Long Dissects Poems
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They brought me the child
long before he became a man feared for his deadly silence.
He sat at the edge of the chair
like the edge of the world itself,
watching fingers twitch,
watching mouths bend into counterfeit smiles,
watching fathers slam doors
two seconds before the storm arrived.
The others called us “too sensitive.”
But sensitivity is merely pattern recognition
without anesthesia.
He learned early
that love could arrive holding flowers
and leave carrying a weapon.
That footsteps in hallways
forecast weather better than television.
That a tightening jaw,
a shifted glance,
a laugh half a second too sharp
could predict catastrophe
with mathematical precision.
So the nervous system adapted.
Not badly.
Brilliantly.
The brain became a lighthouse
spinning across black water,
searching endlessly for wreckage.
And eventually
the search itself
became the illness.
Because when humans survive enough fires,
they begin smelling smoke
inside rainstorms.
They read danger into pauses,
betrayal into fatigue,
violence into ordinary human clumsiness.
The amygdala, overworked old sentinel,
no longer distinguishes
between a wolf
and the vigilant rabid memory of one.
This is how extremes are born.
Not from madness—
but from repetition.
A person cornered too many times
stops living in the center of the room.
One memorizes exits.
Studies eyes.
Measures tone.
Dissects every syllable
like a bomb technician clipping wires.
And the tragedy—
the terrible, clinical tragedy—
is that that child is often correct.
Just not always.
But “not always”
is where relationships come to die.
Because eventually
the loved one says:
“You think everything is an attack.”
And the wounded mind whispers back:
“No.
Only the things that look exactly like the last one.”
In my profession
we give this elegant names:
Hypervigilance,
trauma response,
hostile attribution bias.
But beneath the textbooks
it is merely this:
A human being
who learned survival then fare well.
B is for Buzzard under my hat,
my brain meaty and raw.
His talons cling like puppet strings.
His rabid teeth chew and gnaw.
Ye old Buzzard, nothing warm,
just a cold sentinel of death.
Not like the life-giving stork —
impervious to the stench of your breath.
Your buzzard form like a swarm of flies.
The maggots mirror your childhood.
The terror of your bulky brig —
weeping under my wing - your no good.
The psychiatrist dissects my thoughts.
One by one he pulls the seething strings,
whilst the buzzard glares at the Rorschach.
Irritated by the smell of ink and pendulum swing,
the suicidal creature flees to the window, succumbs.
The gift of happiness and flamingos, pink,
from my mailbox to the farthest edge.
Quite merry, maybe a bit wild, I sip a drink
of cherry cordial and admire the pink rabbits*
spiraling out of control but perfectly neat,
in row after row of planted fluorescence.
F is for Flamingo - now my crazy world’s complete.
1/9/2019
Contest: Buzzards and Flamingos
Sponsor: Anthony Slausin
Not a true story
*as rabbits multiply
There is more in the poet’s craft
than strings of words adorned in the trappings of poesy.
He sees beauty even in a simple thing,
unclothing it, giving it a new cloak,
and revealing the work of art trapped in its ordinariness.
His verses are not just exclamations
from a heart possessed by passion,
nor mere ramblings from a tormented mind--
both of which are of transitory nature--
but are precious moments
captured, distilled, and preserved
for what he hopes is eternity.
Like a doctor who discerns
every cell and tissue in the human anatomy,
the poet dissects thoughts and experiences,
breathes into them new life
and invites others to view them in a different light.
November 9, 2025
Among 3rd Place
Pen Something to this Prompt Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Sotto Poet
In the arctic frozen sky of the enchanting land the midnight sun
leans on the horizon briefly in bright summer and again it rises,
I didn’t know when a new day actually would have or had begun.
The frosty sky in winter night burns in flashes of aurora borealis.
The North Sea stretches the long arms through the blue fjords,
the visible heritage of the glacial deep scoop of the Pleistocene,
dissects the corrugated coastline as if sliced by the Viking sword.
I was held captive there for a long time by the magnificent scene.
To unravel the petrified mysteries of the Nordic Caledonian rocks
I crossed many dales and ridges of the geologic arc west of Bergen,
walked for days across the uninhabited islands where eagles flock.
In the cold crystal rains the shelter of the ancient caves I had taken.
On my travel I stayed a number of days in Lyderhorn, a small village
overlooking the tranquil turquoise waters of the narrow Loddefjord.
A gracious lady of the pretty house, Julia Aasen in her advanced age
gave me a furnished room at a rent that at the time I could afford.
She used to invite me for dinner at her place almost every evening,
offered me plate full of peppered boiled potato and hot fiskeboller,
slices of brown bread she baked with thick Jerlsberg cheese topping,
showed fondly the faded pictures of her late husband, a fish seller.
Time came to leave and say heart-felt ‘tusen tak’ on a freezing day.
She presented me a pair of woolen gloves she had specially knitted.
Years later when I wear these her frail touch they remotely convey,
I feel the warm heart of Julia of Norway although she has departed.
September 28, 2017.
The incisive probe of insight
dissects my life’s stratum of delusion,
the shards of shattered pretense
scatter as discarded debris,
the mind reminds itself to forget.
The blizzard of discontent blows,
my desolate heart turns
into a tree defoliated in wasteland,
far away from verdant thicket.
The sunburst day fades out fast,
dusk envelopes the twilight sky.
I don’t forget that the sun sinks
to rise again with resurrected radiance.
I wait for the heavenly hues of the new sun
to suffuse me with the gleam of sanguinity,
when from the dust of distress
I felt the Phoenix, concealed within so long,
rise in an instant for metamorphosis
in the divine dawn of regeneration.
i do not notice the peeling white polish on my nails. the blinding mirror has betrayed me once more and now my body wants in. i now bite my nails but i do not notice its bitter tang—my eyes are paralyzed to the screen as it dissects me; it is the first to forsake me. the mirror is false. in the scrutinizing eye of the camera each imperfection seizes the spotlight; beneath all layers of falsity—the smudged eyeliner, the thick lashes, the sharp-smelling nail polish—lies a pathetic 16-year-old girl who can only pray for a way to fix her face, her body, her smile, her laugh— she can only lay motionless as she gouges out her stomach with the hope that by morning, appetites will become nothing more than a myth. the mirror cannot help but lie when the little girl engrossed in fantasies of magic, greek gods, and the idea that she could become anything now cannot see further than the hand-held mirror inches from her face and the honed blade of the tweezer tips gripped between her mangled fingernails that lay like salivating wolves ready to pounce on the next blemish— the mirror cannot help but lie.
Youth, eager to ignite passion's flame;
does not stop and question if love is true.
For their need to belong outweighs their fears;
a desire so strong it's hard to ignore.
Lovers blinded by the aura of love;
shun all reason as feelings zero in.
For fantasies and possibilities;
tickle libidos, muting silent screams.
Doubt dissects dreams with a scalpel of truth,
as reality tears your world apart.
And your heart bears the scars of betrayal;
inflicted by promises, rife with lies.
The pain that love inflicts is troublesome,
debatably, more to shun than embrace.
And yet, under the surface of mistrust,
hope resonates with the beat of your heart.
Scents of sea, historical townships and seafood
Thrilled like vacations not just a dinner destination.
Each trip to Chesapeake Bay staid that fine mood.
As we rode, my family's blend got on its finest silly
Making jokes, singing, bro and I loved Dad’s riddles.
Eyes all turned somber passing the barn site where
Destiny once heard JW Booth say, ‘useless, useless ...’
Crackers, hammers, picks, butter sat on brown paper with
Randomly scattered crabs piled high excited my family.
Although not novices, Dad would inspect our dissects,
Brag to Moma about how strong his shellfish genes
Swam, huh?
A Poem a Day
Seems an obtuse way
To bring blocked feelings out.
What can I say?
While alone,
Hidden away,
I seek meaningful rhymes to think about.
What is the plan here?
The mystery?
The Plot?
How does this mysterious game strategy work?
After all, playing with words,
As every poet keenly knows
Can be rigged so that nothing comes out.
Is something more sinister in play?
Is there a twist in this plot?
A revelation, a purpose, only the game maker knows.
Or are we playing alone?
It is silly
How this poem a day
Dissects my mind, my spirit, my soul.
And in the end, this poet’s pen,
May have too much or too little to say.
However, this poet is sly
And begins to suspect, a ghost player is playing along.
A Masterful agenda, with plot, twists unintended,
Hidden within this game.
Words wasted, let loose, and scattered;
When brought painfully
back together
Can reveal the games truthful intent.
The ethereal purpose and loving power
Of words lost,
without order,
abandoned,
scattered,
unspent.
When set free
Reveals Heaven's poetry resplendent
Residing within this poet’s pen.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Suspended like a cataract’s pale lens,
*the cold-hearted orb rules the night~
its blue-gray light pooling
into the hollow of his heart.
Fourteen envelopes stacked like unmarked graves.
He fingers the topmost seal, the wax brittle as hope~
the moon bleaching
their blue edges to bone.
What ghosts swim in this lunar milk?
No answers come~
only the ache of his ink
confessing:
These are *letters I’ve written, never meaning to send~
each a whispered confession,
unspoken prayers of my soul
paper cathedrals
built on the fault line of my heart.
small, papery ghosts, haunted by the weight
of unspoken things~
each a brittle testament,
a love that breathes only in the amber of my memory.
each one unfolded
read in the stillness of lunar milk.
each page I lift,
the moonlight dissects each I’m sorry
each one swirls in specks of dust
where your absence hangs.
I see your ghost in every autumn leaf.
I remember our nights on sheets of *white satin.
Silence and regret are suffocating me.
Come home…
he rewrites in paragraphs
…till dawn bleeds gray.