the bystander dutifully reading obediently
at a casement with sidearm
is competitively assuming
that our souari acreage hijacking
haliotis ostreidae alismatidae
mucilaginous lithographic osmundaceae
through ceratodontidae
in an airless helwingia
cascade from her exacum cardiographic heap
as your jeweled cuckoo awakened
into this fiendish confrontation
by enlivened catharsis
lacerate fission will scatter
you let me snuggle ?
we were restorative
but siegfried and I unite
never unturned .
(Weekly Magnetic Poetry Challenge • September 7–13, 2026)
At HI features, oh how we shudder.
Here, back in time, each human brain has 'em,
in DNA's scripts, brains soft as butter,
and the code of low-grade protoplasm.
But now, thanks to Tomorrow 4.1,
we've recognized the strange and the stranger,
and we look proudly at what we have done,
eradicating the human danger.
Rest assured, we are safe, silicon friend.
They were just evolution's hapless bump.
The human race has now come to an end.
and we're not plagued by that pesky ol' chump,
for, we quashed the clumsy human pretense
they called unique ethics and intelligence.
in the attic,
a box of old postcards
still smells faintly of cedar.
I read the handwriting~
looped, patient,
a kind of tenderness
that doesn’t announce itself.
Some artifacts
don’t need to be rare
to matter.
THE VAN GONE MUSEUM
A gleaming, extravagant building.
Filled with jewels of art.
The brainless herd pile in at
their allotted time slot. No thoughts
Zombie tourists flock into the Van
Gogh museum. It doesn’t matter
how many nationalities are there.
Everyone does the same.
Observers drone from one gallery
to another.
Their eyes not even focusing on the
painstaking art.
The portraits and landscapes stare
back at the viewer in
disbelief and disgust.
Please comprehend what I am.
The constant shutter of a camera
can be heard but not the slightest
intellectual thought can be even
fathomed amongst them.
Those photos they taken cannot
even echo the detail of the brush stroke
or slight colour difference.
They are a false facsimile at best.
The painting now a lifeless corpse.
A digital copy is what remains on a
seldom used SD card.
Never to be looked upon again.
A gravity trudges the cattle toward
the famous sunflowers ; not for
artistic merit but for bragging
rights and social media selfies
Although Van Gogh is long dead, it
seems apparent his legacy, his art,
his life’s work is now
Van Gone….
Talk to me ,God-
What do You see in me?
An instrument of faith,
Yet still bound to the flesh,
What do you expect of me?
Can you even hear me speak ?
I was forged in pain,
Held in the arms of stress
A soul that never rests-
I grew up unrest
What do You want me confess?
I stumbled in my grace
Watch my blessings drift off course-
still, You spared my soul
Why me...
Over them?
This-
Is between You and I
Surviving_Pawn
In the bitter museum the past is on parade
in postures of reproach. Vast corridors
display a thousand ways of being ashamed
and illustrate the progress of despair.
Behind their glass, the mannequins of once
exhibit all the wealth of worlds now gone,
and frozen in their accusatory dance
the avatars of loss are labelled Done.
In the bitter museum extinguished dynasties
of hope set forth their monuments, inscribed
in that dead language, laughter. Vanished breeds
of joy are shown, regretfully alive.
The relics seem so real they almost leer.
In the bitter museum the dust is streaked with tears.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In a museum, right there on the wall,
The name of the artwork’s displayed,
Along with the artist and elements used
And the date it was painted or made.
Yet some institutions don’t follow the script
And there are no labels or signs.
Instead, there are folders you pluck from a pile
For the info most signage defines.
It’s annoying to me, extra work, if you will,
Matching outlines and numbers to where
On the wall every gallery work has been hung,
For a plaque would be better off there.
Some museums are known for exhibits so dense
There is not enough room for a card,
But the one I just came from is spacious and spare,
So some signage would not have been hard.
There isn’t one thing that I need
But so much I could buy,
Though contemplating purchases,
It pays to question why.
I’m at the age when I will try
To spend a little less,
For I have lots of jewelry
And tchotchkes, I confess.
Yet here’s my rule of thumb when I
Find something that appeals –
I picture leaving it behind
To see the way that feels.
If never seeing it again
Begins to make me sad,
I know that once it’s mine, I’ll be
Relieved and more than glad.
An object that brings joy
And is a splurge I can afford
Makes me give in to temptation
With each smile as my reward.
There must be many ways to connect to the Source.
If the ocean is the art of letting go,
why aren’t we all swimming?
Ocean — a museum of love,
where each wave is a painting,
and love flows in every frame.
We are collectors of this water,
each of us carrying a different kind of body within.
Some of us are afraid to expand our own museum.
Afraid to dent the frame, smudge the paint,
tear the canvas, or touch the artifact of our intuition.
We walk carefully, guarding what wants to flow.
We fear walking around with empty containers,
for aliveness demands surrender.
The more awake we become,
the more we resist the tides of change.
If the heart of the ocean is the soul,
then our souls are the nudists —
bare, unguarded, and thirsting for touch.
The more I swim,
the less afraid I am
to let the water reach me.
For the soul’s need —
unconditional love —
is the most natural experience.
The world can see what we carry in our hearts.
To survive here as a clear being,
we must be capable of drinking,
capable of swimming,
capable of change,
and capable of motion.
Bernice Zoleka Mannie
LYAIOZ MANNIE
Living close by the Coryndon Museum
(Nairobi National Museum, ca. 1960)
on Forest Road, Museum Hill,
(where The Queen Mother, she once waved to me)
entrance for kids was free
how well I remember it still.
There I met Mary Leakey
and where Louis Leakey
(unpaid curator)
requested reptiles of me as a lark
and they were soon to be
(ca. 1961)
denizens of the Nairobi Snake Park.
I stalked colourful chameleons,
several species even walked our washing line,
but that's not all
I collected and contributed anything and everything
that hopped, skipped, jumped or crawled.
a place preserved in memory
as if in mystic fantasy
where revolutionaries farmed and fought
no time for speeches or dialectic thought
a place where survival was the goal
requiring discipline, stamina, self-control
where it was ‘from each according to his ability
to each according to his needs’…
a place somewhere between museum piece
and curiosity
~ every Israeli kibbutz in the 1930's
The interior is a scary place
with hallways that seem
to go on forever and doors
behind which there are
darkened or half lit rooms
with nothing inside except
eyes that watch you
out of slits in face masks
hung upon the wall.
There are whispers creeping
along corridors and out
on the far edges of hearing,
the sound of someone
calling. This place has
no windows just thin,
clenched threads of light
hanging down from cracks
in the ceilings and a pale
glow crawling out from under
the bottom of a locked door.
There are no exits
in private museums.
Feathers for bird museum,
None see 'em,
Home was sweet,
Strangelove repeat....
(12 word poem).
Dusty little towns
West of the Great Divide
Where great-grandchildren of cowboys
On ranches still reside.
Small western museums
With local antiquities inside;
Native American artifacts,
Some horse tack for a cowboy's ride.
There among the fancy
Are two dresses hemmed above the knee,
20's Jazz Age fashion
Worn far from the speak-easy.
Caused a bit of an uproar,
As they danced on the sawdust floor.
Who were these rebel cowgirls,
These flappers from western lore?
I visit the Museum of the Past in my memory.
Still life paintings I stroll through, lazily, my hands clasped behind my back.
There, the glass you drank from, still holds the print of your bottom lip.
I break the rules and pick it up. I fit my mouth where yours was and imagine your taste, your scent.
I wonder what this particular work of art looks like when you are the artist. And I wonder which of us is the closest to reality.
I have no doubt that you imagine yours to be true, even if you are fooling yourself. Which is exactly what makes hating you, blaming you, impossible.
Oh, there is our song playing through the speakers in the museum walls…an instrumental, “elevator music” version. Why do I love to wallow in this sweet ache of sorrow?
At least I have no more regrets of what I haven't done …now I can only regret what I have.
One last look over my shoulder then I turn off the museum lights and walk away.
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