Waking pries open my eyes. Pliable
lids, blinking honors nature. My outdoor
neighbor takes umbrage underneath the umbrella
of a palm tree next to the apartment complex.
At first the squirrel's sky puffed-fluffy tail undulates
below the sun and then above lawn grass.
While the facial polar end of the squirrel sounds pissed,
vertical swiveling on the palm's trunk,
the counterclockwise furry spot, the rat-face strays
as if it were a canister's hissed aerosol.
Tinkering from a hotel piano
across the street, there's an inkling
that it's not nature off-tune
quavering through the morning air
like an emergency-kit gauze
had been placed on a woman, and I don't know where.
The lady stranger briefly seems absorbed.
A crop of dark hair frames the right side of her throat.
Black curls sweep across her shoulder and bare
a clavicle at the turning of her head. Goth
waves nestle her downed chin, her face tilted loose
from the constant guarding of her décolletage.
Prince Harry had a barber, name of Ross
Prince wouldn't pay what a good haircut cost
So Ross chopped off his head
Left Prince Harry for dead
Epitaph read: England's gain ~ Meghan's loss
Yellow leaves flash the window,
a fringe on the green,
too early for the tourists,
the peaks still serene,
been aching to escape from
telephones and cubicles,
only noise is my own thoughts
so meandering and dull.
Just the wind as it’s blowing
my hair all around,
the wild turkeys scatter
at the engine sound,
people say that I wander,
they all say I’m wasting gas,
sitting there watching football
to make the afternoons pass.
But the air and the silence
brings peace to my mind,
or maybe I just glimpse it
stolen piece of time.
I know the trees don’t feel so,
know that they don’t feel a thing,
just illusions on the thoughts
of a tired and caged thing.
Got no task that needs doing,
no weight on the nerves,
no social obligations,
just time well-deserved,
some say that it is aimless,
so I guess they know the truth,
but so then is their worry,
and I do not need them too.
All the echoes and the empty,
the bucolic scene,
just speaks to the point of it,
it just lets me be.
No reason I justify,
nothing I must account for,
existence for its own sake,
if just a few hours more…
The artist is absent, i guess i killed her off. Built her, just to break her- like a ceramic cup in the decor. A sway and the pieces fall, broken down in chunks of her pain. In the story of everything, the art suffers- tight ship, bad weather- nothing helps. There's no shore to go to. You stay with the wind, flock with the waves like a clueless bird, hoping someday you'll reach a comfort of a place you get to call home. I didn't feed her soul- with words full of love, hate, sad, happy- all she can feel is a hole, in her life where the content used to be. Where the quill-and-ink rested along with a page, ready to be scribbled, ready to be filled with her mind's rage. The ink bleeds once or not at all. It's tiring, having to walk in the spring season, fresh air, new hopes different dreams and yet feeling like the fall.
Every step she takes, every mistake she makes, all the roadblocks that make her feel nothing at all. Carnations over her gazettes, no scriptures, no memories to recall. It has faded into nothing yet she bleeds it somehow. The writer is absent, I think I've killed her off. Clueless in her own world somehow.
Differentiating between Christmas and Easter is important because they celebrate two completely different foundational events in Christian theology—Jesus's birth and his resurrection.
Early Christians used paganus as a term for non-believers or outsiders who did not follow the monotheistic God. Pagans and Christians "jive" because they share deep historical roots, celebrate similar seasonal holidays, and value the same core ideas about community, love, and respect.
Christianity and paganism share a complex history of theological opposition, cultural borrowing, and eventual transformation as Christianity expanded throughout the ancient and medieval world
Christians and pagans often avoid marrying due to conflicting core beliefs and values, but some choose to marry based on mutual respect, practical compatibility, or existing commitment. Opposing beliefs often overlap, when one is serious there thoughts might be laughed at. Opposing opinions and differences often clash.
Will you remember
your
routes
trafficking
among the
self-driving cars?
Barking. Off, away
By Frank Daub
She is UNAWARE that she cannot stay – too long.
Her time is limited to short intensiveness,
so, she doesn’t hold back, but plays
and zooms in circles through every room
open to her padded paws.
Stopping suddenly short –
she remembers the love we share
and she pads back to sit looking up at me.
That is when I pray that pups are part of Heaven.
Heavy relief.
Weighs almost as:
An orchestra.
Which is nothing more.
Than splicing stuff.
Almost predetermined.
Heavily predicted.
Heavily cries out.
Heavily circling.
Heavy relief.
It ‘twas watching lift off.
Knowing they’ll turn to an orchestra of a tin can.
Instant as coffee.
In this day and age when every commercial slanders someone, it's a turn-off
At Nambucca heads, upon the shore are the beds where oysters were galore
I climbed upon them ragged rocks just
A kid, I got a shock, i slipped and fell and
Out i reached, grabbing the boulders
As i lost my feet.' Now oyster shells new
And old; are sharp and cut, some blood did spurt from my right hand that steadied me against worse hurt.'
So i had luck indeed i see, and learned a
Lesson for life; as you might see?)
The plaster in Rick’s place was always flaking near the doorway,
eaten away by damp heat and cheap tobacco smoke
that hung like dirty lace off the cedar joists.
Back in the corner sat a stunted, yellowed box—
a five-octave upright slapped with salmon and faded gold,
its pedals worn down to raw, scuffed brass.
It wasn’t built for concert halls. Just a pine-cased crate
that smelled of spilled Cointreau and stale olive brine.
Heavy teak doors kept the street noise out,
but couldn’t block the shuffle of black-market transit papers
passing under the low oil lamps.
Then Sam laid his knuckles on the keys,
cracked ivory, half-sticking from the salt air,
and the room went dead quiet.
She stood in the entry, silk coat catching the light,
asking for that song from Paris
before the tanks rolled in.
Rick didn't yell. He just stopped dead in his tracks,
watching the smoke curl off his cigarette
where it rested on the edge of the wood.
“Play it,” he muttered, his voice flat as gravel,
and the little wooden box gave up the only thing it had left.
One day, my son asked me, "Which one of us do you love more?"
I grew uncomfortable and I looked down at the floor.
It was an answer that I didn't want to hurry.
He's an only child, so his question made me worry.
Could it be that once I dropped him on his brain,
or had I forgotten a child (which would have been insane)?
Should I tell him, "You have always been my favorite.
You should take satisfaction in that and savor it",
or should I be fair and diplomatically proclaim,
"I love all of my children pretty much the same"?
Perhaps, it would be more circumspect for me to say,
"I love each of you, in your own inimitable way".
I finally chose, "I love you more than any other child by far",
and he said, "Good - can I have the keys to the car?",
to which I replied, "It wouldn't be any bother,
except that I've already lent them to your brother".
You have my
vote
But not my
mindset
Where once
engaged
I’ve moved
along
No longer
hooked
On every
soundbite
Big picture
focus
The right
— from wrong
(Dreamsleep: August, 2026)
A polar bear unexpectedly washed up
on a beach of sun-soaked sand, blinking at palm trees
like they were part of some cosmic prank.
He tried to build a snow fort out of coconuts and optimism,
but everything kept melting~
except his dignity.
Soon he learned to waddle in flip-flops,
sip pineapple juice through a straw, and fan himself with a leaf
the size of his entire head.
He decided, with a shrug, that life is mostly about adapting~
even if you’re a creature of snow
learning to love the warm, ridiculous world.
God
loves us
all
then si-
lence
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