Like wafts of sorrow
Interrupting the day
The Earth is shaking
This can't be THE WAY
How can light deliver darkness
To one who walks in TRUTH
Why would WISDOM
Clothe LOVE in grief since youth
The journey seems...paradoxical
Trying to make peace with chaos
In a constant state of restoration
Building materials taken from all loss
The fight is fading out of matter
The loosh has no energy to take
Fear perishes in the presence
Of what LOVE has never declared...MISTAKE
...all is as it should be
Written by Trudy Schrader on 09-04-2026
Ohhhh... did you really just do that?
AP: Honorable Mention 2026
Things haven't gone my way
I put two years in the mix
But luck wasnt on my side they say
There is now too much to fix
Too many lost expecatations
"Just a disappointment"
Starting over
was not my intent
It hurts
More than anything
Looking at all of them
Succeding
And still pretending
To smile happily at everything
How do I make out
A silver lining in this cloud
It has swallowed me whole
I want to scream
There's nobody to hear
Empty chaos runs inside me
The volcano is ready to erupt
I can't control it
An awaited catastrophy
My face wants to break
Into a thousand pieces
My wrists want to bleed
Save me for the stichtes
I have pulled out all my hairs
My head is swollen
Slammed into a wall
Outside a smiling face
Inside a broken doll
I can't do it
I don't deserve happiness
I am happy with regret.
TRUMP WANTS ENTRY FEE
TO NEGOTIATE WITH HE
NO WAY, SAYS CARNEY
The Genie’s left
the bottle
A.I. is in
the air
To rule the skies
and earth below
The ‘ultimate’
au pair
Life roiling
in the mixture
Of facts
forever spun
To take control
of all that’s told
With humans
— on the run
(Dreamsleep: December, 2025)
I spent two hours on the website trying to renew my license
new system installed in January
Much easier they said
My husband spent an hour on it
He brought me their phone number
Call them, he suggested
I could not get a person, only a recorded message
If you are in group A, press 1
If you are in group B, press 2
If you are in group C…..
I did not know what group I was in
That is on a teensy postcard we had accidentally thrown away
I resolved to try the next day
Spent half an hour on the phone when I noticed online help
I called the number
The lady talked me through steps one through eight.
I cannot help you past this step, she informed me.
It has to be the director of your group.
Which group are you in?
.
No Way Out
A genie in the bottle to grant my wishes—
I’m drifting,
looking for the red exit sign.
My desire for freedom waning
like the moon reflected in hues of blue
on the glass
of a Klein bottle:
A line begins,
yet never ends,
curling inward,
outward.
The terrarium of my life
shelved between the dust motes of indifference—
dancing ill-conceived clichés in soporific sunbeams—
it’s a mere curiosity …
Words chocked back,
thoughts lost
in the
labyrinth …
No out
A man coming home from work saw a shadow
a figure leaning against a dead olive polishing
his hoofs and sharpening his scythe.
The man said no, you are too young to harvest
he then took a plane to Madrid
where he got employment at a legal office.
the first day, he knocked on the door
death sat in the chair and said
from now on, you are my helper
Go back home and dispose of your parents and their
time has come, greatly disturbed
the man took a plane home
and the death was leaning against an olive tree
a shadow on a sunny autumnal
day. In the house, his parents said they had buried
their son, but they did not see or hear him,
and the man knew that henceforward he was
Death`s little helper.
There once was a dame in New York
Who plugged her hole with a cork
Some thought her insane
For not wanting a wean
But she still got one from a stork
“Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness”
Was how John Keats extolled the Autumntide.
But I’m afraid I like the season less,
For next comes winter that I can’t abide
It’s not for nothing that they call it ‘Fall’.
Those falling leaves are nothing but a pain.
You sweep them up then, next day, sweep again.
And normally it rains as I recall.
But, worst of all, it brings back thoughts of Eve,
The one who was the apple of my eye.
It was October when she chose to leave
Without a word of explanation why.
So sorry Mr. Keats to be a bore.
“To Autumn” doesn’t cut it any more.
Is there no way
No path
No distant beacon
Naught but the roar
Of roiling breakers
Scattering the stony beach
With driftwood scarecrows
Is there no truth
No quietude of soul
No vibratory vindication
Save the shrieking tremor
Of faltering hearts
Weeping
For unknown lovers
Is there no light
Untouched by darkness
Un-blinded by the shadows
Fearless in its ferocity
Gentle in its gaze
Unmindful
Of its magnificence
If Life is an escape from Death
Can Death be an escape from Life
Nothing seems real.
The cold evening wind
stinging the eyes and through
a watery squint, a blurred parade
of lights bounce and fracture
on wet streets sending splinters
into glazed eyeballs.
The air strops its edges
on bare cheeks until the skin
is numb. Shadows cower
in vacated corners.
All sense of self
pulls back into the warmth
of a padded coat, the head hooded
within its own muffled enclave.
I feel like a space suited visitor
to an alien world, cut off,
a trespasser on territory
that is not my home.
I often feel like this,
hidden beneath layers,
at times struggling to breathe
the alien air, ungainly
in such a weighted world
with no way back
to wherever I came from.
No way
No way you are away from me
No way there is more sobering nights without you
No way the moon is away from me without you
No way I am crying for you anymore
No way my streets are lone without you
No way more I am to wait for you
The biggest mistake I ever made…
leaving the place I was going to
Frozen inside a desperate moment
—stolen bartered and gone
(Yellowstone: September, 2022)
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