And the storks drift inland,
landing on the sand's hungry mouth.
Salt-bleached cabins line the shore,
waiting for their stone eyes to inspect
Which baby should be delivered next?
Ah, yes. There is a home of sawdust,
where the panels have begun to cry.
They watch the tumbleweeds scrape the
foundation, and they quiver.
This child is ever so quiet, it's
as if it somehow knows what waits.
Glass voices begin to boom sharply,
the bottles of whiskey are seashell shards.
Into the open window it goes, that
tyke. Thrown onto a stained cot.
It scratches; its skin blistering with a hellish fever
Yet the child sucks their thumb and hums.
When the stork comes back to see,
whatever this child is up to,
who this odd little thing might be...
A desk with crayons, paper,
and notepads heavy with solemn prayer.
But at least, it has dodged Death's claws.
For in the bedroom door,
there is a knife slash so
perfect, it should have maimed.
O wind, have you been waiting?
O widow, wailed for long?
O wasteland, silver plating?
O will within, burn strong!
Nicker, wicker, ichor.
Fate, Fortune, fancy-free.
Blood of heart, run thee thicker!
Gibbous moon, smile at me!
Golem, shall we pack the bags?
Well, we're wearing rags.
Singularity, smile a-sags?
He who loses, brags.
Yes, and when we older grow:
Carrion feeds the crow?
Lava bursts from, volcano?
Unsteady its flow!
Elder race, did you leave trace?
Basalt towers. Doors.
Panels in the sky, thy face.
Falcon? How she soars.
Weapons wild electrical!
Blast them through the drains!
O causality, thy call!
Wait not for the rains!
Rematch. Planned. Numerous. Strong.
Eyes of glass, thy spark.
O eruptions, last thee long!
Help them fear the dark!
Chaos, steps of pyramid.
Ancient orb thrown down.
Forbidden zone? It got rid!
King without a crown...
Alert global tempratures are up by 1 deg c.!
Holland must be by now letting in the sea.'
The cause is fossil fuel burning.' Some experts will agree, i observe the big wind
Tubines in use..And solar glare from those
Panels stretching well quite a stretch as it
Be.' I notice the bees are fewer now i wonder how it got like this with all the green new deals.? Now just you
tell me' i
Cannot get a hold of iodine at most pharmacys, its cause its being sprayed in
The sky by some ( experts if you ask me?)
The only thing thats dimmer, than a Chinese vegetable sum, is a group of these so called experts.?
Working for n g o's thats how good
as its got, we aint all dumb.' Ya know.)
In the velvet ink of a cosmic sea,
Where the stars are stitched by destiny,
A Mantis rises from the garden floor,
To walk through a golden, celestial door.
?She is the Madonna, the chosen prize,
With the weight of the future in her eyes.
Not of Earth, yet born of its loam,
Searching the stars for a spiritual home.
A conqueror comes from a throne of chrome,
Kang seeks to claim what he cannot own.
While Rama-Tut watches the timelines spin,
Waiting for the godhood to begin.
A ghost in the wires, a silver shade,
The Swordsman’s debt is finally paid.
Through the Cotati, life blooms anew,
In a forest of emerald and starlight hue.
?The Prophecy Fulfilled
?She is the bridge between the leaf and the soul,
Making the fractured universe whole.
From the Avengers’ hearth to the Kree-Skrull fire,
She climbs the rungs of a heavenly pyre.
?No longer a pawn in a temporal game,
She whispers a secret, a holy name.
The Celestial Messiah is ready to rise,
Under the gaze of her empathic eyes.
?A myth written in panels, a legend in bold,
The greatest story the galaxy told
Entering homes through a TV,
You only see what they want to be,
Creating a rift within society,
Dividing you from what you see,
Implanting programs Deceitfully,
Fully aware of how we are designed,
They fill your mind with lies,
Disguised as pleasure,
Their treasure is Toxic,
And you wonder why your sick,
Click through the channels,
There are panels discussing it,
Feeding you their bull while you sit,
So you will quit asking why,
Hoping soon you'll die,
Cycling back for another try,
Pried away from the others,
You're smothered in guilt,
From a problem they built,
Tilted and twisted,
You've always existed,
Resisting the urge to stand,
Under the command of technology,
Branded by those in control,
Knowing the role they assigned,
Mine was a tad bit different,
I'm an insistent little prick,
Kicking off my shoes,
Refusing to watch you loose,
So I use these words,
To redirect the herd.
The headlines scream of summer’s endless blaze,
Four heatwaves baked the land in dusty haze.
“Britain's warmest summer ever found,” the Met Office sighs,
While wildfires raged beneath indifferent skies.
From drought to flood, the land did swiftly flip,
As sudden downpours caused the ground to slip.
Yet solar panels, soaking up the rays,
Made clean power bloom in an astonishing display.
In shadowed lands, political divides grew wide,
The cost of living’s climbing with no place to hide.
A sense of striving, hope in every face,
A people’s strength despite the weary pace.
The world watched on, a blend of hope and fear,
Another chapter written in the spinning year.
A mosaic of everything, from joy to sudden pain,
As 2025 concluded, and began anew again.
Bubbling babbling burbling banter brimming at the bar
First sup.. hush…memory lane trip rush..nicely tickled
Plush lace ebbed…lush beer swirls race webbed
Whirls..down dimpled dappled jar....nicely pickled
Pagans perch….sip druid fluid drip…Iris’s secular church
Trumpet tradition.. beacons blush in embers of the past
Cluttered classy cast of polished pewter..ballsy brass
Whimsy wafting across tobacco tinted tainted times
Parched patrons quaffing while cavorting with crannies
Carousing with nooks sporting timber flannelled panels
As sons then become dad..on the same pews with their lad
Lawyer betwixt a tyro…local employer..bumpkin on the giro
Museums of marvels.. hoodwink misplaced metaphors
Laced with a house pour of moreish memories of before
Gracious Landladies…loquacious landlords near and far..
Who let us roam in our home from home we raise our jar
To every special space.. familiar face in that third place..ta
A journey rendered, framed, and set
as plaster comic book panels.
Flip through the Way of Sorrows.
Peruse condemnation to sepulchre.
No matter the church, I found and compared
each episode through ten-year-old eyes
that scrutinized every detail.
Digested the mechanics of suffering.
These fourteen were my first gallery.
A restated traffic jam of nudity and frozen
sadism that floated above me as priests spoke
of love, faith and doing unto others.
I recognized violence when I saw it, the cruel
slapstick in the mortification of the flesh.
Thorn in brow, nail in palm, scourge on back.
Gladiatorial voyeurism. Masked in reflection.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I. Blankness
empty page awaits—
a silent, hungry canvas.
first word breaks the dawn.
II. Alchemy
black ink spills like night
across the field of pure white—
stars bloom into tales.
III. Echo
letters fade to ghosts
on brittle, yellowed paper...
new eyes give them breath.
*Note: This is a triptych poem (similar to a tercet). A triptych poem is a poetic form consisting of three distinct yet related sections or stanzas, often exploring a common theme or narrative. This structure allows the writer to present layered ideas, similar to how a triptych in visual art features three connected panels. (source: brevitymag.com)
Decay gnaws at a country church.
It's homeless; it's lost its congregation.
Molting stones crumble, eroding away.
Mice nibble at the altar.
Winds twine through cracks.
Rain and dew drip through.
Roof slates slip down.
Each year it's more decrepit.
As nature slowly moves in.
Edges made to endure,
fracture, collapsing into rubble.
Plinths and buttresses
forsake their faith.
Agnostic shadows creep in.
As nature resumes,
its inscrutable ways.
Bells corrode into silence.
Tongues stilled in the throat of dome.
Hymns survive only as echoes in
whistling drafts through splintered rafters.
The pews sag like tired suspenders,
long unbent in prayer.
Rain scrawls psalms on walls,
scripted in mildew and moss.
Stained glass panels drop down
into the rubbish and weeds.
Crossbeams become bird-nest perches,
for swallows and doves, now the choir.
This homeless house of God laments
in the nettles, thorns and briers.
Seeking nature’s absolution
for its forsaken ruin.
A scar upon the land.
A desolate homeless being.
A blot on the earth.
Mother lowers her sullen face
against a volatile wind,
tasting the insolence
of a heavy laden gust
As she heaves quietly
from musings of unaswered dreams
grating her senses -- hope clinging--
through pits of lonely thoughts
delicately cleansing snarled faith
and disheveled pauses...
where hours impairs near death
as uncertain answers grow pale
...Waking her slow breaths flowing
from tears... Dad in a stupor :
I dreamed within her own dream
a fervent wish of life restored
that she hears my silent words
her boney figure collapsing --
through the bleakest of bleak nights
numbed from pain ...from agony,
That under panels of glass,
...we clutch onto that wish for life
My dream blending with her plea...
and realize she has learned
to pray with me in the rain.
Aged, wetherbeaten.
Repainted.
Aged, wetherbeaten.
Six fence panels
Next to a spotted grey post.
Right, right, wrong, right, wrong, wrong.
Split asunder,
Now siblings, they stand.
Nailed shoulder to shoulder
The plumber is fixing a leak;
The pipe’s needing more than a tweak.
So for things to improve
He will have to remove
Some wood panels - I’m starting to freak.
Our house, built in ‘80, is old
And it’s paneled, which is, truth be told,
Now considered passé
But was cool in its day,
Though with changing it, I’ve not been sold.
So I’m listening from the next room
As he hammers and drills; I presume
That he knows what to do
For we haven’t a clue
If more leaks, in the future, will loom.
But voila! He just finished and yes,
I’m relieved of a lot of my stress,
For he came well-equipped
To replace what had dripped
And he didn’t leave much of a mess.
On the wall, all the panels survived
And the handyman, once he’s arrived,
Will nail down what is loose
And, as you can deduce,
Of my kitchen, I won’t be deprived.
Can you feel heels and laughter spin,
rotating and dizzy on scattered dots?
Throwback beat in the air is blasting
music and bodies stay in circulation.
Rotating and dizzy on scattered dots,
nothing can compare to this dance.
Melodic transfusion revitalizes the soul.
Throwback beat in the air is blasting,
a snapshot of every couple before them.
Longing electrifies those neon panels.
Music and bodies stay in circulation,
never enough feather boa smooches.
Dark euphoria dresses up that disco ball.
O emptiness of space, thy harpsichords. Whole?
Panels out of place, looking-glasses smashed.
Bitter winds, thy frost. Sickness, dole, O soul.
Chaffy grain beneath the tired thresher slashed.
Turmoil, tamarisk tree. Toil? Thunderbolt.
Hated are the days of life gone dry. Why?
Reality thinned, then forgot how to fly.
Happy thoughts, lost. Cost? Harvest season molt.
Protection? None. Been and done. Sun? Hostile.
Yellow as eyes on a predator? Pill.
Alcohol, wormwood, erasure, vile vial.
Guns, thy salute. Funeral. Lunge, then still.
Ravine, out back and filled with water. Caught.
Animals afloat, belly up, life flew.
Grey old men, hope is a mystery. Clue?
Sparks, burned out and skittering. Fire, cold. Bought.
Doom, close in on all. Deliverance? None.
Stifled by Fate and Fortune? Withheld. New?
Nothing under the sun, scion. Red run.
Grasping fingers and a quill, quahog. Brew.
Wasteland, receive. Gold, far. Sandbar, choke. Smoke.
Poison, leap from serpent's fang. Deeply sunk.
Peril, everywhere. Round upward, time. Soak.
Continent, beneath water. Ocean, plunk.
Sub Categories
Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.