Homeless
A hand reached out
And said, Hello
Startled was I
On the pavement.
Looking up
Through the sun’s morning glare
The outline of a silhouette
I now saw standing there.
Hello, it said so firm and clear.
I wasn’t sure what this meant
For so long the world had passed me by
Invisible to my stance.
So now I grappled
With the moment
Unable to comprehend
Hello, it said, this voice again.
Neither, could I
Smile or respond
I knew no longer how
For so many years had gone without.
Good morning to you
I hope you are well.
And the shadow passed on by.
My gaze long followed
And stunned was I.
Soon a feeling – oh, so foreign
Came into to me like a rush.
A trinkle of a rivulet
Filled my heart with warmth and hope
For a humanity long forgotten.
The sedate, marvelous morn.
It is incised into the wondrous ,
delighted,, greenish star ,
The sun is sowed in a melodic ,
amazing orchids.
An unceasing felicity fills
with an enriched, charming
run-let.
An exceptional, great gladness
flooding, the extraordinary
rivulet.
timeless ,enchanted
dahlia is abides in a humble
rivulet.
Locked in a flow sweet and gentle,
bubbling and warm it’s so calming.
Finding peace was accidental,
this rose quartz rivulet rolling.
Your prose with it’s edge cajoling
allowed my sensual side to rise.
A mere glance at this blush growing
is sure to melt those stone cold eyes.
On a soggy dusk, long time ago,
When shadows huddled at every corner,
When rain had gone and birds had roosted,
You held me close and whispered in my ear;
“In your eyes I see, the blue of the sky,
In your soul, you hold the depth of seas,
Love swells, like tides on rise,
My life, I vow, by Jove, never to part”
Your voice, like a tremulous rivulet gurgled,
We stood staring at each other in a warm embrace
With passion sweet, your eyes glowed.
They were like a blue lagoon, deep and peaceful
On my dimpled cheek, a kiss you planted,
A gesture warm with abiding love.
Crisscross lain as warp and weft,
We hoped to weave the garb of life.
Words and deeds that served as balm to soul!
Still, they echo, gushing a flurry of thoughts,
But alas! To a far unknown land you fled,
‘From whose bourn, no traveler returns’,
Raging Rats Rush & Race,
Rippling, Rustling & Restless.
Rooted Roger Rocks in Relief
Reckon Rats Rambled to Rill.
Ripples of Rivulet,
Rapsody of Raindrops,
Resounding Roar of Relief
Roger Rejoicing
She passed to her the urn;
it was the second time
the mother had gifted the girl
her son;
the pain clearly showed in her eyes.
He loved you more than me, she said;
she wanted to answer; this was not true
but the gesture had been made
no need to make it harder.
They met one summer, long ago
he a handsome, strapping chap
she, a country rose.
One day among the purple clover
a cherry rivulet ran down her thigh
and they were one.
They never knew such love
his soothing voice
his soft touch
and in the deepest state of passion
the gentlest most delicate caress.
They lived high among the dales
where morning mists
obscured them from the world.
And in the winter, her warm breath
would freeze upon his beard.
One morn he did not wake
and that was that.
For months, she wondered
should she follow?
But
she had memories enough
to fill another lifetime yet.
The sedate, marvelous morn
is planted in a placid, tranquil
carnation.
It is engraved on the sonorous,
blue star.
The sun is bedecked with soundless
enchanting course
Sunbeam is full of melodious,
mellifluent route . He has the only Scope ,
for boundless, unfailing love to all
It's exceptional elation fills us it with
unshakeable ,extraordinary rivulet
My son lies teetering
On the edge of the abyss
And tears rivulet.
God, I beg you, please.
End this suffering, I beg,
I die as he breathes.
I love him, dammit,
But if he suffers for me,
I'm a poor father.
So decide. Heal him
Or quiet his pain. Mercy,
I beg of you, God.
Was not once enough?
I yield. Take my dreams, my love,
But please, spare my son.
Your house is great, God.
Let him know true love, mercy,
Kindness. Take him home.
Else heal him, Father,
He is too weak, as am I,
He should not suffer.
Not like this limbo,
Do not purgate him alive
But heal, or relieve.
Take my every tear
as payment. Soften your heart.
Miracle child mine.
I sit, this morn, on the bed of
A dried-up rivulet,
Head-bent and full of compunction.
It’s clam-quiet except for the impatient
Squawks above which prompt my heartbeat.
I raise my head, heavy with grief.
Climbers and weevils align in a silent choir,
Singing with precision the lines of a forgotten
Mirth.
It’s 5 o’clock in the morning — a time when
Cockcrows are loud enough to wake the dead.
I cringe and slink as I traipse about in the dead woods,
Among the cadavers of river plants, decimated,
Deserted, and vitiated through seasons’ flagrant ebb.
I see shadows that sing with their mouths tightly shut.
Like them all, I, too, am lonesome, and I draw about me
The dry waves of parched waters.
On my lips is a certain prayer — a revised edition of the
Paternoster.
Return, waters, return from the underrocks, I pray thee.
My sorrows are old and fragile.
Hoots and cries and stridulations beseech me.
I have picked my way among paths that
Cuddle the feet in sympathy and soothe
The souls that hide from the earnestness of
Sunrise.
Wash my dry naked feet, O waters,
And grease my palms so cracked from
Endless chafing.
Written: May 15, 2025, for contest Sponsored by: Crystol Woods
**********************
I’m neither harmonious nor a hidden hymn
Who said I'm wedded to whimsy, lilac looks?
to all those who gifted me
countless worries through the years.
Simply silhouettes in my rear—view mirror.
I sail past rhyming reefs,
of my quest faintly reflecting
Why should I let them define me anymore?
I make mistakes; so what?
my heart is full of love and ambrosian words—
it shines with rhapsody.
my hands can heal amidst the severest pain.
my mind envision cures
for sparkling vanilla—algae tears.
Tidal teals whisper tales that truly transform.
Despite doubts in glittering, grape-colored gales,
I'll face them as the north star kisses the sea.
I will rise and face them head on,
while history hisses at my heels.
I'll sustain my anxieties for what they are — illusions
with a clairvoyant cape and rivulets unraveled
what matters is now
what matters is my striving
what matters is the rise
toward rebellious rainbows
and what I require,
as a necklace of seashells
worn and stained with sepia
Tears, they flow as giddy gushing streams,
and meddle with our facile sense of joy,
seamlessly they interface cod emotions,
whirlpool laughter smothers trite elation,
smirking bogus rivulet, weeping willow branch,
to that toxic ocean known as hollow mirth
I never thought of it as more than a side stream
a rivulet of minor proportion and influence
until the miracles and blessings appeared
always about me and more and right now
centre of the universe deserved pole position
up to the time disaster struck hard and fast
today I have resolved to take nothing for granted
am grateful for the privilege of being alive
for food water sheltered abode and love in abundance
an inner war has abated and peace has arrived
sobriety in body mind soul and great spirit
grant me the vital force of existential existence
what cannot be changed I am able to accept
that which can be I try to alter and amend
and I am beginning to know the difference
in the here and now of today
I am thankful to feeling gratitude
now life flows on its own appreciation
I murmur like a rivulet through the
hitch of your hands, where the canyons
carve their parched longing into your fingers—
where silences sublimate like cera,
pooling beneath your glissando touch.
Your tremolo breath convulses rough and low
like sibilant submersion in water—
spilling, sinking, staining everything it meets.
I watch the estuary of your gaze split my horizon—
watch you hush abysmal eyes into
celestially arched surrender.
There is no stillness between starlight,
only the pull of mighty magnitudes,
fuses lit beneath the ribs,
pulses and throbs teaching the air
how to cleave—how to…
sforzando!
Love, here, is neither reserved nor reticent—
it is lightning bottled in glass—
hellfire burning beneath the tide—
language that deconstructs
even as it is uttered.
I step forward—some faltering cadence,
some submitting ascension—placing my hands into your fire,
not to be consumed, but to remember
how stars revel and rain.
Frolic - frolic along with me
And be as a spritely fawn
Running carelessly through the reeds
As best we can imagine.
Let's traipse across the rivulet
Where a log fell in the right place.
What luck that we should find it
Like it knew of our escapade!
The shrubs have something to say;
Small murmurs are thrown to the wind.
They catch up to us and whiz by
But we've not a common language.
So wildly about the winds gush
That my whipped hair looks feral.
We trample the weeds underfoot;
We overtake a lonesome hill.
Somewhere, anywhere - let us run
And forge for ourselves a new path.
Frolic with me through the unknown
So sure that we never look back.
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