cuckoo bystander
hippies hound
desecrate passing
shrewdly badmouth
siegfried bobcat
wake european
spirits enlisting
the globally
fortuitousness by
reading rhythmic
confrontation dutifully
fluster fission
spat and
unite your
sourness unlearned
(Weekly Magnetic Poetry Challenge • September 7–13, 2026)
Longing flickers like a spell
loose in the dark...
a small, bright predator
pursuing the shape of you.
You appear where reality thins,
a shimmer of mist,
a spirit wearing light.
Desire opens its hidden door
and the door becomes sky.
I reach,
and my reach turns luminous,
a quiet magic
that conjures your presence
from memory,
from myth,
from the soft ache
that knows your potency.
Here,
in the enchantment between worlds,
you rise...
a mirage,
a star,
a dream
I can almost touch.
The busy dials of day start to fade,
As quiet heals the choices we’ve made.
We breathe ourselves into a stillness deep,
Where our heavy thoughts are now asleep.
The universe rings out a hidden chord,
A tapestry where silent truths are poured.
Through layers of the world we rarely see,
There lives a vast and shining mystery.
A person stands, a welcoming doorway,
To catch a whisper from far, far away.
Two distant spheres of life will meet,
And elusive currents turn discrete.
Great concepts turn to language and to art,
As ancient magic speaks to every heart.
Our fragile hands and voices meet the call,
To bring a healing comfort to all.
Yet if this doorway spans the stars above,
Or winds through human thoughts of hope and love,
The truth behind the magic stays concealed—
To doubt or to believe, your choice is sealed.
OIL PRICES STABLE
SOME SHIPS GETTING THROUGH ABLE
BLOCKADE A FABLE
waterfalls spray
mirage of rainbow colors
in summer sunshine
Each time I had sipped mirage
thinking it was water
and I made my mind understand
that it had quenched my thirst.
Now neither mirage nor water
can make me feel thirsty again.
I am cohabiting with my thirst
in a perfect equilibrium:
neither does my thirst lure me,
nor do I try to evoke my thirst.
We have compromised with each other
for the sake of peace.
Because it's better to be thirsty
than to be falsely hopeful.
A mirage
Reflecting another path
Showcasing another life
Man to man
A timeless wonder
Ravaging the mind
Distorting thoughts and persons
Transcending sages
Traversing phases
Life, a treacherous haven
Selling tenuous dreams
Whispering delirious melodies
Slithering into nooks and crannies
Branching far and wide
Dispensing the message
Selling the vision
Death is one of those abstract things
That is impossible to actually meet
We may imagine we will meet him
Some day in our future
Imagine him lurking now perhaps
Waiting patiently
Like a friend or foe
But the truth is we will never know
Because if this material life is all there is
Then our last moment of it
Is our last moment, period
And so there will be no moment
Of death for us
And if we are an eternal spiritual soul
Then our last moment of this life
Is just the last step
Before our next
And in that step
There is no death
To even pass over or beyond
Death is the ultimate illusion
Appearing larger than life
Until we are there at its door
And we are left
With only a clear light
On all that has and will ever be
Forever more
(3/9/26)
I’m down upon my hands and knees,
Dry as the proverbial bone.
I know you hear my lonely pleas,
The way that my poor heart will moan.
I see refreshment up ahead,
An end to my despair? Oh no!
A mirage in the desert air!
You are not really there…
As every human heart will ache
For someone’s hand that they might hold,
Deep down we know we’re bound to break.
That is just how the story’s told.
Thought I could find a better end
To this, our hearts affair. Oh no!
Just a mirage. You do not care!
You are not really there…
I thought it might be made of gold,
A earthly treasure I could share.
Just a mirage. The cupboard’s bare.
You are not really there…
Self and selfless exist on a spectrum
A path of maturation
A path of relative perspective
From personal to transpersonal.
When you are young it is all about you
As you grow you see there are others too
Until when old, finally see those others
Make up the many, and you the very few.
All of us are hardwired for empathy
And compassion too
Although the two are not the same.
Empathy, connected to our pain centers,
Makes us feel other’s pain as our own,
A basically selfish concern.
Compassion, connected to our love centers,
Makes us want to take on and share
The suffering of others,
An inherently selfless concern.
Compassion doesn’t lead us to harm others
But empathy can. Empathy
Is what lies at the root of mass hysteria
Leading one to join a lynch mob
Soccer-fan riot
Anti-ICE protest
Or nationalist army marching to war.
Compassion is what leads us to see the other
As no different from ourselves
No matter what side the other is on.
In the end it’s really not selfless
It’s just self expanded
To include it all.
(1/23/26)
fear of failure is nothing short of making success a true mirage
2nd Place
In the folds of night, as a wave, you came
Charioted in a filmy dream
All night you were with me
In love’s uncharted land, we roamed
You sang to me sweet rhymes of love
Echoing the lore of romantic lovers
Your voice choked and moist with passion
Overwhelming me with an ecstasy so rare
You fondled me with infinite tenderness
Opening in me all inlets of pleasure
Our hearts with divine furore filled
And we knew love’s sweet benediction
In the seclusion of that silvery night
Looking into the corners of your love lit eyes
I saw an ocean of rising and receding tides
And took a dip in the whirlpool of love
All night I inhaled your scent
Knew the warmth of your breath
Siphoned the sweetness of your lips
Alas! With dawn, you faded away like dew
water!
I threw myself down
scooping gritty sand into my dry mouth
want write poems that not
bout politics life's weighty
absurdities death's grip all
simple poems contentment
son's enthusiasm energy
wife's cooking heroic endurance
kitten's bouncing curiosity
old cat's slowing solitude
dog praying hard reform
colors fall newness spring
mowing leaves grass gazing
on in forest looking beyond
tree tops lake mirage day
venus mars night
bach lifting toward
mozart floating down
heaven singing love conquering
fulfilled voluntary unions bodies
cooperation nations peace
strength through peace soul society
treading softly near edge
old habit making safe path
some sweet day will
I write my ‘i’s differently now
—your letters etched themselves into my blood
I eat everything with chili
that burning sting is close enough to your kiss
I abandoned the blade. You’d be proud—
though only because we meet
every night, dream or not
Why do you haunt me, why?
but still, I tail
behind your cherry mirage
Lost
in this desert, I crawl
beneath a sun that brands skin
your smiling eyes lurk in the harsh glare—
ghost-lit nightstand in my tonic gin
billowing gray of exhaled nicotine
cobwebbed corner in that one drawer
only you and I know exist
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