The Bystander
Looking in from afar,
I witness your undoing.
It is a quiet, wretched thing—
a state of affairs I can no longer mend.
You move without a mirror,
blind to the jagged edges of your choices,
unaware of how the world recoils.
Your actions have grown sharp and ugly.
I try to scrub you from my mind,
but you are a ghost in my periphery,
repeating the same hollow patterns
without a flicker of remorse.
You are digging a well with your own hands.
When you finally fall in,
I will not climb down to find you.
I will simply drop flowers into the dark
and walk away.
Goodbye.
Spring's face, Summer's now.
A much fiercer!
Its bee's peace-drone, warped into
Hornet's war-chant.
Who recoils not, stands
Up to it stemmed
More brave I, for this yarrow.
Only a plant!
Are we deluded
A mirage by?
Its arms, this backroad's shore-raised
Sea-cool hugs grant!
A shadow's face adrift on the ocean,
Within the made swinging of ebb and flow,
It turns darker the more in hands it grows —
The way of her Delphic heart unchosen;
Where the hollow shell recoils and loosens
there jerking in sea hunger on the coast.
...of the waves on top within their white ghosts —
A buoy comforting in her lowness
The girl through her salt tears still passes free,
Her footprints settling death in the sand,
Where seagulls cry for there is ripping sea.
The lowest tide keeps repeating again
...and the waves crash only where it is bleak —
A gray wind takes her shadow, this lowland.
Under mists, we march through darkness
to the sound of Aztec drums.
Not conquerors or conquered,
but soldiers of your Sacred Heart.
With gentle words you shaped centuries
as you did thousands of years ago
Transforming cruel, broken misunderstanding
into faith and hope and love.
Holy mother.
Faithful virgin.
Our queen.
And my heart quickens as I think
of how the demons must wail at your presence
at how all evil recoils in self-destructive loathing
as it beholds your purest beauty.
Mary - this day, this life - I dedicate to your Son, my God,
through your humble and perfect intercession.
Pious, poetic handmaiden,
Queen of all eternity -
Pray for us.
2025-12-12
written fairly quickly up to 11:35 AM
Stone castle forts fall,
their wet moats dry to parched dust
power mutes silent
yet tyrant's demand to rule
remains coiled in naked might
Drawbridge now unfolds
as policy, law, decree
the moat, a filter
controlling information
behind wall of secrecy
Fortress power stays
autocracy hewn in stone—
unbreachable walls
the moat of politicide
changing form, not its intent
Pick-A-Title, Vol 54 Poetry Contest // Sponsored by: Edward Ibeh
Contest Judged: 9/5/2025 5:24:00 PM
( 2nd Place )
Written: August 13, 2025
It stalks in silent corners of the mind.
A whisper, jagged, dark, and undefined.
Its claws creeps walls we dare not show,
eyes ecstatic where our hearts should glow.
It scoff on mistrust, on every hidden fear,
gnawing at the edges of what we hold dear,
A silent growl underneath the laughing sound.
A truth too fierce to face the day unbound.
Yet deep down inside the marrow of this fight.
A spark ignites a flutter of quiet light.
We don’t meet the beast with sword or shield
but with the quiet courage the heart alone can hold
It howls, it rampage, yet we will not fall,
it's shadow recoils before our inner call.
The beast is vicious, but we are more vicious still--
Adepts of the darkness by our iron will.
Low, darkening clouds
flashes fly and life recoils
thunder drums the earth
A shadow walks where silence bends,
With whispering ghosts that call as friends.
The mirror lies with fractured grace,
A thousand eyes behind one face.
He hums a song that no one hears,
Drowning doubt in static fears.
Clocks melt slow, then race ahead—
Each second stitched with ancient dread.
A prophet’s tongue in twisted speech,
Reaches truths we cannot reach.
Reality’s thread, too thin to bind,
Unravels slow inside his mind.
What cage could hold a world so wide?
What map could chart the rift inside?
The crowd recoils, they do not see
The cost of fractured clarity.
He laughs. He weeps. He disappears.
And dreams alone for all our fears.
Is persecution a sign of weakness
prosecution a sign of strength
To the victors go the spoils
from might makes right
the world recoils
Black on Black… you say,
A madness...yes…a brutal truth it is.
The evisceration of pain turned inward,
The observer recoils, head shaking in condescension,
While sucking back an exhale of quiet relief.
But contemplate this—
Would you truly prefer it the other way?
Suffocated anger unleashed with fury.
Our pain, unchained, directed at its true source.
If ever unleashed,
Would you dare brave the cataclysmic storm?
To confront the tempest raging within our souls?
Could you endure centuries of seething rage,
Spreading like wildfire, unstoppable?
No matter the bullet, the rope, the law,
This outcry could not be arrested.
For we know how to fashion a noose as well.
Understand this—
Our silence was never submission,
Nor a display of weakness or fear.
It’s a barricade against chaos,
A protection for us both.
If only you could grasp the tightrope we walk,
The restraint we must bear each day—
If only you knew...
“The fog may come on little cat feet”*
But Autumn eschews silence
The thick crunch of crisp fallen foliage
Hastens the homebound honking of gaggled geese
Soft whispers of falling rose petals
Fade into the haze of hoarfrost
Cold winds whistle wildly through naked Maples
Flags snap loudly to attention
A brutish barn cat recoils from the touch of snow
Squawking ducks slowly slide across an icy crust
Chattering children board a school bus
Winter awaits its curtain call
They glisten and dazzle on the beach at night
on moonlight against light snow, they shimmer.
They sparkle, flicker like fire, or diamonds bright.
They guide your footsteps beneath starlight
soft against your toes as you wiggle your feet
when you sit on the sands aimless in the night.
You can feel them gently upon your hand
caress your fingertips as you do a lover,
to count the sands you need a magic wand.
This is a sand and shale beach where the surf boils
the ocean flecked with whitecaps of waves curling
a frenzied foam is dashed on shore to waters recoils.
How insignificant you are strolling idly on sands
but it feels good, and keeps your ego from inflating,
while your heart dreams of flying to distant lands.
@jjote022824
Amidst the shadows of the night,
Silent warriors clad in black,
On a mission to make things right,
They embark on a noble track.
With steely resolve and sharpened swords,
They move with grace and perfect poise,
Protecting the weak, defending the lords,
Their strength and courage never recoils.
Through the trials of fire and ice,
They stand fast, never giving in,
With hearts of steel and souls of sacrifice,
Their bravery and loyalty a sinewy hymn.
The black knights ride on, unafraid,
Ever ready to face their fate,
With conviction in every blade,
And a resolute will, never abate.
So follow the black knights' lead,
With steadfast purpose and fearless heart,
And you too shall be freed,
To make your own noble mark.
The birdscarers have been at work in Mariupol.
Not with firecrackers in barrels
But shells and rockets.
There is no birdsong in the trees in Mariupol.
The birds have left.
There are no trees.
The trees are splinters.
The flowers that bloom are Pion shells,
Blossoming red among apartment blocks.
Spring recoils at Mariupol.
An ashen winter has corroded buildings,
Left bleached and blackened skeletons;
A winter made in munitions factories
And spread broadcast like cancered seed.
There is no perfume of spring blossom in the air;
The smell of burning drifts across the rubble and
Sweet, sickly odours hang heavy.
There is no birdsong in the trees in Mariupol.
The birds have left,
All but the carrion crows.
If I will talk to myself, well I will
And I do,
As the spring of my mattress
Recoils; I get up
Put on my shoes
Left,right,left,right
Tight they march
At my words
O my word
Three-hundred and,
and sixty-five
The tears held back
What is the point
To talking to you
When the peas
Deep dived, from the oversized
Can, leaving just enough
For the salad and ashes
Left, right, left, right
Five months go
And dark circles appear
In the corners
And the morning smothers
Early Hallow-
een, and March
brings screams
If I will talk to myself, well I will
And I do,
As the spring of my mattress
Recoils
And I get up…and I get up
5/11/2022
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