I wend my way
to Tamarisk Bay.
White sands glow
beyond the foe.
Amid pink trees
and whispered breeze
I hear the lilt
of haunting guilt
as pipes intone
a strangled moan
for sacred things
ripped from kings
while throngs gazed
at beauty razed
and cowered mute
when fear did suit.
The World Approaches.
Swarming waves of cyclones swell to unfathomable heights, unfathomable depths,
Walls of sea and blasting winds tower like angered and frosty alps,
And I cower in its shadow,
Unable to decipher if I survive even the first crash of water,
The first crackle of thunder,
If I should step out of my quiet cave,
I wonder, would there be anywhere left to run,
Would I disintegrate in that quaking, burning sun,
Collapsed in its shadowy, unknowable force,
Crushed beyond the feeling of remorse,
Would I live in that fire, that razed hellscape,
Among lustrous gleam and sharp steel,
Prickled by nails and progress,
Pinched by paper and persona,
Flourishing and dying,
Reforming, reaching, and being torn away,
Flames licking the pages,
Flames lingering on our minds,
Flames watching from the walls,
Flames digging under our fingernails,
Flames placing money in hands,
Flames pulling bones and twisting lips,
Flames intertwined with us,
Burning through canvas,
Burning through pages, and pages,
‘The History of flames’ in flames,
The stage is staged,
The stage is set,
The World Approaches.
Demons
Deep in the forrest of the depth of my soul
lived an insecure wretch down deep in his hole.
He was not long ago forsaken to rot,
secluded and shamed for the hell he hath wrought.
The soul can not soar without faith in the sky.
It hides in the darkness ashamed but to try.
Violently thrashing this life and that past,
ever uncertain, indecisive, outcast.
Internal strife of his own psyche's make,
In cold damp dark left to shiver and shake.
A stranger to self, another man's role,pathetic disguise from self despised soul.
This wretched recluse, self-exiled underground,
must meet his demise before hope can be found
Mindful but stubborn embracing the pain,
a delicate task this breaking of chains
Many facades each a further misfit,
hiding his truth down his insecure pit.
Razed and disected, his weakness confessed
Little repose to a man self obsessed
Desperately clawing from damnable depths.
Dragging his psyche up arduous steps.
Battered and bruised and humbly unaware
How bright his light shines, from depths whence he cares.
1. A Chihuahua, a Pekinese, and a wolf, all circle a tree, sniff, and pee.
But only the wolf circles back and covers its tracks.
2. Even today, there may be more than one species of man.
That might explain why some “develop” real estate
And others are happy to trek across untamed land.
3. What does a tree say about you? (Never mind what we say about them.)
4. If a child was bent on destruction, and later as youth and man, he bullied the rabbit, razed the hill, and broke the creek, then we have us a psychological problem.
5. A fox in a man is not the same thing that a fox around his neck.
6. There are things one can do about gophers and pesky deer.
There are things one can do about men in black suits and shiny shoes
That read your land on a map.
7. There is little that nature can do against raping men except whisper
“Help” downwind.
Strange what fickle thoughts trickle through the space behind my eyes
Behind those wry windows through which you see far too deeply
Past the vanity that clouds my judgement when my soul is on fire in ways no other burn could comprehend
That fire which ravages all that is soft and pretty, which softens that which is hard with grief
For part of me was razed when we spoke for the second, first time. That sallow and bitter part birthed from the loss of one to whom I will always be devoted
This forgotten and found again scorching of the soul is painful in ways impossible to describe
But not for a second would I think to change it
How peaceful is the snowglobe village
resting in its protected place
high atop grandpa’s knicknack shelf,
the one he keeps out back in his private space
The woodshop smells like new cut cedar
while the old radio plays jazz-time concertos,
outside the birds take turns at the feeder
and grandpa tells stories of days in the village.
He remembers the names of children at play
and the brook as it rambled and babbled nearby,
he said he’d go back but the village was razed
then pavemented over for a super-highway.
Swadling encrypt the contrarious slopes of a mired
entity coursed veinous stammer spurts bled
across a court of an unchallenged befitted named
as valor cornered the bleached to be razed
spirits encapsulate the branded sole championed
glory dazed betwixt ears of an abandoned
waning light fills purple sighs 'ill eve succumbed
bitterness spilt the downtrodden weighed
hung kicked a life out of bound the final scored
The wake of the storm...
My known world razed to the ground.
The rubble, my life.
Written: July 28, 2025, for contest sponsored by: Nette Onclaud
**************
Salted lips confect rust melt,
In my mouth hangs mango smoke.
Bread with oil seeps bitter gloom,
citrus spews on copper tongues.
Vanilla beats in the haze,
ash stays like razed molasses.
The lamp spills sweets on your chin,
my thirst croons of gold and grit.
I stared into the mirror's glass,
But saw no face, just smoke and ash.
A grin that wasn't mine took hold,
Its teeth were crooked, dead, and cold.
It whispered truths I dared not know,
Of buried screams and blood below.
It showed me hands I'd never raised,
Yet bore the stains of those I razed.
Now every night I meet its gaze,
Trapped in its ever-twisting maze.
The mirror lied—or maybe not—
I’ve just become the thing I fought.
Cold, warm, horrifying, inviting
Grinding away at the last pink and grey pustules
pooling at the bottom of my
Skull
Gods own light pushes and claws helplessly
against thin nylon
Its primordial importance
Toppled by billions and billions of bright bulbs
Burning and boring into my eyeballs
Spiralling and spiralling down
an everlasting pit of fluctuating fun and fear
And skin and sin and guilt, guided
Down as fast or as slow as
You want, your choice
Quick glimpses of the very bottom shoot sharp
Icicles of despair into my sedentary soul
Thick mist
Clears temporarily from my
Glazed eyes, I push and claw helplessly against images
Of razed villages and burgundy-bloodied bodies,
Kicking and
Screaming against the unfeeling and undulating
Dilated eyes
of fellow billions
The daylight ghosts
I took the bus to the village
it didn’t stop there anymore, and no buses were going
that way.
The only road to my house was a track
For tractors and mules.
In my absence, wartime was hard
I met a man who
if I paid to drive to the village for a few Euros.
My old dog sat outside, and I took her some
moments before it recognized me
glad to see me.
The door was open.
I walked into the kitchen.
A man came out of the living room
He was surprised to see me.
He had moved in since the house was empty
The owner had disappeared.
The dog lives in the shed, he said. Not anymore
I said. I have nowhere to go, the man lamented
In that case, you can stay for a few days.
I took the dog for a walk in the woods
On the other side of the tracks, she liked that,
It disappeared, and I couldn’t find my way
back to the house, and the village had gone.
A person with a golf club in his hand told me
The tiny village had been razed years ago.
I had no business being here as it was the future.
And there was no way back to the old days
I had nothing to do here, and I walked towards the horizon.
A wind-induced smile greets me. Cradling the baby’s head, floccose like a ripe raspberry; I’m both filled with wonder and dread. The fragrance of the care products is a stark contrast to the latibule I’ve habituated for many years during my tours of duty. How am I to care for this fragile being when mankind is hell-bent on extirpation? The eminent threat is daily updated on the Doomsday Clock. Paradise razed by conflagration like the residue of a charred batch of jam: irredeemable! I can but sigh while I vow to protect him and his mother to the best of my ability.
Angry Birds
Crowing. Distressed Echoes
Find God. Hapless, Infernal January. Karma
Levels. Mangroves Neutralized. Ornithological
Panic. Questions. Razed, Sawdustted Toyon.
Unsheltered. Vaporizing Wildfires X-rated. Yowlers
Zapped!
There are many zones
the popular Twilight Zone
crossing the school zone
with all the basics
like writhing and reeling and
arrhythmias are fatal
for Western students
cluelessness, secrecy, and
incapacity
ignored globe grows dust
and the school's walls have blackboards
dartboards for target practice
the teachers alarmed
walled Glocks that toll assassins
the lambs are noisy
indoors and outdoors
the hung apple's score tallies
The Tree of Knowledge still grows
principal announced
school will close for funerals
the town folks will meet
and begs an answer
school razed for homeschooling
new breeds promise no more graves
twenty-twenty-five
parents, their kid's commencements
gymnasium armed
library screams sh!
nobody crossing zone signs
fronts empty cemetery
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