Your eyes glisten
and a tear forms.
Your Braille tongue
mouths a silent vocabulary.
The ‘O’ of your mouth
spells out the anguish within,
and with mute hands
you give voice to
an ear-piercing scream.
There is no
real need
for people
to be mean
to innocent
people they
do not even
know and
a line must
be drawn
when many
people we
care for
are being
targeted
just for being
Black or Brown
while they are
out and about
and it always
makes me frown
at the
computer screen
and that vibe
gets me down
which is why
I choose to
detach mentally
from it all
and log out
so that I don't
feel spiritually
drained for
these petty
online conflicts
are not even ever
worth the clout.
The Vindictive Con-Artistry Of
The Warmth Of Conviction.
What A Slow And
Penetrating Loneliness.
Isolated In
Wishless Retribution.
Helplessness
Exploited.
Representing.
Unique.
Wordlessness.
Sympathy's Conspiring Pride...
...arama.
-Gray Squirrel
06-05-2026
She is a well-behaved girl,
I heard someone tell my mother,
Once.
You were like an old soul,
Another confessed to me
As I was becoming of age.
Not once,
Did another ask, or with concern
“Why was she so quiet?”
No one
Paid attention to my silence,
It became normal to them and normalized by me too.
Why was I so mute? At
the moment, I just felt as if
I was frozen in time.
Like no one would
Listen, or
Care, or
Believe me…
In sleep,
minnows are whales,
the soul is a cat
watching the mind scuttle
hither and thither,
running from its own
fearful shadows.
You wake and sleep
wake and fall again
into that swirling miasma
of dream remnants.
It has been said that sleep
is the language of the soul,
if so,
it is an Ur speech,
and its prehistoric utterances
surface
from a history book
yet to be written.
does no one hear me
are my words merely empty space
does no one speak my language
am i just a stranger in a crowd
alone in this sea of bodies
that perpetually pass me by
AP: Honorable Mention 2025
In the abyss of gazes, where silence screams mute and deep,
The chasm stares back, a vortex gathering abstract emotions,
I offer it my fears, aspirations, and unspoken truths,
It swallows them all, leaving an unyielding void in my chest.
There exists a lexicon of despair, with sharp, cutting phonemes,
With discordant cadence, yet solace in graceful harmonies,
An elegy reminding me that I am both wound and witness,
Exiled and at home, in a universe that knows no harbor.
On the edge of the abyss, where light entwines with shadow,
I lose and find myself, a traveler wandering without aim,
In the stream of consciousness, I wonder who I am without it all,
An echo of unfulfilled dreams, a longing that does not struggle.
In the soliloquy of the abyss, where silence becomes the heart's language,
I find melancholic beauty, the poetry of falling and rising,
In the dance between void and fullness, eternal and profound,
I am both creator and creation, in the infinite that binds us all, round.
When the heart breaks like a stone,
sometimes we lose our words
just like a pre-civilization mute
and we cry and moan,
in hurt, in anger, and in deepest of pain,
and then we regain
the words, as we put the pieces of our heart
back together,
put on the mask and start to act again.
(11.28.2024)
When love is too loud, and lurid,
it languishes in lewd, lusty lakes.
When love is silent, and steadfast,
it sings sweetly with soft waves on sea shores.
When love is motionless and mute,
it meanders to black mold and makes miserable, monotonous marshes.
So let me
love thee silently, softly,
with actions,
with adjectives and valiant verbs.
Saying I love you with
kind kisses,
empathetic embraces,
tender touches,
longing looks,
weary work, and
tedious tasks.
An underwater silence full of
graceful gestures and
mysterious moves…
…letting love lead, and last a lifetime.
Bluebells in the shady woods,
tubular throats sing the silence.
Only empty bells ring.
(Author’s note: This poem is a humorous look at how the pandemic changed our technology, our relationships, and maybe even our spiritual quests.)
God’s on Mute
By Mark D. Stucky
We forgot how to talk
during the pandemic.
Glitches often bedeviled us,
and we erratically conversed.
Technology was cursed
but also godsent.
We had to learn new words
and new meanings of words
when Zoom burst from obscurity
to overnight ubiquity,
helping to (almost) satisfy
our lonely souls inside.
And now I want to Zoom with God,
typing questions in the chat box
because He seems to be on mute
and His camera is turned off.
But I want to see the face of God
and take screen selfies of Him with me
to start a Facebook killer meme
and blow up Instagram and Twitter.
Pray tell where I can find and click
a divine invitation link!
(First published with the title “On Mute” in Bearings Online, 30 Nov. 2022. See also my poems “Missing: God Incarnate,” “The Ascension (with Rewrites),” and “God Around the Corner.”)
(Photo by Chris Montgomery on Unsplash.com.)
Trapped in between the lyric
and music
Wandering in a rhythm
of lost expectation
Blaming each note still unplayed
and unwritten
The echoes distend
in a moment’s undoing
Hearing a chorus
when no choir is present
Voices imagined
to sing my sequester
Wandering aimless
through scores of abandon
Harmony denied me
—nightmarish and deafening
(Dreamsleep: May, 2023)
Every six turns of the moon
A journey to the girl I take.
I leave behind my safe cocoon
Into the noise and into the fake.
The pungent smell of multicolours
Punching nose and mind alike.
I sit and pause in splendid parlours
Waiting for the joy to strike.
And strike it does, oh glory be.
Electric sparks and lowing moans.
At last she uses teeth on me.
Her gentle strokes, my buzzing bones.
Decisions made I walk to water.
She will wash my sins away.
She mentions something of her daughter,
I've never answered to this day.
In my goddess tank I float.
Blues and greens with sea and sand.
I am the castle, and they are the moat.
At last the call comes from the land.
She leads me to the gate and smiles.
Our deal is done, the job complete.
My world is lighter by the miles.
I smile and wave then walk the street.
My pilgrimage is at an end;
Returning to my warm cocoon.
She and I will meet again.
After six turns of the moon.
Loud TV ads drive me insane!
They're drilling right into my brain!
But, hey! This is cute;
There's a button called Mute!
-Do you get it or shall I explain?
& death swallowed my grandmother when i was twelve.
there are some memories that hunt you while asleep
& some spill goosebumps on the fabric of your skin.
i lost count of the nights i pour tears out my eyes,
there were days i keep my fingers steady in the family gallery.
i listened to your voice breaking through the cracked walls,
you lit candles & placed them in the middle of your room,
& then drag silence in your chest &
spoke in tongues and scream at God to keep me safe.
when my scars developed into a city,
with dimmed lights & wrecked lanes,
you ironed smiles on your lips and still kiss me on the forehead.
how do i tell these stories of how your body spent days wearing off its texture from rotten scars?
the dark rooms here still hold your photograph,
the piano in the parlor eats dust
it must have thought about you & felt bored, too.
By: Aloysius S. Harmon is still struggling to beco
aloysius is a Liberian writer and a poet or sunflower.
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