If I ever had a daughter like me,
I’d call her
my little desert rose
so she knows I’ve lived it too—
a brittle-stemmed rose
blooming through sandstorms.
Were I to have a daughter—
someone soft like me...
I’d tell her I’m sorry.
Not for bringing her into a world
where cruelty exists—
but for letting her live in it
when her petals part
before her thorns remember to rise.
If I ever had a daughter
who feels and pains like me…
I wish I don’t.
It’s a gift to feel everything, they say.
But I’ve loved it enough to know—
the world punishes it.
I selfishly wish
she would never be like me…
I want her to stay
an unguarded, unbroken wild daisy.
(A lone voice whispers)
He who walks without the most holy of ways
Will never return
Until they have learned not by sin be swayed
As true as new trees are made
By lay played
In so many wet insidious ways
By those hidden in the chasms
In the faraway stars
For people like you gathered here should be careful
For without faith
In any form
The nearby Darkness can always open a small gateway to sin
And if that abyss is opened
Revealing
Desolation's
Fatal sandstorms
It gets so much harder
To let hope crawl in
So O ye
O Ye
On the yellow beaches
Beseeching
O ye
Gathered round me
To the worthy few
I summon by the power of the Purple Flame
Virtue
By the Divine Will of your choice of God
To guide you
Amen
Through Acheron
To the blue Stargate
So you can
Once more
Run
(C)
Copyright John Duffy
The four elements can collide-
for fire and water make steam-
a hot blanket of thick mist from
tea, hot springs, and boiling water.
When the conditions are just right,
the four elements can collide.
Fire (or heat) can liquify
earth, turning it into magma.
Earth and air makes swirling sandstorms-
tiny flecks that can cut through rock.
The four elements can collide,
chemical reactions like this.
Water freezes at thirty-two
degrees- the air has to be cold
enough to make water solid.
The four elements can collide.
I swam in your ocean
Flew in your skies
Mother Earth so
Nurturing and wise
Now you fight back
With perilous fury
Waves and storms
The bodies we bury
Tsunamis and earthquakes
Sandstorms and snow
We have poisoned you
Chemicals in tow
I hope you forgive
Our ignorant ways
Man has deserted you
Mother Earth nights and days
Ice Breaker
doomsday glaciers melting rest upon seabed
benign blizzard temps endanger ground zero
turbulence cause a desert
warming waters near frozen lakes I shall fear
Iceland volcano displays her open wounds
magma of our Earth’s crust vomits Her vengeance
blue lagoon shimmers of red blood polar bear
global sea level rises
accelerating where there should be more ice
magic gone shows no mercy
dazzled domain of milky beauty lacks snow
sandstorms in the ice bubble
millennia of the past we inherit
minke whale
blubber made into goulash
expedition boats bulbous bow ice breakers
who will dominate Antarctica's future
consolation prize has awarded no one
my world shall go from snow white to a blue sea
sixty eight percent freshwater flows freely
If history is anything to go by,
When a storm of a different kind comes by,
We may wonder why,
We blew our chances goodbye,
For somewhere for friends and foes to get by,
While above ground the sun becomes hot enough to fry,
And sandstorms leave few left with even one good eye.
If history is anything to go by,
Without somewhere underground for friends and foes to get by,
It will not matter who can tell the biggest lie,
When locusts take to the sky,
Or the lions come out of the zoo for something new to try.
If history is anything to go by,
Without somewhere underground for friends and foes to get by,
When more meteors than missiles are in the sky,
It will not matter who can tell the biggest lie,
When both friends and foes have blown their chance to get by,
Unless there are open tunnels nearby,
When both friends and foes need to wave above ground goodbye.
CATTLE EGRET
Makinde Adebayo Adeniyi
Silken, snow-white feathers
Slender, elegant legs
Lovely long sinuous neck
Beautiful and benignly noble head
Stout, straight, sharp beaks
The cattle egret
Seen in the dry season
In symbiosis
With cattle and the wild
Visitors to the quiet countryside
Feeding on ticks and insect
Migrating with the arrival of the rains
To distant arid land
The cattle egret
Harmless as a dove
Graceful in flight
Beautiful in sight
Her arrival, like the sweet angels
Bring the sandstorms
Dusty, dense, dry vegetation in cold weather
Interspersed with hot noons
And that sweet aroma of harmattan
I/you
is/am/was
a soldier of
fortuitous (mis)fortune
a quiet
puddle
piddling in
southerly sloth
a gnarly ghost
galloping in
whirling ~ twirling ~ swirling
electronic sandstorms
!---)))>>>--->>>)))---!
adrift in tortured time
submerged in
the timeless slime of
gaslit dumpster fires
a hypersonic tsunami
of repetitive rage
revolting within & against
a cadaverous cage
light is muted
visions are mooted
delusions get uprooted?
an unfortunate creature soldiers on
!---)))hTySpUeNrAsMoInic>>>)!
A lover, a wife, a fallen friend,
All recipients of the reddish end.
The queen of flowers which we all know,
Seen in sandstorms and falling snow.
Emotions rush...
At it's touch;
Faster heartbeats,
And embarrassing blush!
Gardens center around it's glow;
Just one more whiff, of the mighty rose!
A lover, a wife, a fallen friend,
All recipients of the reddish end.
The queen of flowers which we all know,
Seen in sandstorms and falling snow.
Emotions rush...
At it's touch;
Faster heartbeats,
And embarrassing blush!
Gardens center around it's glow;
Just one more whiff, of the mighty rose!
At a checkpoint sits a four-door sedan, brown paint faded by years of unremitting sun, pitted by hundreds of sandstorms. Only bullet holes exposing fresh metal and the still-inflated tires are new.
Inside, four crimson-splattered corpses: father at the wheel, forced against the seatback by the impact of tens of bullets, his eyes still fixed on the road ahead; mother's head smashed against the caved-out passenger-side window; two children riveted to the backs of the rear seats, a limp rag doll in one lap.
Outside, death lives in the instant silence; hearts slowly descend from throats to resume their monotony; lungs exhale and fear-frozen fingers relax, beginning to feel again.
A year and half later, in his parents' backyard on a sunny Sunday afternoon, a 23-year-old US soldier kills himself with a single bullet to the head.
I was like living in the desert
who dreamed for raindrops,
but only sandstorms came--
who dreamed for gerberas too,
but only cactus plants I'd seen--
stinging in my sagging skin.
Fervent sandstorms of daylight
breathe their last on hot topanga
distant shores rumble with breeze
splashing colours of blooming dusk.
Oh my blue crystal dreams so delicate
dance on sumptuous serene waves
silver stars on the glass in carmen
sprinkle in slithering hush to sleep.
July 8, 2020
Strand Completely New (7) Any Theme Any Form Poetry Contest
Sponsor: Brian Strand
~Winner: 1st Place
Endless Arboreal Hills
Crisp Oak Leafs
Here are the prints
I am the Tireless Tracker
Dunes On Fire
Rolling Burning Sandstorms
Here are the signs
I am the Tireless Tracker
Dirty Cobblestone Streets
Broken Homes Abound
Here are the marks
I am the Tireless Tracker
There It Is.
I've found it.
Here are my desires.
I am the Tireless tracker.
someone left in the desert's middle
you don't know
deserts full of unknown stories
sandstorms are cover
there was someone on the other side of the sea
waves did not allow
I never knew her
I can't say I didn't wonder
I couldn't afford death only
there was always someone somewhere for everyone
some found him
some were are always search
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