I walk up to the mirror, to see myself cry;
There’s plenty of reasons, so don’t ask why.
I can’t even choose which one it really is
I just look at my face, with running tears!!
Ramble and inner monologue
Won’t do on the floor no more,
This is my new poem,
Feel it or don’t, though.
Doesn’t have a name yet, only an intro.
You can do it, just let it out.
No rhyme, don’t limit what you think,
Just say it out there, and wait for it.
What happened to the funny man
that insecure comedian
O, not done, he carries on
transcendent verse, his latest con
Spirit-starved
sate my hunger if you will
humour me with comedy
'til I'm full and had my fill
for if music be the food of love
and laughter music of the soul
feast me on a funny song
nothing serious but something droll
tickle my funny bone with a tone
to make my toes all wriggle
and nourish me on melody
let me have a heartfelt giggle
With apologies to William Shakespeare (1564 – 1616)
The ocean breeze never shuts up.
Currents, rough currents.
Washing up on that horrible shore when there’s better places.
This beach ball.
It’s like my disability.
Gets messy from sand, and tapped lightly into the air.
Except, such a beach ball gets put away eventually.
Deflated.
Defeated from being a beach ball at the end of the day.
The ocean breeze is sandy failure.
Whooshing sounds of people splashing.
My disability.
Gets passed around like a little shovel used for sandcastles.
Gets left behind on the shore as the shore shifts.
The breeze never stops.
The shoreline is changing.
I’m proud of the tangled seaweed.
That feels like something.
Ionesco Rhinoceros still occupies
The stage that is offered so kindly
So there he is, with his weak sighted eyes
Staring at me rather blindly
Don’t worry my dear, soon we’ll be forbidden
I belong to the countless minority
My act in your play was so poorly written
You need others to feed your authority
This civilization, where everyone’s lost
Blamed for inappropriate views
Clashes with me, cause I’m paying my cost
Only for things that I use
I don’t make excuses, I always agree
With slander and hatred I get
I'm taking for granted their thoughts about me
It’s cheaper than arguing all that
May your Rhino restrictions be harder than ever
All satires of the past become real
I find myself punished through trial and error
Empirically off the deal
Red geranium leaves by my doorstep I see
The winds from Atlantic blow cold
The Rhinoceros people jog on around me
It seems that they never get old..
"As the leaf of life sleeps upon my lips,"
I will see the "foliage of farewell."
"When the soul-stars dream and die,"
I see red leaves covering the fall trees.
"O fall, let this lore of love be the last,"
for I now see "I am the Eyes of Time."
The green leaves must change colors for the fall,
but "neither dusk nor dawn can delude me."
That's on me
By Dustin Branum
9/14/26
And they will never know the lengths I go
No fault of mine, they respectfully declined
And they will never know the pain I know
No fault of mine, they're lost and blind
And they will never know the love I show
No fault of mine, my love is strong and divine
And they will never know the things I know
No fault of mine, my knowledge grows like a vine
And they will never know the hate that grows
No fault of mine, my anger is mine
They must never know the things I know
How far I'll go to keep from show
This pain I know, this terrible glow
That burns my soul, the hatred I have for you all
The love I have to give, I gave it all
The terrible tragedy that they all saw
No fault of mine, I really tried to save you all from me
But you just wouldn't leave me be
My demons, my misery, my hate, I'd hide
Yet you begged of me to conquer and divide
To take my knowledge of power and just let it devour
The hatred you caused me to spill along with my blood you see
It's not about you, it's not about me
It's about Destiny
Why can't you see?
I see myself at the tender age of five.
A strange loneliness I feel, and I am shy.
I wonder sometimes why I’m even alive.
I chase fireflies and watch clouds in the sky.
I’m fifteen, more confident and doing well at school.
I read, play records and dream about guys.
I like to think I’m nobody’s fool,
and I’ve no time for watching clouds in the sky.
I’m thirty and still, there’s so much ahead.
Married, with two kids, I am having great fun.
Health concerns haven’t yet filled me with dread.
I swim often in a pool and lay out in the sun.
I’m fifty; my children have long since left the nest.
I teach and write poems; I’m a grandmother too.
Except for health issues, these years could be my best.
Life’s gotten so busy. There’s so much to do!
By 70, I still feel blessed, yet also have some woes.
I care less for possessions and the world’s triviality.
I want to be grateful no matter how life goes.
I realize now my purpose seeking spirituality.
I was sitting in sub-zero temperatures in the Northern Arctic
As one does when you're a Swedish spy
Caught between conflicting ethical codes...
Stuck in my tent I stumbled upon a poem
Pondering the experience of Hot British Tea.
The poem was long and decorous with adjectives.
My lips were stuck and frosted together in parts
As I murmured along with teeth chattering
With the rhythm of an African cheetah.
Though the words buttered into my soul.
"Steep," "simmering," "piping," and "warming"
Warmed my innards and radiated outward,
The imagination muscling forth the reality.
"SNIP!"
"SNIP!"
"SNIP!"
Crikey. Long-ranged silencers. I've been found.
(Hungarians.)
"SNIP!"
"SNIP!"
Yesterday, who knows where I was, lost in my thoughts.
Yesterday, a morning when you wake up in Moscow or Budapest.
Yesterday, a day when the light caresses other horizons.
Yesterday, a night when the darkness of a sky resembles yours.
Yesterday, I am already far away, my body carries my melancholy.
Yesterday is the memory of a living breath that left me.
Yesterday, I whirl in the four winds and drift away from tomorrow.
Yesterday, images build the memory of small moments.
Yesterday, awaited messages that warm our hearts.
Yesterday, sufferings that broke you and left you like an orphan.
Yesterday, a flight of swallows leaving an electric wire.
Yesterday, the warmth of your gaze lost in mine.
Yesterday, my words that play, trying to find yours again.
Yesterday, the beginning of an end, or at least a road fading away.
Yesterday, I wish you had never existed so I wouldn’t have to mourn you.
Yesterday, I beg you, stay today or become the day before yesterday.
Joel Charvillat .
Spare me some love, Fidelis—
the way a beggar spares a coin
from the hand of a saint,
or rain spares one roof
while drowning the village.
Give me what you have left
after you have fed the wolves,
after your heart has paid its taxes
to every stranger
who called it home.
I do not ask for the moon.
It has disappointed me enough—
always hanging above the ruins
like a witness too beautiful
to testify.
Give me a cup of your silence.
I have learned to drink from empty things.
I have kissed the rim of absence
until my lips forgot
what warmth was supposed to mean.
Spare me some love, Fidelis—
not all of it.
Only what remains
when the house is quiet,
and the last door closes.
Think not,
That I see you there;
You may, as you show
No story of the dead
Would leave with the devil,
The woods were golden
Through beeches;
Truth heard me learn again
(Blackout of Another Dark Lady by Edwin Arlington Robinson)
a leafless branch with me
but that's not what God did see
God spoke over me
of me He poured into
God spoke over me
now restored and renewed
for I'm a branch on His tree
a limb poised for prosperity
God spoke over me
of me He poured into
God spoke over me
now restored and renewed
fruitful purposeful
I longed to be
saturated with godly abundancy
pruned fine-tuned
precise in Christ
ready to be filled
In this new life
A leafless branch was me
but that's not what God did see
God spoke over me
of me He poured into
God spoke over me
now restored and renewed
a new creation in Christ
living an abundant Life
God spoke over me
of me He poured into
God spoke over me
now restored and renewed
God spoke over me
of me He poured into
God spoke over me
I'm now restored and renewed
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