a sugar maple leaf slips free
counting toward One proof
the Seven Mysteries
God, I count prime gaps
I watch prime numbers growing
only primes orbit
a rule sends one step
loops return periods double
recursion counts One
an iteration
within fluid smoothness frays
water turns inward
can you see the curve
study elliptic rank shifts
findings test the rank
questions spiral out
unknown patterns circle back
pi bends into sight
a proof can be checked
still search cannot prove it now
checking outruns search
every loop turns east
the count folds back into form
through form, God's Haiku
the sugar-maple leaf settles on frost
children of the corn start to awaken
—I Want To Die—
I would unman myself—and pass beyond
the sovereign grammar of the speaking wound,
where grief, articulate, must still respond
and prove the very blood wherein it’s drowned;
for what no human tongue can charge or plead
enters thy mercy, sanctified by grace,
while grief that needs no alphabet is freed
before thy thought can summon it to face.
Let me be black thunder tethered to sun,
a green flame, feathered lightning clothed in flesh,
whose wing outruns the verdict of the One,
lest naming fetter fire it cannot bless;
let silence speak where mortal language bleeds—
till thy hand finds my wing, and mercy reads.
Written: Jun 2nd, 2026, for a contest sponsored by: Nette Onclaud
****************
A poetic reply to a piece created by Nobel Prize winner and Mexican poet /writer, Octavio Paz:
There is not
A single soul among the trees
And I
Don't know where I've gone.
"I step—"into the quiet rising from trees,
my fingers are tracing the cold, resistant bark.
"The path— waits, thin as~a breath before speaking"
Birds' flight testifies~our souls prowl woods.
"The wind—" fails to read~the omen of fate,
A frightful form frays from a furred finger.
"The gap—" between roots is all that we are;
a wraith, fumbling for skin~outruns my frantic stride.
"I follow—" until its echo threads my footsteps,
and I am found, rooted to~disappear...
The sea is a bit of a liquid brat,
always adjusting his white, foam hat.
He’s got no bones and he’s got no toes
but he follows wherever the north wind goes.
He’s a watery thief with a very long reach,
lifting every plastic bucket left on the beach.
He gulps down the sun like a vitamin pill
and never, not once, has the guy sat still.
He’s got billions of fish tucked deep in his pockets
and salt, crust stinging his old-water sockets.
He’ll roar like a lion, then hiss like a cat
but he’s mostly just loud and he’s mostly just flat.
He’ll tickle your ankles and tug at your shorts,
then mumble a rhyme through his bubbly snorts.
So give him a wave (if you’ll pardon the pun),
before he gets bored and outruns the sun.
Iran,
do not fear the sky.
It leans toward you.
This is an hour written
before our names were spoken.
Ketu turns the mirror.
Karma asks its due.
Those who ruled by force
now feel the weight of time.
I looked to the heavens,
and the charts were quiet
for United States
and Israel.
Luck does not linger
where pride deafens wisdom.
But over Iran,
Jupiter stands
like a patient teacher.
What he blesses
cannot be hurried,
cannot be stolen,
cannot be cursed.
You did not summon the storm.
You endured it.
And endurance
is older than war.
When blood was scattered
across the earth,
the universe did not forget.
It never does
What is sown
returns—
not in fire,
but in reckoning.
After the night,
a new sun rises—
not to erase the past,
but to remember it rightly.
Power fades.
Law remains.
For no nation stands above
the order of things,
and no hand outruns
the balance of the world.
Memories tattoo my brain like an artist
I miss loved ones passed and the last
Time I saw each one is frozen
Like icicle tears swelling brown eyes
Last time I saw her alive she
Was full of joy eating favorite foods
Planning her life despite breast cancer
Nothing stopped her from dreaming
Not even death
Final time I saw him in Atlanta
It was summer and he was smiling
Carrying his first grandson on
His shoulders piggy back style
Definitely proud
And so many more I hold on shores
Of happiness and gratitude for
I know love outruns death
I know somehow they are better
Where they are now in heaven
bootlicking idolatry
He’s a peculiar star
he comes from TV
ambition is his sphere
and his every line is a trick
all know him a notorious liar
whose business is schadenfreude
but many curry his sweet favour
for he has the cowards furry
and an actors need to be flatter'd
He has no quality worthy of entertainment
but we must see him every hour
for he is an hourly promise-breaker
for rashness, superfluous folly and thievery
the world has noted, he has no historical equal
In moral retreat, he outruns any jockey
the treasures of his idolatrous worshipers
he straightway began to strip away, by tariff
too late their despair they will proclaim
but the misery will be well earned
.
.
Fool by bôa
TROUBLE (feat. Nikki Williams) by Parov Stelar
Who Let the Scat out of the Bag by Tape Five
.
Webster: Schadenfreude = enjoyment at the troubles of others.
.
A percentage of me has to hell been consigned
by the ever raging zionists' war machine.
To each livid soldier, a mandate is assigned
to uproot terror where multitudes are confined.
Torrents of explosives have swept my landscapes clean.
Churches, mosques, schools have all to mighty vengeance bowed.
Stricken mothers wail uncontrollably aloud.
Itinerancy pervades my horror stricken crowd,
whilst my kids toy with explosives, carnage and ruin.
Survivors will take shelter from snipers shooting
death balls and lead from peevish and portable guns.
Horror unprecedented the people outruns.
I have metamorphosed to nothing but a morgue.
Lice and bugs have infested hoodies lined with borg.
Disease and maimed limbs have no remedies in sight.
Let not the world be unmoved by my sorry plight.
Why must I this price pay for a thousand or more killed?
My morgues are beyond their capacity filled.
The deaths of innocents are nothing but unjust.
My once-populated streets have been turned into dust.
The story goes as dawn unfolds,
Each day with its untold,
A path to take,
A route to meander.
Gloom outruns dawn,
Evening hastily spreads its sheet,
Daylight plays the second fiddle,
Morning has a short stay.
War is awakened,
Battles emerge from their lair,
The waters are in tumultuous session,
Arrows aim for the bull's eye.
The story ends as the clock strikes midnight,
All are laid to rest,
There’s a reverberating silence,
The soul goes through an infinite door.
May 15, 2023.
Tick Tock Tick Tock
Shall the wind blow on tomorrow's eve,
A lethargy you are not to impede.
We hold it dear; yes, so dear.
Two deer?
Why think of deer; No, no dear.
Tick Tock Tick Tock
Do we run the track?
The track outruns us; Yes
Our hands are tied,
Freeing has been tried.
Tick Tock Tick Tock
Twelve hens speak devil's tongue
Eleven are dead having been flung
Tick Tock
It strikes as every minute wastes away
We pray; We pray
Ten times tomorrow and today
Tick Tock Tick Tock
A creature’s box
Nine times both dead and alive
Eight through four spent in misery
Most are the same
Tick Tock Tick Tock
Hours spent for what?
Three meaningless rhythms.
Tick Tock
Perhaps it’s time.
Tick; a click
Tock; a clock
Its dark, the woods
Jacob sits beside the campfire thinking of all his miseries. A rainbow of thoughts of which one draws attention. "Why". The cackling of fire can still be heard. The thought taunts him.
A brief moment of silence, the cackling fades, no howls, no moon, emptyness. He has let it go, the thoughts. At that moment Jacob stops caring, His selfishness dead.
Renesmee..the fire reflects off her perfect face , as radiant as the sun. Her cheeks rosier than the reddest of the roses she outruns them all human or not.
Her heartbeats echo my name calling me closer. The future flashes in front of me. The glimpses i can't wait to see. Imprinting...this is what it is
It feels something like never before.. Knowing the world isnt about him, the story isnt about him. Jacob is not Jacob anymore, not just the creature of night,he is the author.
Mark Toney
2022 Poetry Marathon Mile 2
15 th June
Old Spice’ and wet grass carry years
of understanding between us.
If I break wind, you run to me,
body rapt and heeding,
every hair translating
a smudged paragraph into
volumes of memory.
Rubbernecking my attention
with a fixed gaze,
you are staring at my next question,
willing to
jaw with more whiffs of intimacy.
A jargon of us both
surfacing in her millpond eyes.
Silent odiferous idioms crest
upon her black nose,
a cloddish lingo,
but it outruns anything that could be said.
bank not integrity on a man in penury's bed
for he'd borrow quaking qualities penury lends
if wanky wealth wakes him hither,
rustic rhymes of his attributes is better
give not what you scarcely have
nocturnal nature weeps over hampered halves
love by meagre mind, clasp caution's crest
when love outruns wielded wits, there's moaning mess
sometimes, lanky loves loans you to sassy sky
at felon fall, he's merging massive mile
matchmakers and takers are bruised baits
only a gullible giver makes munchy name
all-times, it pays being a felon fool
than a callous clown in numbed name of "dupe".
'20:05:25:16:35
Note: of varying virtues.
Oft solitude's a gift I need to seek
when life becomes a circus of events.
And oh, how precious are those few unique
hours I can spend alone as time presents.
These days, this treasured solitude's reversed;
commanded to stay sheltered, safe in place-
away from family and friends- submersed
in finding how I can survive with grace.
This challenge offers time to find new ways
to shape stiff patterns into supple ones;
use well this stage alone to think, appraise-
live calmer days before my time outruns.
With grace, I bear this solitude prolonged-
now righted as a gift- not feeling wronged.
April 29, 2020
~2nd Place~
Congest: Brian's Choice 8
Sponsor: Brian Strand
Judged: 05/10/2020
promiscuous pear prunes
saucy strawberry slew
nosing nimble nude
gaunt gasps grew
lanky lust lurches
outruns vying verge
felon fruits featured
pulse flavors punctured
aiding sassy structure
moaning machine's pleasantries
slays saucy stances
faddy fruits fling
tasty taste trained
clutches emotion's crave.
'20:02:26:14:19
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