Razed Poems

Trojan Horse

There is a story of a gift,
A Titan of a horse,
The Greeks presented it on wheels - 
an olive branch, of course.

The Trojans were so very pleased
And opened city gates,
In rolled the massive equine thing
Now Troy could celebrate!

But all was not just as it seemed
And, as the Trojans slept,
The horse’s belly opened wide
And out Greek soldiers leapt!

All the Trojans met their doom,
Their city razed to ash
The gift they’d thought a lovely horse
Was really meant to smash!

Our modern Troys are still besieged
By tricks and clever ploys,
As Trojan Horses sidle in,
Our systems to destroy.

Change

The wake of the storm...
My known world razed to the ground.
The rubble, my life.

By The Streetlamp

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.

The Mirror Lied

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.

But Kindling

By furnace burnished, and by flames destroyed,
A sword is tested, and a mansion razed.
Endeavours, fight, and efforts – all are void, 
To quell a menacing, relentless blaze. 

But in the midst of all the plaintive cries
A glimmer in the desolation glows 
Ignited passion which can never die
Arise! Among the embers my love grows.

Alas, confused, to right and left, I’m led!
Into inferno, burning me to grey 
I’ve lost our love and by the knife I’ve bled
By him, my red seducer from the haze.

Carry me away, gentle into night,
From tortured lands and forests all alight.

Light Box

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

da6y light ghost

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.

The Soldier’s Covenant

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.

When We Were Beautiful

Remember the time.
Remember the days.
Before the weave…..
After the straightening comb and fried dried perm, wig…….
When we were beautiful,
Oh, so black and beautiful.
When the character of black was natural beauty.
Full shaped, shaved afro, natural "angela davis beautiful"!
Afro
No chemicals, no perms, no madame Whoever
No purchased existential emulations of beauty from a foreign, shaved head
No synthetic being.

How can I feel beautiful with someone else’s hair?
No locks of beauty yet, yet, yet
Or fake braids down the back like you woke.
However you may have be born, you wore it, proudly.

But natural black beauty, real awoke.
Just our washed and sun-dried selves, picked  out and afro sheen, clean  pure razor-sharp black hair
Fists razed in defiance of oppression and beautiful.
“A natural,” they said
“Naturally, beautifully pure”

Now, WE ARE STILL BEAUTIFUL
Woke and beautiful!
A beauty that costs,
Nothing!
A beauty of the spirit
That has always and will always
BE NATURAL!

Angry Birds Crowing

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!

The Serling Zones

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

Existence

Existence

"Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it."
– Confucius

Time carves through me, a blade precise,
splitting the soul in swift, sharp slices.
Beliefs dissolve in apathetic mist;
I see ingratitude, a marvel that persists.
Nowhere, no one offers trust’s clear voice.

The vast hands of the Almighty stretch wide,
yet I find no refuge inside.
Corona's shadow veils horizons torn,
ruin hides where nature is reborn.
Mortality whispers in miraculous tones,
while youth is sold at spring’s damp stones.
Dreams, once sheltered by the moon’s embrace,
lie evicted, mistrust has razed their place.

Who speaks now of joy, of women, of friends?
Green grass weaves homes for insects instead.
The mind, consumed by vengeance's flame,
burns in Shravan’s crimson rain.
Love’s river runs through ashen streams;
the conscience falters, betrayed by dreams.

And still, I stand—modest, yet yearning,
with wearied heart and fire still burning.
An immortal hand rests on my shoulder;
I know—
Beyond these clouds, the sky is golden.


**Shravan- is a month of the Bengali calendar – mostly monsoon season.

Joy and the Goy and Israel

the love and reverence 
is what I noticed first 
a motherland a homeland 
but then I saw the curse 

a beautiful Israeli girl
too jewish shunned like me 
but a goy in the kitchen 
still instant friends were we

fast forward to this present day
with Gaza razed a perilous fate
towards its people a palpable hate
to mind my jewish summer camp stay

how at an early age I could plainly name
both belonging and pack mentality 
how hate and bigotry will stake their claim
when so by example one is taught to be



For Simcha, 
never forgotten ~x

Razed Heart, Hopeful Soul

Whispers of your skin, a piercing ember
Razing my soul, in heart's December
You spurn my soul, still I'm holding on tight
To the oath of your love, a guiding light

A wet pane

Pictures of life are so blurry looking through the lens of a wet pane
Wind fills it with all its fury heavy; driving me today a cold rain
It howls with a strength; if only I could use the screen as a harnessing strain
But instead, I run from it just as a minnow swims towards a seine
It's tailwinds inflicted untold fear as they razed the central plane
There's life in this sky, elixir; as the Tulips push out of the soil this week, they can not restrain
Sunshine will fall again just as water always finds a way to drain
Such guilt seeing all the colors of the world unfold, it hurts so badly that it was expensed by others' pain

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