Written: August 18, 2026, for This Week's Poetry Challenge: No Letter E
****************
I long to find my locus in this vast world,
to curl inward and drift into dusk.
Lost, I miss all that is going on—
sobs scar my nights—now a ritual of ruin.
If I find a nap, I stir to dawn asking why,
all I wish: a warm, bright grin in bloom.
Trust runs thin—too many masks fall off,
nothing stays until truth is shown.
Cold tools bring a sharp sting,
but living cuts past all skin.
To cling or to quit—
both bring pain from within.
To long for a soul,
to watch that soul walk with that girl—
a sharp twist in my gut for what is not,
I clutch my truth, my passion, and try to talk.
My words miss, fall, go still,
what now?
To hold or to drop?
Both hurt, both haunt.
Thus, I sustain;
I hold you within my soul,
but it bursts my spirit—
all for a flash of junction,
a glint, a touch.
Trails before me
The guiding light of all who look
The veiling dark betwixt each star
The crumbled rook
The waning breath of who we are
Or whom we mistook ourselves to be
In sleepless fantasy
Fades as voiceless memory
Gazes upon a faceless sea
Turning, we weep
As silent ends the dream.
Pierces, the waking
The heart stirs once more
Beating with fierce unknown fear
We stept once more thro' trouble's door
We make our way in lonely dreare
If happiness greets us,
We'll away from here,
But no eyes dare we cross, or meet
We watch the ground 'neath our feet
Lest it fall away on some nameless street
And we fall double lost
To the waves of defeat.
Stare up toward the star that blinds
Know that nothing in the null binds
That the rush of life
Are the flowers of the eye
Frail and intricate beautiful
But ultimately a lie
Dream bears more weight
Than you or I
And the hour is late,
I’m afraid.
I met her in a dream at a washing station in Bangladesh
I might have tried to hold her hand by the thread she held
Which passed through the interior of a manicured shrub
Severely cut into the form of a dense sunless topiary ball
So tightly was it manicured to create a studied appearance
Of formal stability and calm that no air or sunlight reached its interior
And you could smell the rot from inside at a distance
And hear the screams of a six-year-old child from inside as well
Calling out desperately from the rot for attention and care
That I might follow the thread and see into the plant I dare not go
For there were broken off rotten limbs of its trunk lying by its side
From those who tried to reach the centre of the shrub before
So, I held back my desire to reach the centre and stopped out the noise.
I sat in the sunlight of what was once northern India and wondered at life’s destruction
Where none of Shiva’s many arms could penetrate into planned obstruction for aid
And the course of fate finds its way into unexpected dreams on night pillows rest.
I found you in a dumpster,
a trembling scrap of midnight,
all teeth, fear, and olive eyes that still feared shining.
The world had abandoned us both.
I was breaking,
certain there was nothing left worth staying for.
then you looked at me,
and two forgotten souls recognized each other.
you wore anger like armor,
a feral king crowned in sharpness.
yet with me, you softened,
curling into the hollow places of my heart.
your quiet purr became the first hymn
that convinced me to keep living.
I did not rescue you;
I simply found myself in you.
you loved me while I unraveled,
and I loved you while you learned to trust.
feline, my midnight guardian
proof that broken things can save each other.
I'm frostbitten summer-smoke,
a pensive
p r i n ce s s ~
pressed in the cold satin streaks of
Brontë-butterflies,
dying at the edge of awakening,
through the voiceless ruffles
of electric blue lies ~
where haunt and hiraeth are heard
in the gold-spawn scales of snake green sighs...
there, while I pay homage
in the temple of torment
singing a siren ~
shaped in the requiem of revenge,
the sun cries in cawing crimsons
as I keep sketching you
in ominous o
u
t lines ~
wearing the nonchalant noose
of raven rictameters...
but you still break like the weather,
and b
l e
e d
into the veins
of cathartic rivers,
becoming the unshakable sky,
I could never reach...
and I still remain the unholy scent
of Medusa-tongued bouquet,
mourning upon your casket...
We are ~
nefarious naughts
knotted
in the throat of kismet,
we are ~
the criminalised catastrophé
masked with a macabre monsoon,
as we are ~
the vandalised victim
and the compromised culprit,
the secret of megalomaniac sunset
remembered in rain and ruin.
Rescued from the Shadows of Ruin
My noble Sire Marcus Baracus, your legendary intervention has pulled me from the very jaws of ruin! I am eternally bound to your grace, for without your heroic shield, my cause would surely have perished in the shadows. My deepest gratitude is yours for the rest of my days!
The Ruin of Your Wager
You threw your fortunes to the wind,
and laid your bets upon an underachiever.
Did you not look behind the mask?
Did you not weigh the heavy cost?
The ink was dry on history’s page,
the warnings written in the dust.
Yet blindly, you ignored the past wreckage,
and signed away your sacred trust.
Look now upon the quiet ruin.
See how your chosen champion falls.
You backed a beast that thrives on chaos
while silence chokes these empty halls.
Just a quiet thought.
As its all going well,
i fit the norms,
i go out allot,
everything seems perfect.
i forgot perfect doesn't exist,
i forgot reality isn't mine to lead,
and the palace i built stick by stick,
burnt to ashes with a single click.
i watch it fall,
in front of my eyes,
one by one,
side by side.
i forgot my reality,
what i really was.
a mistake, problem.
how could i keep the walls?
i am ruin,
whatever i touch,
whoever i love,
whenever i try.
i am ruin,
still not sure why,
but i've accepted the fact,
so i wont leap to fly.
love
at start,
like a flame,
bright and shiny
burns hot, emits warmth
like the hearth in winter.
when souls cuddle close and merge
what an overwhelming feeling.
the lovers swim in joy, reel on toes.
but like tides wane, the first feel recedes
charm of life gets stolen away
drudgery slowly sets in.
hot arguments prop up
conflicts arise soon
coldness creeps in
hate intrudes
and love
wanes
The demons that surround
On a blasting rampage have gone
Cutting to the root in paradise gardens
Both shrubs and trees, beloved friends and kin
Growing out of nature’s blessed ground
Killed or mutilated beyond repair
By their raging unrepented mortal sin
Plant voices I hear crying out in despair
Souls now buried deep underground within
Beauty and truth they must kill
The Demiurge must reign against God’s will
Revolt, return to God’s garden of love
Let life’s divine spark shine out from you above
Into the garden over the buried ruined souls
In ground where peace and love are the garden’s goals
And if while walking you encounter
These slanderous defamatory demons
God’s angels will hide you under their wing
And you will be protected by the praises
And the songs of thanksgiving that they sing
The floorboards groan beneath a phantom weight,
Of every "yes" I spoke when I meant "no."
I've barred the shutters and I've locked the gate,
But the haunting isn't coming from below.
It's in the rafters, in the peeling paint,
The ghost of who I was yesterday.
A helpful spirit, patient as a saint,
Who watched the structural beams begin to sway.
Is it a crime to patch the broken glass?
To drive the shadows from the master room?
I watch the living world begin to pass,
And tell myself I'm tethered to the gloom.
To help myself feels like a sacrilege,
A torch held up against a holy dark.
I linger on the crumbling windows ledge,
Afraid to strike a single, healing spark.
For if I fix the roof and mend the door,
The ghosts of everyone will have no bed.
I'd rather rot upon the cellar floor,
Than claim the house for my own life instead.
But even ruins deserve a steady hand,
And even haunted halls can find their peace.
The "wrong" is letting the foundations strand,
And granting the decay a permanent lease.
the heart flinches closed,
rejecting every mending
forged from steel shadows—
no blade, however precise,
can bring love back from the hate
suturing the heart
with a Black Excalibur
needle of sour spite—
each stitch rips the heart open,
tearing the wound more open
bitter threads pulled through
despair, knots every longing,
regret draws them taut—
anger jerks the trembling hand,
tearing what you hoped to hold
I, in a culture,
Touting masks that don't fit,
Find peace now, in panic,
Found courage to quit,
Declaring the difference,
Of sinner or saint,
Sacred or spoiled,
Of Shadow or paint.
You cannot read their minds.
They hide their true intentions,
Like hunters do in blinds,
Too late for circumventions.
Baited by their chumming,
They boast by saying this,
"You cannot stop what's coming!"
Their assassins did not miss.
Cruel conquest brings them joy.
"Like a lion I raged!"
With their prey they will toy,
With sport they are engaged.
But lost in all this glory,
They fail to understand.
It's God who writes the story-
His responses are preplanned!
What you plot against Him,
While you celebrate your win,
Your win is just the prelim-
He will turn it into ruin!
Better consider the Cross!
Jesus died for gain, not loss.
He mocks their succumbing,
"You cannot stop what's coming!"
Darkside of Aquarius Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Robert James Liguori
Contest Judged: 9/24/2025 10:36:00 AM
( 6th Place )
The heavens break in rivers lit by flame,
the scattered stars bow low, their crowns of shame.
Beneath their weight the trembling earth is torn,
and voices vanish where younger dreams were born.
The oceans burn their silver currents lost,
dark smoke lifts to wrap the sky in frost.
A rider moves across the night in red
while whispers lift among the countless dead.
Mothers defend their sons with quivering hands
as iron footsteps mark the broken lands.
The seer cried out but none would heed their song.
a shadowed reign had gripped the earth too long.
Amid the ruins, one faint spark remains
a gentle light that bear all the chains.
Though heavens vanish and every fate derides,
the human heart keeps burning through the tides.
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