So we’re punished and estranged
Would it make us better?
So how sweet was the revenge
Does it really matter?
It’s like noting white on white
Maybe green on green
When you come, I dim the light
Blinded by the screen
As the evening soars my eyes
I calm down a bit
Thinking it’s the useful lies
Naked truth can’t fit
It’s like permanent repair
Of a thing unfixable
It’s unfair, but we didn’t care
Everything is mixable
So we turn out quite the same
As we were last night
Only now there is no frame
But just white on white.
Opening with complete ignorance
With a loop like tolerance
Most likely with Vengeance
Lace with an effect of balances
The choices of no obedience
No room for obvious clearance
Noting that there is no more chance
The thought of evil romances
Leaving a thought that may
An equivalence of being a prey
When things come with hope that say
A final abrupt stop in decays
The final outcome of a dream
The flow of beautiful stream
Then a burst of angry steam
Things never are what it seems
The Colosseum sits~
a fractured crown,
its arches a circlet of light
where jeweled sun gathers,
I walk its perimeter,
my fingers grazing limestone
warm as living skin.
Dust rises~
a faint ghost of applause, of fear,
of spectacle braided with longing.
History here is not distant;
it presses close,
grainy and intimate.
The broken tiers curve
like a half-remembered sentence,
one the empire began,
but time insisted on finishing.
Grass grows where violence once bloomed;
the sky claims the open roof
as if to remind the ruin
that even power must answer to light.
I feel a strange tenderness:
noting how even magnificence erodes,
how power becomes dust,
how what remains is not violence
but vulnerability~
the open sky pouring through
what once was sealed.
The Colosseum reminds me
that time builds and erases in the same breath,
and that beauty endures most fiercely
in the places where the world
has already learned how to break.
While mowing my fields, brief thought came to light;
I grasped that the wind was quitting the fight.
Noting the clouds gave attention with fear...
to move indoors was absolutely clear.
The still before the storm, just enough time
for safety, an epiphany sublime.
When the warning turns to watch, best take care;
radar maps are a forecaster's nightmare.
oh good, the lights are on, the McHenry family cheered
they loved visiting Auntie Mable
As they approached the door she came out wearing a coat
Oh, dear, she told them. I have concert tickets. I was just leaving.
They left, disappointed because she baked the best cookies.
Ten minutes later old Mister Groggins showed up
noting the lights were on.
Good, he thought, because Mable was his favorite listener.
As he was about to knock the door opened.
Mable said “Come in, come in, I was just coming home from the store.”
Mable keeps her coat next to the front door on a hook.
Depending upon who knocks,, she can say she is either coming or going.
Escape: Tribute to George Oliver
"People can't fly when they're backed into a corner." -Tami Longaberger
Centenarian, I can only imagine
What you were thinking
When you boarded your wheelchair,
Headed out the door of the Ewing Wing,
And took the downhill runway.
Surely you meant to take flight-
Bystanders who saw that you had left your Rocking chair
Could only gape in awe at your audacity of hope.
The California Highway Patrol,
Noting that you forgot to fasten your seatbelt,
Rushed in where the federal aviation commission could not.
The CHP took you back to John C Fremont
And bound you to earth for the few days
you had left.
Trapped, we often get our wings late.
My friend, I can only assume, that you,
Despite the new alarm on the door of the Ewing wing,
Are flying high above us
Gloom blooms as more bombs boom;
Even saints are tainted by crimson stains.
Fears tear through cradle-cries,
And withered blood floods the clustered gutters.
A prowl of projectiles surrounds their bounds;
Wounds whine on a round ground.
Pleas fail to heal the skin’s impetigo—
As silence stains the lens.
Then violence dons another garment,
While silence lies dormant;
Cries from festered wounds pry the dry, wry air,
As echoes crawl along.
All goes to soothe egos,
They boast with coats of loathes in floated boats,
In self-conceit concerts,
They celebrate nothing, noting no woe.
Wicked wicks don’t wink weak,
They sow discord and spit splintered discourse,
They supplant hate as baits,
And their words plunge the world to more dangers.
Peace peeks through a bombed hole at round tables,
Yet war speaks through their mouths;
Those who would quell the spell still sow their guile,
While skies scold, souls lie cold.
drizzling streaks staining her window
she does not take time to see it
staring into the bushes, noting movement there
a fox? a dog? a cat?
a red cardinal flies past
her mother giving her a gentle hello
Though it’s still partly cloudy in this street
& everybody follows the king’s fleet,
I’m following you to the ends of this world,
where I’ve replaced everything with your word,
I remain elsewhere like the empty plea
because you’re that fire burning inside me.
Though those agencies that create duets seem
to believe that a system employing well over
2, 000, 000 couples with infusions of bright visions
will need certain clearly specified characteristics
with objectives & noting costs to protect the new moon.
You’re that whirlwind blowing everything away,
that’s why in this play, I pray not to be the next prey.
I’m too late this morning & I won’t catch any bus,
though traders in their market won’t understand us.
To them, we’re actors in a tragic-comedy stage.
& we made a bold decision to try out the phage.
Give me your hands for a warmth of touch
& I won’t be in operational form in that skutch.
Give me your mouth for a kiss
when I listen to your coos.
Give me your whole body for burying me completely
when I pledge fealty.
Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder Poetry Contest //Sponsored by: Crystol Woods
Contest Judged: 8/14/2025 5:19:00 AM
( 1st Place )
Written: August 07, 2025
They say stillness is absence, an empty space between worth noting,
but I have heard its melodies in the pre-dawn chapel where stillness reigned
and still the walls exhaled calm.
I have found stillness and not loneliness---
but in two hands clutching without speaking,
the heart knowing inside out
language would only raze.
Silence is like sunlight before it shines,
the tranquility after I sleep and
the reluctance before "I forgive you",
It grips what chaos cannot express--admiration, agony, dread.
Even when grieving and when at a loss for words,
calmness is at hand and says it all.
So let the world fill with echoes.
With clamor and vivid proclamations.
I will still turn up beauty.
In the lull between storms,
In the hush between instinct and doubt
In the sacred calmness, that hark,
Not to respond, but to understand.
Oh! flowers why are you spreading,
Fragrance and beauty without any cost ?
You are being sold in market at a cost,
Your quality and your beauty are selling.
Oh! flowers why do you spread your blooming,
Fragrance and beauty without any cost?
They give you to dears to show their host,
The guest sees your charm and feel warm greeting.
Oh! flowers why do you spread your blooming,
Fragrance and beauty without any cost?
Though your parts are noting but to earn cost,
You show love from heart, forever gleaming.
Oh! flowers why do you spread your charming,
Fragrance and beauty without any cost?
After fulfilment of ends, you are mixed in dust,
Gardner loves you and owner sells but for earning.
Oh! flowers, why do you spread your blooming,
Fragrance and beauty, without any cost?
Though sold for a price, your love is not lost,
Hearts share your grace, forever endearing.
Lively little lucky Lucy Lulu
Manages milk cows who cannot moo
Noting Nor a Nebraska Gnu
Overseeing the ornery ocean blue
Providing pike for little Lucy Lulu
Jack’s wife is tired of swimming
She sits inside their camper in her teddy
Nursing a Bud light in a brown bottle
Wondering when he will return from his fishing
A neighbor friend of her husband stops by
Noting how gorgeous her legs are
He is embarrassed to see this kind of beauty
He looks away quickly
She is a casual beauty
Unaware of the effect she has had on him
He runs home to his wife
Glad he saw something this lovely today
Nervously checking my hair,
Noting the silver is peppered with grey.
My hand trembles as I put on my lipstick—
My favourite shade of pink.
My reflection bears a frown,
But today, I turn it upside up.
The big interview with an angel
Will happen when the clock strikes
Midnight.
The mystery of the night
Is needed for the halo to shine as bright as a star.
I smooth my good dress,
Reserved for special occasions—
And an interview with an angel
Marks it so special.
As this angel
Is so very dear to me.
For you see, this angel,
Living among the stars,
Is my own little girl.
My first and only question,
That I will ask with tears in my eyes,
Will be:
When will I become an angel?
So I can spend the rest of eternity near you.
i look out the window
everything is beautiful
noting compares to this
the world around me
the smiles that can not be measured
i feel unsure
but i walk out
that made sense
that felt right
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