moon grows her own thistles in ditches of Mur
they are sharp and prickly, but look lovely to her
Along beside them grows Queen Anne’s lace pure
Moon smiles at her babies, where magic can occur
moon magic is something the ethereal eagerly finds
mystical beings live amongst these thistles, all kinds
brownies, elves, gremlins, faeries and tiny imps
if people try to walk barefoot here, they leave with limps
The ditches are for my thistles and magic, thinks the moon
Feeling no empathy for the humans who will not return soon.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
At dawn, the spiderweb holds
a universe of dew~
each droplet quivering
with its own silent law of gravity.
We call it a miracle
when the stray cat
limps to our doorstep
and stays.
But what of the way
bread rises in the oven,
slow and certain,
as if the yeast remembers
some ancient pact with hunger?
Or how the old oak
split by lightning
still pushes one green shoot
through the wreckage
every spring?
We name these things
rare, divine~
as if the ordinary
weren’t already
a kind of falling
upward.
I rise from the rubble like Lazarus wearing a noose of night.
The gutter whispers my name through the teeth of tombstones.
Rain baptizes me backward, burying me in yesterday's dirt.
Every prayer I utter comes crawling back begging for mercy.
My soul stinks of survival-perfume for the punished.
Heaven spits when I shine in the slime.
Hope limps behind me, bleeding blessings in the bog.
This hard earth hugs me hard, jealous of my fall.
Under redemption's heel I was born-the gutter remembers my name
Verse 1
Girlfriend Trouble
Pain
Hard
feelings
take hold.
A fight with her,
the one I care for,
and everything now
feels broken and heavy.
I just don't know what to do.
Why does love have to hurt this much?
Verse 2
Time Waits For no One
Tick.
The clock,
quiet machine,
Eat our youth whole,
Chews love into dust,
Leaves bones of memory,
Still,chase its shadow's tail,
Calling seconds by sacred names,
Pretending they'll stop if we sing the song,
We keep on running from the final tick
Verse 3
The River Forgets no Face
Flow.
Limps on
Through our sins
Washing lies away clean,
It hums to the drowned ones
Names carved in its ripples,
Even the mud remembers feet
No step unseen,no crime erased now,
The river keeps our softest griefs always,
Its ancient water never forgets a single
face
Written: November 10, 2025 For contest sponsored by Andrea Dietrich
**************
O soul-twin lanterns, you ignite the hidden.
Space moves in glowing loops—unbidden.
The earth rushes with every glimpse.
Just a wink, and you awaken what limps.
You cradle stars, and read the room as we did.
And turn routine into passion, once forbid.
To craft is to bear pain, joy, and deceit.
O eyes, you are the source of every beat.
Collops of fat line the tables of the few,
while the many stretch hands toward empty plates.
Skyscrapers rise in the capital,
yet in the villages, children bend under jerrycans,
walking miles for a sip of muddy water.
The economy grows, they say—
percentages polished and paraded—
but the growth is stored in vaults,
not in classrooms with broken desks,
not in hospitals without medicine,
not in the pockets of the farmer who tills red soil for nothing.
Every election season,
collops of fat are dangled like bait—
T-shirts, soap, envelopes,
promises swollen with grease,
but never nourishment for tomorrow.
The youth, restless, crowd into boda stages,
degrees folded in pockets,
dreams reduced to dust by unemployment.
Markets overflow with speeches,
but not with buyers.
Streets fill with posters,
but not with jobs.
Uganda’s wealth pools in corners,
thick, congealed, unreachable.
The nation limps,
while a few grow heavier, rounder,
their laughter echoing across gated compounds.
Collops of fat—
the evidence of excess,
the proof of imbalance,
the weight carried not by those who eat,
but by those who starve.
Don’t crown yourself solid
If your loyalty only echoes in empty rooms,
Spoken loud but hollow,
Like a drum with no rhythm,
Like a prayer with no soul.
Keep your promises like weapons—
Clean, sharp,
Loaded with intention,
Ready to be drawn when the world tests your name.
Not just drawn,
But fired with conviction.
Because trust is a fragile beast—
Once wounded, it limps,
Once broken, it dies.
And when someone learns
That your word is just smoke—
That your vows float,
Untethered from action,
Detached from meaning—
Then you, too, become weightless.
No matter how strong your voice sounds,
If your integrity whispers lies,
You will vanish in silence,
Forgotten not by accident—
But by design.
So be solid not in noise,
But in stillness that speaks.
Be the echo that returns
Because it had substance to begin with.
Be the promise that never had to shout—
Because it never broke.
Too much pain wrestles in my dark,
forcing limps that stifle my spark.
Trekking life's long and winding road,
I seek You for a faith reload.
Praising Your road paved with truth's seed,
I will find where pain does recede.
the floorboard that gasps when stepped on
the blue bulb pulsing in an amber-lit room
the coffee stain colonizing your blue shirt—
some days, we’re nothing but
a tiny inconvenience
sharpen a pencil too far—it snaps
gargled too long, you swallow by accident
sending flowers too early—
some days, we’re nothing but
the clock that limps or leaps
some days, we are
the red shirt always missing—
until we bleed into everything
Imagine,
I heard her loud painful fading groans
I looked at her swollen face
And saw the blood gushing out of her body
She was slowly fading
And I was only fourteen
Her heartbeat had stopped
But still I could not tell
She stretched her last
And on my arms she passed
Few days later I read
"Suffered severe internal bleeding,
Brain haemorrhage
Broken spine and limps"
The post mortem result
Imagine,
I called her name
But she was already gone
She was mourning her own death
A sudden tragic end
With so much misplaced bones
And then sun proves
its mettle. Its warm rays hit
neighborhoods, forests and all
at enlarged angle of impingement.
Brightness and heat return
to maximize uplift of moods.
Energy is injected into lives
that had been lethargic.
They expose their busts and limps
and walk, skip, run and
swim in celebration of life.
Jamborees on grass and floors!
Backpackers arrive at toes
of cliffs, and some are crazy
enough to trust springy ropes
to swing in bungy jumps.
Inhibition decay in the summer
as heat warms and over burns at times.
some runners overstretch
and collapse in a heap with
exhaustion promoted by heat.
The sun darkens some folks
to decrease color differences
on display on the beaches.
Nature chimes in with winds
and grumbling as thunder.
occasionally, it relieves the
heat with showers and rain
that falls in torrents.
It sends hailstones to curb excesses.
it is summer time above
the equation, and migratory
birds and folks with cash
from the other half will also
come to join the regionals
here to shout and jerk in play.
Now that when darkness dares at me,
The flame of life flickers in me,
And loneliness stares at me,
I feel not like meeting you.
My life’s sun having set in me,
Its midnight having met in me,
And darker, morrow’s date in me,
I feel not like meeting you.
Getting dull love’s image in me,
Raging my old age in me,
What with its wailing visage,
I feel not like meeting you.
When gasping gets my breath in me,
And death a firm faith in me
O urgent that calleth me,
I feel not like meeting you.
Tails when love’s sad tale in me,
Its pain when gets no pale in me,
Gusts a giant gale in me,
I feel not like meeting you.
Nigh but limps when old love in me,
No proof is left to prove in me,
No new move left to move in me,
I feel not like meeting you.
With fault lines having spread in me,
Time that once led no more in me,
The heart that bled no more in me,
I feel not like meeting you.
____________________________
Continued in Part II
Quatrains (rhyme and refrain) |04.03.2024| lost love
I'm sitting in an old station
Waiting on a train
I don't see the clouds
But my knee says it's rain.
I just ate a cold sandwich
Out of pink cellophane
I'm going back to Michigan
And my family again.
An old lady Limps up
And sits down with her cane
Says I can't dawdle
How long will this take.
She sips from a small bottle
Claims it's for pain.
Moves along her way
Says it smells like rain.
A young mother with twins
Are having a fun time.
They're laughing about
A child's book of rhymes.
They giggle again
And many around smile.
She is a kind mom
Her twins are cutie pies.
A man who looks sad
Wears a black suit.
With a Gammage hat
And lizard skin boots.
He's talking with a gal
All about growing fruit.
Then he says rain.
So, that's moot.
A dude in the corner
Says he doesn't like planes
He moving where it's warmer
To cold there in Maine.
We all hear the horns,
Now it's pouring rain.
Two hours in the station,
Waiting for a train.
Little Bit waddles and limps downstairs at the sound of my voice. Barks at the hyperactive English Springer with all the fervor of Boris, the Russian Wolfhound, of Disney’s Lady and the Tramp fame.
the scruffy old stud
with four legs close to the ground -
wisdom’s on his side
~ Dear Old Golden Rule Days? ~
The 2023 school year mercifully limps to a close
Seems eons ago when students could afford to doze
No more - Today they'd better stay on their toes
Every few days a mass shooting, or a bomb threat -- to your stations!
Teens fighting their teachers over perceived rights violations
There is gender dysphobia, bullying, taunting
Halloween the day that is least haunting
Ah! But perhaps common ground exists, the books we've all read
Then again, I forgot, teens watch Tik-tok instead
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