A Hearing Chased
By Frank Daub
When Affirmation is sought by pen,
then
Appreciative voices ought
To be accumulated -- by thoughtful
listening.
But approval is hard to come by.
Putting words in the proper space
Eradicates the message
Of the sender’s assumed face.
Once read, appreciated --
then turned leaden.
The sender tries another voice.
Stillness, thoughts depreciated.
Not by sender’s choice.
Watch for the claws – beware
A pause
Of trying.
It would be better --
A silence kept –
A message fading, then dying.
The closer we became
the scareder I’d become
Inflicting pain
with the slightest look
No remedy in any book
One missed beat
a day, a night go by
Snarl at the other guy
Pause now in the dark
~ life is meant to be a lark
A moment of silence, a moment with stillness that diffuses within you, a quietness to rest and pause between your breath, You. Are. That. Of. A. Tree. Blowing. Free. You. Flow. With. Calmness. And. Grace. You are that of a rock that was once thrown into a lake and once the water stops to shake all is still and paused. No thoughts cloud your mind you are present with fluorescent colors that stream down a dream, a dream where I imagine I will be full of Colors. And. Love. Waiting. For. Me.
Everything has a pause
Answers
Opinions
Anger
Sadness
Movements
And I realize now
Even in my spontaneity there’s clarity
I see before I think
I think before I act
However it doesn’t show it
A long one, a short one
I value it
It keeps the mind is suspense
After all no man likes to wait
It’s an itch in the brain
Some do not believe it in as I’ve said
They believe in the rush and fail to think further
The dread of not being ahead
The constant comparisons with strangers
Second guessing nature
I was once like that
Only now I’m learning
That it doesn’t stop growth
Only pushes it
Pause to me is Patience
To me its hope
I’m learning it
To wait
is to drown
slowly
with a hope
one day
you will rise
only to witness
the time passing by,
getting closer to the bottom.
Here, struggle
is no longer needed;
surrender is easier.
To let go of heavier dreams
and embrace
the defeat.
Not to give up,
but to land the feet
to bounce back better
with an air of a new kind
created during the halt.
A pause to refill
and restart
what was unfinished
with a slight twist
that‘ll make
the whole difference.
I'm idle, stuck on pause.
Everyone's telling me which way to go.
Gotta listen to my heart.
Wordku: 5-7-5 words
AP: Honorable Mention 2026
Hovering at the cusp of thought,
before the stream begins to gush,
negating tidings it has brought,
in staid silence, we hush its blush.
Intent simmers in the background,
for the moment gentled and tamed
but resisting to remain bound,
it returns disguised and renamed.
Silence may sparkle when we’re still,
yet what’s a dream but a thought stream,
where we are worse off, stripped of will?
Let our cup of joy overspill,
bliss drenched soul atop love’s moonbeam,
sipping bliss nectar to heart’s fill.
Sun smiles at the sea,
its gold folding into hush,
and my thoughts settle with it.
Evening sky opens wide,
a soft bowl of fading light~
and I rest inside its calm.
At that sacred hour when the light concedes,
And the sun, a tired monarch, slowly bleeds
Across the horizon's wide and waiting stage,
The world turns over a new, dimmer page.
The shadows, long and languid, start to creep,
And lull the noisy, waking world to sleep.
The sky, a bruise of amber, rose, and rust,
Surrenders all its certainties to dust.
A final, fleeting, fiercely golden flare,
Then softens to a hush in the evening air.
Our voices, once so bold, now fall away,
As thoughts too loud for daylight start to sway.
A loneliness, a quiet passenger,
Sits down with us, a familiar visitor.
And in its company, a ghost of romance
Waltzes on the air, a single, saddened glance
At love once held, now just a fading hue,
A part of day the night has swallowed too.
This is the sundowner, more than just a drink,
A ritual upon the mind's own brink.
A pause, a breath, a moment held in glass,
Where what has been and what will be both pass.
A reckoning with all the light has burned,
And all the truths the darkness has not learned.
A sweetness in the letting go, the fall,
Suspended, in the quiet, after all.
Ellipses are like gypsies, here awhile and gone
The pause that they've created gives us cause to linger on
The final thought of what's been sought
In mind by their Creator
And now we are what has been caught... alone in this the-a-ter
Paused on my way home.
Felt like it was meant to be.
Everything seemed to welcome me.
Wordku: 5-7-5 words
AP: Honorable Mention 2026
I learned to bloom without witness,
Without applause or gentle hands,
My roots cracked concrete in silence,
While the world looked the other way.
I was watered by absence,
Fed by the things no one said.
Love came dressed as survival,
and hope learned to whisper instead of sing.
Some nights,
The past knocks softly
not to enter
Just to remind me it once lived here
I let it stand in the rain.
I have won hunger like a second skin,
Worn fear until it learned my name
I have folded pain into small, neat prayers
and hidden them beneath my tongue.
But listen
Even broken soil remembers spring
I am not what tried to end me,
I AM THE PAUSE BETWEEN STORMS,
The breath i didn't know i was allowed to take,
I am the girl who stayed
If you see me standing tall know this;
It is not because the wind was kind,
But because i learned how to bend,
Without disappearing
And still
Somewhere inside me
A soft thing survives.
Still believing light is not a rumor
Am still blooming even now.
In the hush between the charge and drift,
The world holds breath, suspended in a gift.
North and south exchange a fleeting glance,
Shadows and light halt their ancient dance.
Current pauses, silence on the wire,
Magnetism dreams of what might transpire.
Tension dissolves, the duality wanes,
Yin and yang rest from their endless chains.
In this moment, borders gently blur,
Opposites softened, no rush to recur.
The pulse of change, a silent refrain—
Polarity paused, peace here remains.
Raucous battles between them and us;
Finality reins but life is never the same.
Pause of Polarity Interchange Poetry Contest
1/17/2026
Sponsored by: Unseeking Seeker
When man suffers;
'Fancy' is the call,
Lacks eternity though---
Restricts the fall.
Dark decorum of life
Takes down fancy's rhyme,
Oh, it's not a "deceiving elf"
Hopefully, all the time.
Blend of colour and truth
With cultivated dreams
What more can we call---
Surely a fancy it is!
Love, live and make belief
It's all to have here;
Fancy helps with the rest ---
We rewrite and share!
Between confidence and insecurity
lies this cold, barren land of fragility.
Dead branches of inability,
cold air coated with repression,
white wolves disguising fear with aggression.
That’s where you’ll find me.
Sometimes it’s almost like I see the way out:
the Caribbean of confidence.
There’s another exit too
the desert of insecurity.
I’m not used to either of those climates.
I’ll stay here.
Maybe you can tell me about them.
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