Murmured Poems

Dream

Dream
I took your hands into mine with a gaze
You smiled and murmured, 
“I will not go, and why hold so tight?”
I let you go loose with a cautious look.
Though happy and blissful jiffy
Scared was I of the evading scene.
Will the time come grabbing you from me?
But stayed you till the end with me.
Rang the alarm eclipsing my soul
Dropping me to the world without you.
Realized did I, the biome of mine,
All alone but just with your memories.
Piercing is my soul, with a sharp dagger
Driving I am in the palanquin of grieve.
Beckons  me the responsibilities you bestowed
Beholds and harnesses to this secluded world.
Bewildered I am to transcend;
Elated I am to live in the old bygones
The treasure troves of memories of you and us 
That heaven have endued on us
Sandhya Bijoy

A Feeling of Fear

The air is dry, and each breath is a struggle.
My feet feel heavy and shackled,
Like a bird in a cage, I feel trapped, 
Unsure of what’s happening, I'm frightened.

My heart beats like a drum.
fast and hard,
In this storm, I am searching for a 
ray of light.
While inside of me, a monster is consuming my soul.
A voice in my head screams, This is 
Fear. It’s taking control.

In this endless climb, the ticking 
clock taunts,
Courage leaves and a cold shiver 
crawls down my spine,
A knot in my stomach tightens,
I closed my eyes and in a whisper, I murmured, “Whine or wine?”


By Zyrool

The Intervention

Chicken on dry sliced rye,
at his neat
office workstation,
no garnish.

Suddenly she was there,
her chair roller wheels
squeaking.

Next time get a 'footlong' sub
with Mayo and all the fixings.
We could share it.

Messy he murmured,
studying his monitor.

A sigh,
as the office angel rose upward
on chubby wings.

Lullaby of 2125

Once there lived a wizard who practiced thumbcraft,
who conjured with swipes and spells from his draft.
He began just at two with a clever old trick,
skipping ads on YouTube with a finger click.

By five he could summon a friend with a ping,
And charm them to stay with a joke or a zing.
At ten, he was crowned the king of the feed,
And levelled though boredom at lightning speed.
At twelve, he could filter his face into gold,
Hiding the parts that were wrinkled or old.

As he grew, he summoned up worlds on demand,
And unlocked new spells with a flick of his hand.
He bottled attention in shimmering views,
Then danced for the lords of the infinite cues.

His magic wand was a relic with light in its core,
A whispering flame that murmured, 'more and more".

Very soon, his scrolling sorcery reached its peak.
As ghost-echoed laughter grew brittle and bleak.

So, sleep, my child, while the blue shadows swell,
For Thumb Ms. Flick has vanished—and become the spell.

Two Drunkards

They sat holding bottles
In their hands
And armpits
Pouring mouthful 
Of liquor to fill 
Their hollow stomachs.

 They gazed at each other
As cat and mouse
And spoke a lot of
Inglish with slain syntax
To devirginate 
Their motherland.

The two drunkards! 
Spoke of a nation's illusions 
And the wilted state of
A nation's elites
Raping the cultural norm
Who raped the temple?

They said something
About Lubowa hospital
And praised the Bus Kingdom
For Grazing well the Gen z's 
Digging the tax hole
Who murmured a secured Future. 

They gazed at each other
As hare and hyena
And shakily gasped for breath
Of the holy bribe paid 
For their nocturnal duties
Poverty pasted on muzzled faces. 

Oh, the two drunkards! 
Finally hit the climax 
And roared at each other of
An accusation of not belonging
Reached for each other's neck
To strangle a refugee within.

© Ankwasa Harlord

In the Cradle

Forged in the cradle of crumbling stone,
The river murmured like an elder's song, 
A silver thread through earth’s old bones,
Unraveling what never should belong.

Like lightning shaped in liquid skin,
It laced through logs and shattered pride,
No war was waged against the din, 
Just gentle strength that slipped beside.

Over time, I’ve clung to rigid dreams,
Iron branches in a storm’s domain;
But rivers teach what silence means, 
That bending doesn't mean you're slain.

Wounds I wore like rusted chains
Became smooth pebbles in its tide;
The river wore them down with rain
Until they shimmered, purified.

Even stars reflected in its face
Seemed less fixed than I had thought;
The current showed a softer grace, 
To lose control is not to rot.

Roots now sprout where rage once grew,
Fed by waters I once feared.
And in that flow, I saw what’s true—
Resilience is what I've steered.

The Dog

Alone,
the dog outrides the flock,
warning away the terrors of night.
He sees
the cheery glow of the shepherds’ fire,
murmured talk and quiet laughter
float past him softly
on the chill autumn breeze.
He longs
to sit with them beside the light,
sharing avidly
(tongue lolling,
 slyly smiling)
in their good-natured jokes
but that is not his place:
He is a dog and no man
and his place is outside
in the dark, a sentinel.

He sees
the sleeping flock,
pressed body to body to hold their warmth,
and longs
to lie in their midst as one of them,
dreaming sheeply dreams,
but that is not his place:
He is a dog and no sheep
and must remain awake outside
to guide strays back to the fold.

The flock stirs anxiously and bleats.
His ears prick, he hears it too,
the tugging untamed howl
of wild wolves in the night.
The ancient wolf in him
longs
to melt into the forest,
romping with them
on their feral haunts,
but that is not his place either:
He is a dog and no wolf
and his place is beside the flock.

Saladin's Head

Under the solar system
in our basement I sat,
copying schematics of
superheterodyne radios
from a book on electronics,
while my dad, across from me,
stood at his drawing board 
illustrating advertisements
for feed and farm equipment.

The floor was painted blood red,
the walls bandage white—
a battlefield made tidy.
The dehumidifier murmured its hymn
beneath Saladin’s ceramic gaze,
his turbaned brow inscrutable
as my father bent to sketch
a combine in perfect perspective.

And why Saladin’s head?
What did it mean to my dad,
this sultan of Egypt and Syria?
Did he admire the general
for how he fought with honor
or just like the look of him—
that calm authority, 
that stylized beard?
Was it a joke I never got,
or a reminder
of some private war?

Saladin’s head— 
commanding,
noble, 
a little creepy—
still hangs
somewhere in my mind,
a relic or a riddle,
watching as I trace new lines
through circuits of memory,
searching for my father’s face.

Fulcrum Of A Rose

Line of Inquiry
 - track where lies the fulcrum of the fragrance of a rose, then likewise find within, your soul.


People murmured, she’s the rose among the thorns
When they saw me playing with my brothers, not alone
Same line was heard more often around
When I raced with little boys, just to get a crown.

Then, I always sang the prayer song of my mother
Asking God to make me grow and bloom like flower
I felt God’s abundant care as my bud bloomed
Into a rose in my community started from home.

As first child and single rose who’d dawned so early
Petals’ exquisite hue displayed more prominently
As floral leaf burgeoned, sprawled... satiated their eyes
My doubt on fragrance, can they smell or feel me inside?

Then, I sang my own prayer song with fervor in my room
Asking God to help me track, diffuse my fragrance’s fulcrum
After a  while, I felt God’s unceasing light and reply:
My child, my love's generosity with joy's in your soul, shine, emit, fly.

Fade

Fade into the void,
pale and unseen,
a whisper of silence,
dim murmured echo.

Unheard and unremarked,
an absent fragment,
of drifting haze,
that lingers unseen.

Fragile, easily shattered,
weightless and distant,
an obscure hollow,
of faint gray dust.

Blurred empty thought,
foggy and fractured,
like an unfelt sigh,
flickering invisible in the murk.

O veiled shadow
of former self,
ashen phantom
of better days,

am I but a fleeting shade,
doomed by fate
to wilt and wane,
and fray at the edges,

to shiver and wilt,
until vanishing,
simply disappear?

Not even a glimmer
of self remains.

The Price of Power

In dusk's silence, I wandered into the forest's recesses
Where ancient secrets slumber, and mystic powers weave
The Uba forest's murmured wonders, a realm of awe
Where powder-kissed mysteries await, and spirits breathe
Fortified by inner strength, I communed with the land's guardian
A being of primal power, with eyes that saw beyond
The veil of reality, where worlds collide and blend
Humans morph into beasts, and creatures take on human form
In this realm of shape-shifting dreams, night and day converge
As beings with terrifying visages stride, their power unbound
I emerged transformed, my essence infused with forest might
Empty plates overflowed, and respect followed in my wake
But power's double-edged sword sliced through my foolish pride
My secret revealed, my life force ebbed away, in cool blood spilled
Now a spirit within the spirit realm, I whisper warnings true
Human power, fleeting and fragile, against God's eternal might forever

Cosmic in Her Gaze

The whirlpool stars of the Milky Way appeared when she was feeling grey.
Mother-of-pearl constellations shimmered across her skin in the candlelight.
Saturn’s red rings spiraled wildly at her climax—
A solar flare unleashed in breathless surrender.
Turquoise desire bled into solemn greys,
And those greys married verdant dreams, swirling in slow motion.
To gaze at her was to weightless drift in a heavenly sky,
A vacation from this unforgiving world.
Her allure was all-encompassing, enchanted and unique,
Spiraling me into a pheromone-induced high
Each time she glided by like moonlight on water.
She was a celestial mesh of chaos and charm
Unreachable, until the universe paused and she murmured, stay.

Anthem for a Traumatized Youth

What thou shalt be wasted? 
With the ship of sorrow harboured.
Like it gives thee an unexpected explosion,
And the heart of trauma and darkness is implanted.
It clouds into a season of bloodshed and pain,
But all thy life seems to be bludgeoned.
Tumbled into a canvas of time,
As thou shalt find a euphoric heart abused.
No description of fear was given,
With thy face bashed and muddied.
It shalt not be a publicized cry for help, 
Nor shalt it be a dark horse murmured.
As a hard and stone-cold sadness torments thee, 
And thy emotional feelings go unnoticed.
Memories would put thee in a chokehold,
And thy mutual senses are blurred.
Thou would find that thy pride is thy worst nightmare, 
In thy skull is a slug that is slightly planted.
That, my friend, is a trauma that can drown in thy sorrows,
And it can get thee wasted.

Whispers in the moonlight 26-10-23

Amidst the tranquil moonlit night, the forest murmured secrets.
The leaves rustled in hushed conversation,
the shadows in exuberance
darting from trunk to trunk,
languishing wherever the moonlight was absent.
Shreds of darkness form an eclectic collection of silhouettes,
dusting the trail with beasts yet to be chartered by man.
The haunting howls of owls enchant the night
sending animals bolting frantically into the undergrowth,
their rough countenances illuminated
by the eerie glow of nocturnal fungi,
ignited by the moon's touch.
In this hostile ambience,
a petal of purity ripens in to fruition.
A figure in a dove white cloak amongst the silvery darkness,
beneath the skies, beneath the trees
dancing and fluttering in a hidden breeze.

Brawny Ale

A frothy crown, pale as the whites 
Of eyes widened with fascination,
Perched on a robust body, deep as molasses.
Brooding; concealing a warm rapport.
But still so condescending, its stout posture
Condenses air to beads of sweat.

Invited, parched lips kiss the cold glass
Rewarded with familiar comfort -
A bitter burst, sharp and clean,
Fading into toffee warmth,
Hints of roasted coffee and chocolate bloom,
All linger, like a whispered secret.

The golden harp strums cheerful notes
In harmony with taps, clinks, and murmured oaths
Cheers dance over lacquered walls, awash with glee
As gulps of crisp bitters and molten sweets
Cascade, watering dry cracks in weary bones.

A tonic for the soul, it lifts the load -
Worries dissolve, fading like bubbles on the lip.
It washes away the settling dust,
Soothes the mind into peaceful currents,
Sinking burdens to its murky depths
As spirits rise to play in the air of its frothy crown.

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