I am the rogue with ink-stained hands..
A poetess who never plans.
I gather moments, brief and bright..
And turn them into lines that bite.
I write the hum of passing cars..
The silence tucked between the stars.
The way a stranger’s eyes can speak..
Or how the strong unravel weak.
I taste the air before a storm..
Feel chaos shifting, taking form.
I hear the lies beneath the truth..
The essence left behind by youth.
No subject safe, no thought too wild..
I am both tempest and the child.
Who scribbles secrets in the dark..
And sets them loose with just a spark.
I borrow scents, I trap a sound..
Turn passing seconds tightly wound.
Into a verse that breathes and bends..
That breaks, rebuilds, and never ends.
I write of love that claws and clings..
Of broken trust and fragile things.
Of ghosts that linger in the chest..
Of wars that never seem to rest.
A rogue, they say.. I don't conform..
I write the calm, I write the storm.
For I don’t write to just be read…
I write to bleed what’s never said.
Listen...
The night seems paused,
Like the hunter downwind its happless prey;
A silence crouched in a quiet.
It lend to itself a stealth that in these shadows lay,
We may be better off to follow its lead.
Let us duck beyond the reed,
Let the gentle brook bicker over us,
And lend our tongues to monastic solitudes,
And vows of silence,
And speak not till nature finds herself
A newer cause,
Or the dawn vanquishes the need.
And the cock crows,
Midst the hollow stems and lovage weed.
Ah, the life of a cut-purse—
Ere such audition e'er dreamt the need rehearse.
"Life accompanies error,"
And we are full of its merry bliss
How ere it come to this?
A frog atop its lily
Staring at us, so silly.
By so late an hour,
Clowns before rogues—
"And all wet."
The clever night has made us its jest
Let us retreat from fen to den:
A warm hearth and dry clothes,
And conceal our conciet,
For ere the wind of rumor blows
And give nock to doors and wake windows,
Inviting eyes to spy our predicament,
And see where our path lent tself
To such wasteful end
Sesame Street has gone rogue.
Surly nasty nightmares stir into my darkness.
Sleep will not come easy.
Wordku: 5-7-5 words
AP: Honorable Mention 2026
A Lot Of What
Bothers You About
Other People...
Bothers Them
About You, Too.
But, Maybe You
Have A Good Excuse!
You Never Know
Exactly What It
Might Be.
Unless, Of Course
You Think You Do.
Or Maybe Something
Totally Different
Happened To You.
Or Bothers You.
Or Maybe You
Forgot About
Your Own
Excuses, Too.
***
Look Outward In.
Then Inward Out.
Then Outward In...
Repeat.
-Gray Squirrel
09-19-2025
Rabid, renegade ravens, rise.
Relishing rancid refuse; repugnant.
'Round rural relics, resounding ruthless retorts.
Retrieving realm revelations.
Rival reckonings; regimes ruptured.
Repent! Release. Repeat..
Reconcile. Rejoice. Retreat.
Neurodivergent Rogue One
Rouge as one, on a solo run.
From glossy glades to mossy mountains.
From treeman to technoman
From trycore to hardcore.
From wet streets to dirt drifts.
From urchin to fortune.
From chaos evil to chaos
From inconvenience to ingenuous.
From arteriovenous to intravenous.
From keeping thyme to literal flow of rhyme.
dashing prancer to dancing lancer.
From the A to the One I am the Rogue One.
_~ Benjamin Luke Aguas
Here's a tale of a Rogue Rabbit,
Met a hoodie paschal hermit,
She overcame all her fears,
She munched him, from toes to ears,
Ate the lot, begone, foul furry git!
‘We stand by the dead
We support the displaced
We succor the disabled
We serve the deprived’
But who will tame the Rogue Ztate?
Who will knock with the Mosaic Punch?
Who will arrest the savage Thug?
Who will pull their below rug?
While the civilized world
Boils in this soup
Who will stir the pot
To injustice stop?
You Rogue
You rogue, “you made a mess of me.”
First you held me like a flower,
which made me think that I would be
safe in your ivory tower.
But “we were built to fall apart.”
You rogue, you made a mess of me.
I thought you’d never hurt my heart.
Betrayal I did not foresee.
You gave me my own castle key
and made me think our world was bright.
You rogue, you made a mess of me.
“My castle crumbled overnight.”
You made me learn that’s how love goes.
Before you leave, look hard and see
the “love thorns all over this rose.”
You rogue, you made a mess of me.
Verse 1 line from Taylor Swift's "Hits Different"
Verse 2 line from Taylor Swift's "The Very First Night"
Verse 3 line from Taylor Swift's "Call It What You Want"
Verse 4 line from Taylor Swift's "****" (Soup disallows the title, but it means a loose woman and begins with S)
Street light blinks in timing,
winking at the seeker kind.
I am an outlander from another place another time.
Everyday signs, give arcane message,
a decrypted and privileged-
visage-bestowing-vestige.
The wind flirts in it's honor with his hair,
his cheeks rubbed like a genie's lamp
to summon magic there.
Life's golden one lit up by invisible stage light.
Magical beings to and from take their flight.
The crowning it will happen,
"I feel it in the air tonight."
I am the chosen one, sent to yet a new realm to en-kingdom.
Archons looking on to see his progress,
Watchers to record and by-stand and slip again between dimensional recess.
Mothership hovers to rendezvous with his highness.
Reluctant Rogue Redo?
By Mark Stucky
If Jonah, reluctant rogue of a prophet,
had desired to visit Ninevah,
instead of fleeing the other direction,
how different would his story have been?
More succinct but less interesting?
No stormy maritime mishap?
No hard-to-swallow fish story?
No prayer in the belly of the beast?
Just marching through streets,
preaching his pithy prediction?
Would Ninevah still have repented?
Or did the whale-of-a-tale
add conviction to his message?
Jonah was not unlike me,
a spiritual rogue of today,
refusing to answer my call,
enduring intolerable storms,
crying in the belly of my beast.
Like Jonah, reversing direction,
might I yet find my path
and emerge from the depths?
(First published in Poetica Magazine, 3 March 2022. See also my poem “Whale Wayfarers,” telling two cautionary whale tales about hazardous opposite extremes in following one’s “calling.”)
(Image by anonymous on Pixabay.com.)
The white rabbit had gone rogue as told.
His wife was at home with their child Bold.
Only one child? You are kidding right?
This was amazing for rodents who live in Bright.
White rabbit got more socialized too.
He wore a suit, and a tie fashioned of blue.
Took the commuter train every day to work.
He’s strange others said. His coffee doth perk!
He drinks coffee! This is not what a rabbit does.
This was stated by his cousins Once and Was.
The white rabbit paid no attention to them.
He wore a ring too with an emerald gem.
I intend touring around the globe
For something I just wish to now probe:
Not how many guys wear clothes like robe
Nor how many would build with adobe;
Rather, whether it is now in vogue
To put to death a suspected rogue,
Standing on reasons strong but still vague;
Mock trial: The abhorrence of Hague,
Unleashed upon some soul Egypt’s Plague;
By God first arranged for the Non-Vague
But I’ve been advised: face Africa!
For your tours you leave Costa Rica
And don’t even near America;
All through guided by Britannica…
I am drunk, stoned, woozy and tipsy
Drinking beer, brandy and whiskey,
Swinging with abandon like a gipsy.
Kinda crazy, sozzled but hella merry…
Ha, Mary, kiss me! And Yo Sherry,
Your luscious lips, red as a ripe cherry…
Yoo-hoo, life could be a ding-a-derry.
The unsavory past is but long forgotten
Life’s more fun now and not at all rotten
The hurt is bearable and the pain lessen
Since flirting with this devious devil often
Brings me bliss and heartaches soften.
Like little children laugh, dance and sing
All summer, winter, autumn and spring,
With a passionate heart I bid you to bring
lots of hugs, kisses and joyful yodeling.
~A Brian Strand contest.
Contest: Addiction
Sponsor: Rob Levasseur
Assurance is compiled
Dancing question spiritualized
Truth is often forgotten
These are the answers to the wise
8/22/20
Written words by James Edward Lee Sr
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