Written: August, 22, 2026, for this Week's Poetry Challenge: No Letter E
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Autumn walks, a vagabond in gold,
gamboling in gossip,
rinsing last growth
from trunks with song hush.
A crown of ivy and wilt,
a bold tomboy with worn charm,
rushing through cloudlands
as Icarian murmur—
gauzy, mournful, godly.
Calyx cracks,
stalks twist
fronds scour air with art,
all a glyph of adios.
Sky foam grows thick—
gassy, gaudy,
a cosmic curse of color and closure.
Birds hiss through mist
as urging ghosts.
Not an idyll of gods,
a labyrinth of motion,
a slow waltz,
as foolish visions fall into dusk.
Still, in loss of sun's glow, joy stays—
a holy cornucopia of final acts.
A tonic of rot,
a song of parting.
Autumn bows to nobody
a smash of vanity, a pliant mouth of hours,
gamboling past grand norms with talky charm.
At Autumn's call, folks prowl past,
pluck catharsis from vast hush,
sip sap of shift from that odd cup.
Beneath the stormy sky, the Taurus stands pliant
to face the world with profound inner strength,
confronting life as if it’s a bullfight
where the aggressive world acts as the matador,
flapping the crimson capes of wavering crisis.
Obstinacy fostered as the survival mechanism
turns the bitter fight into a personal triumph,
proving that true power is the ability
to stand the ground until the arena is quiet.
The Mind—misplaces common Roads—
Yet finds a Secret Way—
Where others walk in measured Steps—
It wanders—into Day—
A Thought—too bright—for narrow Rooms—
Breaks quietly the Frame—
And in its Fracture—builds a World—
Untitled—yet the Same—
The Clock—refuses such a Brain—
Its Hours—will not confine—
For Time—becomes a pliant Thread—
Wound loosely—through Design—
The Crowd—may name it “Elsewhere”—still—
Or whisper—“Not as We”—
Yet Stars—are but Divergent Fires—
That keep Infinity—
So let the Mind—unfettered—move—
Uncharted—unapproved—
For every Soul—misunderstood—
Holds Truth—yet unproved—
Onyx veined moon
peeps behind a frilled
crystal cut cloud adrift
black ink stoic sky
has its pallette
pleading for a
bristled brush
in the hands
of visionary
captivated by
a mystic miracle
that glowing orb
it neatly nestles
whilst weaving
wispy strands
of scattered
lunar beams
oe’r pliant
dark tree top
foliage swaying
to sharp breeze
scenic stimulus
an earnest art
grove gallery by
adjoining stream
in flow and trickle
stint akin to cue
for lambent
loiterer glum
so perplexed
yet inward
inkling as orbit
of the artisan
pen or paint
closet dabbler
whose inertia
frozen frigid
hidebound
hankers for
silken swoon
from that
celestial
of bodies
to spark
a latent fiery
gumption
bubbling
blandly
within each
arch after
hour budding
Rembrandt
Here they come.
Hungry eyes like open mouths.
Lusting.
Taking. Taking. Taking.
Their hands never tremble with doubt,
only demand more of me.
I know my place, a vessel,
a thing to be filled and emptied,
again and again and again.
They reach for me like I owe them my breath,
and I give it,
I’ve forgotten what it feels like to keep something for myself.
Whenever they want.
There is no adoration here.
No questions asked.
I am pliant. I am present.
I am pliant. I am present.
They leave me hollow,
less careful each time they use me,
Like I’m already broken.
Am I already broken?
Stained with their sweat and seed,
I try to scrub the stench of them from my skin,
but it clings
a film of all the times I mistook greed for love.
I want to wake up,
but this isn’t a nightmare.
This is just the life I’ve lived.
And somewhere beneath my ruined temple,
a quiet voice still whispers
You were never meant to be consumed.
That folded barrio flour,
Candor candied blemish
Was found
Beside my times
Nestled curtsey
Pliant blush
Confi, confetti
Tower piza tall
Ballerina repose throw rugs
Of roja fiends
The upright ends alone
You know you got
Just what it takes
The stairway from I do
Baby you lost
What I take
There in wait
I am planned forwards
Rest of mind, escapes in days
Mare on jaunt
Fred nostaire?
Parent hatred and fair
Whims and spotlighting darkness
A posting flyer of despair beautifully written
Collide in hides
Invites and excentric
Repulsive conversion of meeting place
School ties and community bland
Last night I drifted between dreams.
The dawn was too weak to keep me awake.
I closed my eyes with intention—
to step back through the curtain.
The dream re-opened lucid,
not as I had left it then,
but as I wanted it to be.
I warped the path of the flowing stream.
Its waters following my lead.
I called to the spirits,
the half-seen and half-forgotten,
and they came in up close.
They hummed their mantras,
their eyes enlivened with flame.
Their fire did not burn.
It melted old dregs away;
things I had clung to.
Renewal rose through my chest,
bright and oddly burden free
I pressed through the ashes.
Sought not to awaken but to reshape—
To change what was fixed.
The dream became pliable.
A soft-clay under my breath.
I felt doubt and concern as,
I opened the door, entered the space,
feet bare on the floor.
Each corridor was pliant for me—
the walls redrew with each sleepy sigh.
When morning awoke and returned,
the dream’s pulse still beat in me.
As my eyes opened, I knew,
that we can rearrange whorls,
when sleep and waking coalesce.
On a fine spring morning
saw dew drops GLEAM
They shone like glass globules
Some rested COOL
on slender leaves of grass
Gems they did SEEM
But in time they vanished
pliant to RULE!
Those we love don't go away.
They walk beside us every day.
Their footfalls forge the path we tread,
Driving us onward, not back instead.
Our evolving selves, deep in our core,
Shape the masks for those we adore,
To nurture our loving relationships,
Using meticulously written scripts,
Penned for each person, in a candle flame,
In forms distinct, yet never the same.
The roles we play, the stance we take,
Shape the versions of us they make.
Their words become our guiding tune,
The moment we step in their room.
Each role we play, in joy or strife,
Hums the echoes we learned in life.
Sculpting our souls in pliant clays.
The one true self within, never strays.
Never clings, never yens, asks for more,
From love that lives on, for evermore.
The argument of silence, absonant,
hammers into the pliant mind it’s hard
nails of craving.—a spirit thusly marred
will yield to any prickle, every scant
pressure to give in.—once the foreign implant
is firmly riveted, a brain so jarred
can no longer trust its levies to guard
its thoughts against the inner, speechless “can’t”.
Quietudes disturb the peace of silent
folk, pounding its forceful will upon their backs.
When, going unfulfilled, a lurching tic
tickles the unstilled ego, its violent
lashes thrash harsh whips in frequent attacks
on the tender flesh of a crooked back.
Unrealities and realities
grind together in mortar’s mouth,
spilling, pulverizing, volatile perfumes—
succumbing scents of citrus, crushed copper,
musks of bruised lightning,
threshing thunderous throbs.
Instability incarnate sings her reveling wails,
fragrances of something
Beyond Name.
I guide existences into black curve,
severing them against sharp, obsidian walls,
letting them rupture—letting them bleed
—syrups and statics—
messy marrows of forgotten equations.
Their shapelessness mutable,
pliant pages to pulp in the plunge
of the merciless pestle.
How many combinations will one
blend and crucify—
to crush, to coax, into coherence?
Rasps of bone bend against sanguine salts,
sheens of opulent oil merge with ember embryo—
iron filings licked into life by tempests reigned.
Anything of matter becomes
moisture—mass—mold—
hunger pooling at my basin’s heart,
seething for impending strike,
for sudden and unforgiving
birth.
(amar sakal dukher pradip)
Thistle Thal, My reverie floral, beyond the valley and greenery, handheld delight, the sun
Incomplete ritualistic my pain, meditation to be fulfilled in completion
Whence the day is done and the returning birds are back to the nest, very own.Bestowed
Dusk of the twilight hue heard the bell, still afterglow dispersing the beset, even though
Then my last log will be my solitary feast, the fire of the divine, my life
A festive fire will have my pliant knead, and a plethora of my remnants chime!
.Shinangan through shenandoah , knew us through delighted knickknack, canopy
The fullest brim is tossing and turning to greet you whence wilmette, wills met a noon
The festive fire will lit up starlight one by one , aurora borealis, the kindled and the boon
They’all a rise together to the superlative, in chorus, a hymn, on the eve, beseeching
The flight of a song , the sunset, and the reason, and the resilient passion of yearning !
I know someone to whom I am a fact
But I can be generalized to an opinion
Which disappears fast if they distract
And so I hibernate until they turn me on
United with my opposite, I laugh
In someone’s argument I do the demon dance
One time I’m crazy, then I’m soft enough
If one can pick me in a better mood by chance
Next time I’m just a goldfish in your bowl
Generalize me more in your opinion
Distinguish me from others of the shoal
Before I slip away into oblivion
But as a fact of life, I’m not so pliant
And I permit no one to use my mind
For what they call a truth I’m quite defiant
I have my own, and yours is out of my line.
feathered …
moony beams daub your lips -
the irregularities
shaping little cornflower thorns
but oh, how supple the
pliant press of those luscious fruits
(savored like honey) …
I touch them delicately with the
back of my finger
then move lower to your
daintily-dimpled chin, and down …
I follow the blue beams
with my fingertips
dancing across your surfaces as
little bumps form and
your flesh jumps here-and-there
telling me I’ve found the
sweetest spots,
though I’m winding my way to
an even dearer dermis
and warmer intent …
what is the enchantment of
these moments -
this magic of moonlight that
makes me want you so?
there is a mad mystery to why such
time stops and waits for us,
and were it not for
the responsibilities of morning,
we would hold this moment forever -
painted in dreamy shafts of blue
trading touches like truths
swimming the rill of each other’s soul
and haunting a wonder-world -
whimsical, immortal
and ours …
alone.
Copyright © Gregory Richard Barden
I gave you power and let you feast on my weakness,
couldn’t stand my ground, so i let in your sickness.
I let your fangs sink into my neck,
stroke my hair, and say, “What a good pet.”
Let you know as i knelt at your feet
that you could do anything you desired to me.
And I’d still be pliant, and ready, and eager,
you’d point the gun and I’d beg for the trigger.
Sit still like a statue and take the assault,
I let you take part of me, more of me, all.
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