brown-skinned people to settle here had begun
This is the 1st Period of Pre-Spanish Era – The 3 Races
The Filipinos began as civilized people, not as savages
This is the dawn of Philippine civilization
God started the Philippines as a civilized nation.
-05/06/2019
*Periods on the Eras of the Philippine History
Texas Bobcat—quiet resident of nearly every county,
you move through forests, plains,
and the edges of our neighborhoods
with the ease of an animal built to belong anywhere
concealment remains.
Your coat—tawny and mottled, with faint bars and scattered spots~
mirrors the muted colors of scrub and stone.
Tufted ears lift like alert punctuation,
your short tail flicks its small, decisive signal,
and your muscular frame carries
the steady confidence of a medium-sized hunter.
While we sleep behind walls and windows,
you cross rocky ledges, wooded corridors,
and even urban green spaces with practiced silence.
Your senses read the dark for rabbits, rodents, birds~
and sometimes the bold chance of larger prey.
Unseen and adaptable, you are proof
that wildness still threads itself
through North Texas—alert, enduring,
and entirely at home.
Upon that high mountain
Roars a lion without teeth
No one dares go near
Lest that finally reach
...the silence
When others are troubled
By circumstances that bind
He roars loudly
Just to blind the path to find
...the silence
He organizes again and again
With the precision of ease
Values and beliefs are tar
That creates the disease
...in the silence
The climb up the jagged rocks
That split helping hands like a knife
Offers ledges to sit and think
About a desirable life
...in the silence
Look over yonder way
There is a majestic lion who stands
Roaring the TRUTH of compassion
Through His children who possess lands
...in the ROAR of the silence
The overcomers stand beside HIM
Dressed in warrior attire
Untouchable by fake vibrations
That reach to assault the holy fire
...in the ROAR of the silence
We will NOT be silent
Written by Trudy Schrader on 05-29-2026
The clocks have given up their posture,
slipping into themselves like tired creatures
too weary to keep the world awake.
Time drapes over branches,
over ledges,
over the pale, sleeping face
that might be a memory
or a dream that refuses to rise.
Along time’s periphery, the sun hangs heavy,
a molten coin no one bothers to spend.
Shadows stretch like questions
that never learned to speak.
Even the ants~
those tiny, tireless archivists~
crawl across the metal
as if trying to carry away
what time once meant.
Across this desert where hours drip like wax,
motion stops,
yet everything bows~
a place where time loses its outline,
and memory alone refuses to fade.
I love the gentle snowflakes falling
floating down from the sky like feathers
drifting, twirling, dancing, whirling and prancing
blanketing my city magical white
I was born into snow
the wind howling through the trees like banshees
city drifts and cars slipping
I arrived a snow child
I like to stroll the city streets
as magical snow changes downtown
pigeons hover on the ledges
folding their wings together
Ottawa steeped in history
the buildings are old and beautiful
gray bricked, elegant and sturdy
many homes Victorians
My city boasts of many winding trails
but nothing is more amazing than in winter
a crisp, walk among sleeping trees
oh, love hiking past a frozen stream that still ripples
I have creaking rooms in an old city building
outside my window trees in all seasons are my view
but winter snow falling on my city stirs my soul
I can hear my beloved snow calling me
come, come, come outside my love
Sparkling, breathtakingly.
A luxurious view.
On cliff ledges who lodge them
May not think as you do!
Of million dollars worth.
When kestrel, when falcon
Is for no outstretched claw to claw's
Money exchange called on?
Travel inward, walking in tight
corridors of a rundown maze.
Suffocating within these bricks,
built by sweat and tears.
Obfuscated by the mist that,
blinds, and smells rosemary.
Turns creating uncountable corners,
leaving space for beings to breathe.
Beings that watch — and stalk.
The cracks on the walls can seduce
with outward's gaze, but there is no escape.
Any window or ledges — and the thought
of walking back to face them shivers my soul.
These walls built me too, each drop
of sweat, like metal for hardening.
Each drop of tear, like light for clarity.
Lost, but I keep moving.
Not chained, just surrounded.
I was never alone, like a kid
that leaves crumbles in the forest.
I was already in pieces, pieces of my own spirit.
They were me.
They told me:
“Pierce the pain. Look beyond.”
I did not.
I cannot will —
I can only long.
Imust not become nothing.
I remain unfinished.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I find them~
in the cracks of asphalt
in streets and parking lots.
They are copper pilgrims,
their heads bowed down,
waiting for my hand.
Some are slick with rain,
others dull as old bones,
but each one carries
the weight of a wish
someone forgot to make.
I gather them like
tiny suns, warm
from the sidewalk’s breath,
until my pockets sag
with the gravity
of abandoned luck.
I pry one from the teeth of a gutter~
Lincoln’s face half-eaten
by time.
Still,
I take it home,
lay it on the windowsill
where the light
could baptize it anew.
What is a coin
but a story paused mid-sentence?
I am the archaeologist
of small fortunes,
excavating where
no one else looks.
Someday, I will leave them
in places where hands
might need them more~
tucked under bus seats,
balanced on ledges,
for the next believer
to pocket a tiny prayer.
I’ve left it on rock ledges
elevators and bars
Taxicabs, backpacks
and motorcycles far
It sat on the Great Wall
as I walked away
And fell out of the raft
in Wyoming that day
It flew on the airplane
after I’d gotten off
Spending two days in Key West
Fedex as the cost
It’s kept me in touch
that’s important I know
But the voice it records into words
— much more so
(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2018)
My Cell Phone Voice Recorder
Snow.
The rifts and ledges.
Flakes just like to flake.
And eventually stay.
Snow covers cars a bit.
Then we uncover them.
We like to pretend that the snow is not melting down our spine, and destroying us.
Shaking.
Then we shake it off.
Gloved hands, taking them off.
If a stranger walked by, he wouldn’t help at all.
Snow covers my eyelashes a bit too.
Snow.
Towers over us in our sleep.
When it’s cold and our car won’t start this morning.
So it shuts us down.
Snow.
The snow plow did come through.
Eventually.
Then it came through the same street once more and it was crazy.
Then the snow stopped.
Gloved hands, throwing the gloves to the ground.
Breaking down because.
Snow.
Snow on a Sunday morning.
Doesn’t feel as bad, crazy, or unbearable.
I’m shaking, yet I’m on my cozy chair.
Snow towers in our sleep.
If it snows overnight?
I might have a problem.
As absorbed in the ember
A scape
Bill in towers crashing
Ledges shelter
Hatred in angst and ignorance
The feign of time
A contemplation to end
Resume history
Well and fear my quill?
Was suffering the necessity?
Time was not
Only in the morrows mourns
Heft of pen
Empty gadgets
Science finished
The subject closed
Fide et amore
I hate tempests, unless I'm cosy in bed.....by poet
The tempest raged around the lighthouse
I was the sentinel of the place, hoping the lights flashed.
Unfortunately, it provided me with very little shelter.
Outside, wild waves pounded the rugged rocks.
Some stinging sleet fell piling up on the ledges,
Penetrating the broken wide wind-broken windows.
Nothing to do but wait till all will be over.
It took some time, and I could not phone my wife.
She would always imagine something bad would take place.
Nothing to do but hope and pray.
Three hours later, I was home and thoroughly drenched.
My bewildered wife looked at me, wondering.
She pushed me under the shower, removed my wet clothes.
Then came warm pyjamas and coffee laced with some alcohol,
Her hopes had weathered fears, her love complete.
Placed 1
This time of year I'm fondly
reminded of Richard the
old guys playing chess on
lakeshore drive watching the
cities shoreline freeze over
popcorn stands chestnuts
warms the hands on state
street the Irish river at a
stand still as the
center prepares for the
giant douglas fir tree hawks
perch on ledges as the lions
roars on the steps at the
du sable museum cornerstone
outreach paints the faces of
children parents help out in
the soup kitchens homeless
are actually singing Christmas
Carols as Richard wearing
a plaid scarf approaches
Merry Christmas
Chicago and to all a good night
Large boulders piled high
stretch out into the bay
and form a breakwater
that shields the beach
from high waves
and heavy swells rolling in
from southerly gales.
I have stood there
at the end when the sea
was hurling its rage
and all fury exploded
like bomb bursts of watery
shrapnel into the air.
I have seen such power
subside and tamed
to compliant licks
around the feet of rocks.
More than forty years ago
on a deep breath
I snorkeled down its ledges
into the rock strewn and weedy
world that lay at its base,
places where stingrays slept
and where fish glided
effortlessly along crevices
and over sponge
covered outcrops.
I cradled a fragile seahorse
in my trembling hands.
I no longer have
the confidence to rock hop
its length to the end
but stand where it butts
the land, commanding memory
to whip up a wind
and set wave upon wave
to awaken a soul
from its sleep
and make it feel
the sting of a southerly gale,
wet, cold and wonderful,
once again.
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