Written: September 7, 2026, for: This Week's Poetry Challenge: Seven-Line Poem
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The sun withdraws its gilded hand,
orchards lean into shadow’s hush,
cicadas falter in their hymn.
Leaves rehearse their brittle descent,
the sea forgets its warmth of June,
a chill rehearses in the grass—
and summer folds into memory.
Nette Onclaud
EIGHT BY EIGHT
31 July 2026
Fog uncorks wet cedar perfume,
then pours it through each waiting lung
where moss rehearses nameless years
and bark remembers rain by scent—
until my breath is not my own
but loam translating root to blood,
as earth inhales itself through me
and leaves with my remembered breath.
the rooms grow smaller
quieter
after every departure
clicks the latch
they're built to keep
weather out
not harbor grudges
that echoes leave behind
forks, vases, plates and pens
settle into their places,
as though, they're expected
the yellow walls
once held afternoon teas,
until the laughter
sealed the paint
and screened the light
the banister
smooths its touch
before any hand
remembers its feel
the curtains
lift their seams
peering underneath
themselves
the stairs
borrow sunlight
for the tread of feet
the kettle
answers itself
in a kerfuffle
chorus of steam
the floorboards
clear their throats
one board
too soon
the hallway
widens for every
shadow
still waiting
outside
every afternoon
rehearses mornings
one curtain call
at a time
the dust learns
the shape
of fingertips
the chairs
lean much closer in
to listen
the doormat
combs its
greeting nap
every echo
tries on
a different voice
as the house
leaves
the door
ajar
for no one
A bad person smiles with polished teeth,
their words smooth stones skipping over dark water.
They lie without trembling,
because the lie has long ago become their skin.
The good man stumbles in falsehood,
his eyes turning toward the floor
as though truth were a wounded bird
crying beneath the boards.
For evil rehearses itself.
It studies mirrors,
learns the shape of kindness,
the proper nod, the measured grief.
But the decent soul—
he is awkward in deception.
His conscience leaves fingerprints
upon every sentence.
Beware the man
who never contradicts himself,
whose stories arrive too clean,
too sharpened, too ready.
The shadow often comes
dressed in confidence.
And goodness—
goodness is usually uncertain,
standing in the doorway
with muddy shoes and honest hands.
The colony rehearses its certainty—
feathers ticking like metronomes,
breath rising and vanishing on cue.
Ice remembers every footstep
and forgives none,
yet here life proceeds by agreement,
a choreography older than language,
each body a comma
in a sentence that ends in survival.
One bird pauses.
Not dramatically—
no prophecy, no cry.
He turns inland,
toward a blankness the wind has not edited.
The snow does not argue.
The horizon does not blink.
Instinct loosens its grip
like a glove dropped without noticing.
We watch because watching is all we have.
There is no word in our mouths
that fits this angle of departure.
Nature, usually so fluent,
stammers.
The camera keeps its distance,
as if reverence were a form of ignorance,
as if explanation would be a lie.
He becomes smaller, then theoretical.
Not broken, not heroic—
simply unsponsored by reason.
Some creatures follow maps.
Some discover that the map does not include them.
The ice closes its book.
The wind keeps walking.
I saw them.
Not as leaders—
as mirrors.
Davos is not a summit.
It is a battlefield of egos.
Trump spoke alone.
A monologue.
Because power does not debate.
Europe listened.
Smiling.
Wounded.
The man who promised peace
now rehearses war.
Not because he changed—
but because the stage demanded it.
Do not hate him, allies.
Study him.
He is your teacher.
He revealed
that love is rented.
Fear is owned.
Machiavelli warned you.
Better to be feared than loved.
Trump only obeyed the text.
A ruler must appear virtuous,
yet abandon virtue
when the state trembles.
Mercy, faith, honesty—
luxuries
when power is at risk.
You built this logic.
You polished it.
You exported it.
“The end justifies the means”
did not begin with Trump.
It built your banks.
Your neutrality.
Your silence.
Do not point fingers.
You trained the hand.
You dug the pit.
He fell in—
and dragged you with him.
Trump is not the disease.
He is the symptom.
Your rolling stone
has rolled back.
And now
you recognize your reflection
too late.
Habeas Corpus — gentle Writ —
That taps the iron Door —
And bids the Body answer —
Where Silence ruled before —
It questions Stone — and Custom —
And Power — robed in Law —
Asks Why is this one hidden?
What Crime — or only Awe?
For Chains may learn to reason —
When Justice finds a Voice —
And Error — long enthroned —
Is startled by a Choice —
The Cell rehearses Morning —
At hearing of the Name —
My Truth — that walks in daylight —
Unashamed —
Correct an Injustice — softly —
As Dawn corrects the Night —
Not with a Sword — but Certainty —
That Wrong — was never Right —
For Liberty is modest —
Yet persistent — as the Sea —
It only asks the Question —
Why am I not — now Free?
‘Satire is traditionally the weapon of the powerless
against the powerful.’ – Molly Ivins
Lounging like an uninvited guest,
thinking the room is its conquered kingdom,
a fly on the wall scans his idiosyncrasies.
Its surreptitious eyes roll in incredulity
as a budding leader rehearses to make lies true.
A self-professed monitor of his trying times
it’s perched there just to silently laugh at him,
feeling secretly like many he’s an entertainment,
for by now it knows him too well
to scribble his tell-all as invisible writing on the wall.
The lid hums like a throat that cannot sing,
Sealed wood remembers my last breath’s wing.
Lilies stare with their white, blind eyes,
Their perfume is pity—how it lies.
I stitched my silence with a needle of bone,
The air outside has learned my tone.
Fingers folded, a prayer mislaid,
The earth rehearses what it’s always said.
Moonlight drips through the chapel glass,
A ghost of me watching my body pass.
They will say I was calm, composed, divine—
But grief wears my face beneath the pine.
Now the worms, those patient brides,
Beginning the banquet of my nonexistence.
My name dissolves, like salt, inside.
Resigned to that place, before I was born.
The spade bites down, a silver fang—
its hunger for the perfect tower, the moat that swallows everything.
I build my kingdoms grain by grain,
while tide rehearses its collapse again.
Mirror,
You betray me with your cruel precision.
You hold my face hostage in your glass prison,
shattering me into reflections that no longer recognize themselves.
I have begged you for honesty,
yet you pour hallucinations across my skin—
a thousand mouths whispering,
a thousand eyes unblinking.
Once, I thought you were truth.
Now I know you are only a stage,
where light rehearses the trick of permanence.
When you break,
I will gather your shards and drink them like bitter wine.
Mirror,
You betray me with your cruel precision.
You hold my face hostage in your glass prison,
shattering me into reflections that no longer recognize themselves.
I have begged you for honesty,
yet you pour hallucinations across my skin—
a thousand mouths whispering,
a thousand eyes unblinking.
Once, I thought you were truth.
Now I know you are only a stage,
where light rehearses the trick of permanence.
When you break,
I will gather your shards and drink them like bitter wine.
God signs off on His handiwork
releases into the world a human soul
First inside the womb and then outside
that soul begins to unfold
For mankind yearns to be free, free of direction
ignores all instruction as its sets sail
Free of direction and of directions
Freedom the goal, man’s Holy Grail
With good luck comes wonder
at creation, at a cosmos so awesome
Though the journey leads, inevitably,
to frustration, disappointment, unripened blossoms…
Then the cruelest blow when eventually
the unfolding process reverses
The ramrod-straight frame
folding in on itself as it rehearses
its return to its Maker, Who delivered it here
Who lets man search vainly for freedom
and come up empty year after year
~ for only His Truth makes everything clear
In shadows thick, she carves a grin,
No conscience dwells beneath her skin.
She counts the stars like tally marks,
Each one a spark snuffed in the dark.
She mimics tears, rehearses pain,
But empathy runs dry as the rain.
A charming mask, a velvet lie,
With every smile, a soul will die.
She walks through crowds, a ghost, this name,
No guilt, no fear, not even shame.
Her voice is as smooth as vodka's clear,
Yet leaves a taste her tounge can't chase.
The mirror holds no truth to see—
Just vacancy and mimicry.
Her heart, a hollow metronome,
That ticks and tocks in silent chrome.
And death, to her, feels just like home.
At midnight, a silent ocean of ebony rises,
a black lung stretching over my fragile ribs,
and the bed becomes a cold altar where the body rehearses its disappearance,
a sanctuary of shadows dancing on the edges of unknown dreams.
The footsteps vanish, leaving room only for insects quietly gnawing the lampshade,
small mouths reminding me how delicately the light fades,
and how the story unravels in the darkness that flows gently,
fragments of time and memories falling like the leaves of an eternal autumn.
But in this abyss of silence, a memory shines defiantly,
a spark defying the deep silence of the night,
wishing to preserve the light even when darkness sings its final note,
and hidden voices whisper of the rebirth waiting on the horizon.
I rise from my stone altar, seeking to rewrite the lost words,
in a world awakening with each sunrise,
a universe where even shadows embrace their beauty,
an eternal journey toward the light, beyond the boundaries of night.
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