FLOTILLA
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
her heart, once a crammed attic,
overflowing with yesterday’s dusty relics,
became a barren room.
each secret—a silent, fragile confession,
she scrawled on paper thin as skin,
slipped into the throat of antique glass.
a cardboard ark, ferrying her bottled truths,
down to the shore she walked,
where the sea sighs secrets of its own.
a flotilla of confessions and longing,
a bobbing armada of regret,
pushed by the tide—away, away, away.
she raised her hands in farewell
releasing all her burdens,
their echoes fading on salty winds
I can’t believe I once believed
that dragons could shed tears—
a time when my mind was robed
in the fragile cloth of childhood.
I wandered alleys where clouds bent low,
pressing their weight upon my skull.
Shadows snapped at my heels like starving dogs,
my heart swung loose inside my throat.
The tremor in my boots chained me still,
and every thought I birthed became a phantom,
scrawled in the dark, painted across the sky.
Those years were lived in trembles and fears,
each night a prayer for the ocean to come,
to wash me clean of figures
that crouched in corners,
that flickered like mirages where light bled thin.
How did those faces dissolve,
slipping from cloudbanks and corridors of shade?
How did they crawl out of my mind,
leaving silence where terror once nested?
Why was the darkness that devoured me then
locked away as a riddle,
a secret even I cannot untangle?
And those I asked only mirrored my silence.
Some still breathe the same trembling air—
fears childhood carved deep,
fears adulthood disguised.
But new specters gather around me now,
pressing their weight like tides unseen,
and once more I beg the ocean:
take me under, strip me clean.
What shades of colours do we paint
while walking on this earth?
Do we leave behind a masterpiece?
or a squiggle with no worth?
Will the colours that we choose
look vibrant, - do they shout?
Or are they like dull grey lead lines
so easily rubbed out.
Are all the brush strokes that you paint
precise, done with finesse?
Or are they like thick crayon scrawled
on paper in a mess?
And will you hang upon a wall
admired by the best?
Or stay unseen and never shown
Remain an unfinished sketch?
The colours that you choose in life
portray your inner self.
So, are you rich, red, powerful paint
or a shade left on the shelf?
You could be bright and beautiful
in orange, yellow, green.
Or does your glossy outer fade
and quickly lose its sheen.?
Are you a calm and turquoise- blue
just like a tranquil sea.
Or do you live with black or grey?
that’s all you’ll ever be.
The colours in my life are prime
though that can be changed.
to any shade I choose to be
if mixed or rearranged.
Seek out the artist in your life
ensure he paints you true.
Be one to stand out in a crowd
there’s only one of you.
BLUE MOUSE GROUP
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The blue mouse group wrote through the night,
with their tiny nibs and ink, what a sight!
They scribbled and scrawled,
'Til on the stairs they sprawled,
They collapsed, what a comical fright!
Title: Children of Broken Promises
(25 Lines)
They signed their names in ink made of blood,
A treaty scrawled on the bones of the poor.
They shook hands under marble skies,
While cities burned in silent uproar.
Children played with bullets for toys,
Lullabies hummed in the throat of a drone.
A mother stitched hope into her shawl,
But war tore the thread and left her alone.
What prayer can pierce a soldier’s ear?
What hymn can silence a tyrant’s laugh?
They plant flags like daggers in the earth,
And call it freedom—this butcher’s craft.
The rivers carry whispers of bones,
The mountains echo their iron song.
History bleeds through pages of lies,
As empires fall and yet march on.
O children of broken promises,
Your cries are etched on a shattered sky.
You are the ink in tomorrow’s poems,
You are the reason the stars still try.
You left the chair, but not the room,
The silence clings, a flower in bloom.
The kettle waits muted, cold and dry,
Empty spaces haunt me as I go by.
No space is bare, if love stayed there,
Your breath floats in scented air.
Your shadow clings to every chair.
No space is bare - if love stayed there.
Your love shapes what’s left behind.
It pulls the door, draws the blind.
The cup you left, is still steaming.
Pictures on walls are still dreaming.
Your laughter still rings in all my rooms
Strumming our much-loved songs and tunes.
Fire’s died back to glowing ember coals,
Stoking the flames of everlasting souls.
You're gone, but you're carved in stone.
In every space you've left here alone.
The room still whispers your name.
Scrawled on every timber plank and frame.
One book alone, sags into space meant for two,
Your fingerprints trace the vital clue,
That I long to be - back with you.
Your space is here, when you break-through.
No space is bare, if love stayed there,
Your breath floats in scented air.
Your shadow clings to every chair.
No space is bare - if love stayed there!
No space is bare - if love stayed there!
They stood like rhymes
on fencepost spines
with wisdom scrawled
in shaving thymes—
a roadside gospel,
terse and sweet
that preached with
meter, grit, and heat.
Rosemary likes
a clean-shaved man,
if wooing her
is in your plan.
She’ll linger near
and take your hand
and proudly wear
your golden band.
Parsley hides
beside the plate—
the garnish mocked
by those who ate.
But lean in close—
she knows the names
of all who passed
and played their games.
Sage recalls
those roadside lines—
poetry caught
between the pines.
Sometimes sly
and sometimes wise,
a fleeting truth
before my eyes.
They’re all gone now
fenceposts bare—
but I still see
those rhymes out there.
Burma-Shave.
Season of violet grief
A day of navy oaths
The weather a dim pink hush—
ghosts of past, my muse.
I accidentally wrote a letter
scrawled on pale paper—
Guess, my June, what spills forth
when your blade slips through—
—not me, the envelope.
Perhaps a carol, yes—
or an oration (how proud I was!)—
or—
no, not that—
—perhaps just a thin red thread,
words sealed in failing breath.
Ruins of
all I dared offer.
Don’t blame me, love—
and oh, don’t fear me,
for all is said
as the letter burns—
in its pyre of regret.
phenomena
light
vibrant
frozen
frills
of
layered
energy
exhilerating
diintegrating
dramas
pervasive
impulsive
spheres
scrawled
quasars
conscious
wellsprings
of
evolved
entanglements
OPEN FORM in lowercase without grammatical symbols ,uses spaces&breaks relying upon 'the one breath limitation' & as a 'happening' requires the 'reader' (reciter) to input &respond in a two way interplay & interpretatIon unique to the moment& changing according to mood & thus is inherently variable.
Sebastian
couldn’t live
without saving
the walls
His paint
covering over
dire messages
scrawled
All passersby
witnessed
each canvas
restored
Reframing
dark alleys
with hope
evermore
Sebastian
a warrior
of brush
and stroke fame
Graffiti
a pockmark
his quest
to disclaim
Alone
in his wander
where shadows
hold court
Each wall of new
slander
his palette
— retorts
(Dreamsleep: May, 2025)
‘All the world ‘s a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts.’ (As You Like it Act 2, Scene 7)
(A Sonnet Inspired by Shakespeare)
The Hollow Stage
We slip upon a stage unmade by hands,
as viewers' eyes, like spotlights, burn above.
Our script is scrawled in fusain, as per plans
of carved agonies, most disguised as love.
Our opening verse in screams and gasps for breath,
then crawl through acts of mischief and of pride.
A longing laced libretto until death,
while swapping roles in masks we wear to hide.
The victim dies, the set with danger fraught,
the hero fails, the clown cries on the scene.
Elusive dreams are cheaply sold and bought.
Our exits come abrupt, precise and clean.
We play our parts yet know the truths engage,
that curtains fall and hollow is the stage.
Anger smolders like burning coals;
igniting flames, consuming souls.
The Gaza Strip is bombed in mass,
and hearts shatter like fragile glass.
Torrid tongues of fire lick the sky,
tasting Death as the jets scream by.
And there is no safety in caves
or basements that morph into graves.
Crimson blood stains the hands of God,
yet, Israel doesn't find that odd.
For words scrawled on banners of hate,
say, infidels will rue their fate.
Mother and child, entombed with Death,
plead for vengeance with their last breath.
And spilled on the altar of pride,
an ocean of blood drowns each side.
Both young and old are filled with rage,
for, there's no pity found in age.
And as righteous flames sear the ground;
hate, mistrust, and revenge abound.
I saw a storm of Ice and Stone,
Curling North the footed hill;
From which grows the cold and bone,
Beholden to whom the beggars kill.
The ashen clouds above the alabaster-
A sieve to the dense and wet-
Hurls itself upon a pastor
Who preaches that which isn't yet.
I saw a wyrm, or an armless slither,
Bubble from the preacher's mouth.
It curled in smoke into the weather
Which had boiled to the South.
Lest the East of orchid hue,
Eclipsed by this tempest's crest.
In neon strips, atramentous blue;
I waited, watching, in the West.
The spin of stone and thick of ice,
Had eyes for that beneath its gale.
It at last approached, to name its price,
And returned my gaze with orbs of scale.
Their pupil slits,
Bright stalactites,
Hung in sable ink of iris;
Claimed my sight, without a fight,
Traded for words scrawled on blood papyrus.
The shadow I cast on the corridor wall
Covers my father’s radiant photo frame
Night’s transcripts are saved on the iron chest
Stacking the secrets tied in bundles
Apologies are like incense sticks and the
truths are ever scrawled on my arid skin
I want to talk but my voice down and down
till it becomes barely a whisper
It is one of those nights when I can't
Close my eyes and sleep in tranquility
Moreover moonlight wants to dance on the shaky railings and try to slip inside
I want to reach out and take his hand
Each moment waiting its own turn to go back
No one has the power to make you feel worthless
- so show them just that.
You’ve held that blade,
carving doubt into your skin,
like graffiti scrawled over your spirit,
letting others rule your heart
while you sat at rock bottom,
a prisoner to their judgments.
But the moment you rise,
you reclaim your power,
guarding it fiercely like a flame
that ignites from within.
Don’t shy away;
be the storm, the light,
the person you deserve to be -
raw, unfiltered,
unapologetic.
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