Money laughs in the daylight,
Showing off like it owns the
Block.
Every dollar retains a joke
And a bruise.
Quick to bless, quicker to
Bite,
It shifts moods like weather
On a bad street.
But after hours it cries quietly
Remembering every soul it eluded.
This small god with moods
Keeps moving-
Blessing, breaking never
Staring long.
"Stone by Stone"
Each sin I’ve carried—stone on aching stone,
Dreams left untouched, stacked clean in silent rows.
Each promise broken, marrow turned to bone,
Each wound I’ve borne, a weight that never goes.
"Stone by Stone"
The heavens sang once, choirs now dismayed,
Ignored by hearts too deafened by the toll.
Layers of earth by sacred hands were laid,
Yet mud retains my shape, my heavy soul.
Your voice cuts through—an edge, both sharp and kind,
Unbinding what my ruin dared to cage.
Stone by stone, your mercy shaped my mind,
A sculptor’s hand to calm relentless rage.
"Stone by Stone"
What love remains ascends where grief resigns,
A monument rebuilt by your designs.
"Stone by stone"
Once they named me god.
At my mouth they placed figs, oil,
to the lip of my fire,
sang their children’s names
into my warm, sulphurous breath.
They named my smoke a blessing.
They read the fire in my throat
as fathers read a child’s brow,
and trusted the mountain to sleep.
But then I awoke
The seal of my deep heart fractured
and poured night over their doorways.
My rivers of flame took the olive groves,
the market’s clay jars, the bridal veils—
took every voice that had sung to me.
Now my blood lies blackened,
cool as a curse beneath the moon.
Yet it retains the mould of their streets,
the shallow bowl where rain still gathers,
the doorway’s buried threshold,
the clasped hand none may uncover.
Pilgrims come with polished lenses.
They praise the dark waves of my skin,
say:
How still. How beautiful.
They do not hear the dead
turning in my stone.
I hear them.
In the long moonless watch,
their prayers return unbidden—
not as incense,
nor as praise,
but as small voices under rock,
calling the god
who did not spare them.
Written: August 12, 2026 for the PoetrySoup Poetry Wheel Contest.
Poetry Wheel Challenge:
Theme: Ocean
Emotion: Angry
Color: Gold
Season: Harvest
Form: Villanelle
Object: Lantern
Verb: Break
Frantic ocean crashes through glowing gold,
A lighthouse hangs where harvest darkness falls;
Autumn rising tides break in, harshly cold.
It clutches the coast, vexing to be told,
While amber arcs scale as a blazing wall;
Frantic ocean crashes through glowing gold.
The lantern shakes, its little flame grown bold,
As blackened clouds descend beyond the squall;
Autumn rising tides rush in, harshly cold.
Midnight mist is sumptuous to behold,
And shattered shells sit speckled by the fall;
Frantic ocean crashes through glowing gold.
Yet thru tempest, the lamp is still in hold,
A shimmering star shines against the pall;
Autumn rising tides rush in, harshly cold.
No storm retains the flame from growing old;
No sea can silence every distant call;
Frantic ocean crashes through glowing gold,
Autumn rising tides rush in, harshly cold.
Do not mourn the leaf
nor seasons
mourn not starry night
everything sleeps
yet retains glitters of light
as it came to rest
on the forest floor,
speckled and brown
retains mulch appeal
near death, yet a fertile feel
Spring will bless
Winter will rightly regress --
Faces all on fire,
eyes catching the dancing flames~
light in their pupils,
dark fireplace gathers each gaze
keeps them when eyes look away.
Wood splits and whip-cracks,
sparks surge up into night's arms
like stars finding night~
the fireplace adores show-time
in its arena of stone.
Ash calms burnt embers,
stones lament the loss of light
warmth without a flame~
the fireplace cradles the shape
of what can no longer burn.
Smoke has lost its verve,
curling up now from the seams.
staining blank-faced stones~
glowing warm in the half-light
clinging to the afterglow.
Dark, damp, and dank now,
night has drunk the final warmth
Cold soot scents the stone~
the shiny green-black hearth waits
keeping winter for the years.
Morning finds no glow,
only the smell of old ash
clinging to the stones~
the fireplace dreams of footsteps
time itself tending the cold.
The last ember died
while darkness quietly drank
its final warm breath~
the hearth retains every face
beneath its moss and silence.
The new normal says:
to pluck a flower without getting in trouble,
do it from a bunch,
'cause the crowd covers the action;
it retains the innocence.
A lie—
a masked tool,
surrounded by many words,
easy to make anyone a fool.
Best way to present any stupid thing cool.
But when it embeds on our tongues,
so sticky,
it won't leave.
Who first needed it?
Why couldn't truth fit?
Perhaps it's the fear
to see those expressions
when they hear
what the actual words are.
They might find it sour.
But the actual event is uncarved;
no one knows what truly held.
Why not serve a different tale
everyone wants to willingly hear?
The plan succeeded.
No one knew.
It felt like a weapon;
the word spread among a few.
The legacy continued.
"It's self-defense," they argued.
Reality depletes,
the façade highlights.
No one can prove
if you lied.
Harley’s favorite life began at Arkham
She reinvented herself
no longer a mere psychiatrist
now Joker’s lovesick groupie
she flashed from tame to wild
from mild to violent
a murderer now but still likeable
she pretends to be naïve; but she retains kindness
craving affirmation, she latches onto people she likes
selfish? Yes
Unstable? sure
An unstoppable force
Harley Quinn, with her faux innocence
highly suggestive, easily manipulated
an anti-hero villain you grow to love
the alley retains memories and secrets
things she has observed would straighten my hair
murder, mayhem and mischief
I sense her wiseness in the silence
appreciating her confidentiality
This body's outer surface
Of cracking plaster
Part covered in mould
Must shelter a soul.
For this bright feels, a youth's
Its outlook retains.
In putting a name to it
Cute-ran wonderment
Who tries to sound coherent
Still loses control!
Hiding from rain
Lies a slick raven
That old wisdom retains
Loves shades of loneliness
Traps all stirs of sounds
Bears mounts of pains
overload of information
this brain retains
so much I’ve forgotten
the bleepers and bloopers
the Southern charm
with the likes of
well
bless
your
heart
watch out for the pretty gowns
sweeping, swiveling, smiling
Rhett Butler knows!
IN AND OF A SILENT SOUL IN ITS WANDERING
Today is as still as
A crowded graveyard
Empty of life;
Yet the green of nature,
Shines in living glory:-
As a brief breeze
Passes by,
Silence retains
Its control.
Yet,
Reality, has
Its blissful
Moments:
Chaos left sunder,
As God’s
Healing grace
Nourished
My wandering soul
In the awareness
Of self-worth:-
May the cistern of grace
Continue to anoint my
My wandering soul
With navigating
Divine wisdom
And guidance:-
Let ballots rise like morning light,
Not shadows cast in silent night.
Let every voice be freely heard,
Each promise kept, each counted word.
No fear, no force, no hidden hand,
Should twist the will across the land.
For power gained through honest choice
Gives hope its strength, gives peace its voice.
When votes are true and justice stands,
The nation rests in trusted hands.
For freedom lives where fairness reigns—
And democracy its soul retains.
A ticket pinned to the thigh reserves it,
the whole cadaver is parceled off - of course.
Legs are a late harvest, these often-indigent parts
carry a visual poverty long after the body is plucked.
Under watchful eyes the young medics
separate muscle groups, filter large blood vessels
from fibrous runnels, hesitant scalpels
seek out fascial planes.
The leg is devolving to scraps,
yet, ingrained in the tissue
I sense residual shades of a former life,
seaside postcards, old photographs,
perhaps campaign ribbons, odd tokens
amongst yellowed newspaper clippings,
all briefly surface as conjectured images
beneath a probing knife.
The gray flesh retains its personal history,
I imagine that behind the knee
there is a wife, children, and a separation
all spectrally etched between femur and tibia.
Much of the ensuing bone-whittling years
are demonstratively scored
across a formaldehyde and jelled narration.
The students suppose they dissect a limb,
while I notion that I turn over bloodless pages,
of an unwritten story,
and now the last few attached ligaments
remain as threads that speak at last
of a long journey’s end.
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