Cover my shame
You can’t shame the shameless
Cos he got no worth no more to hold on
He feels he is good enough to be
Just empty
He got no Hope and nothing to Hope for
He lost all he worth and deserves
To his masters
Who he must always abides
To his rules
He got no say nor rights
All he does is just live for the moment
And obey orders
Their is no justification worthy for the shameless
Cos he got no dignity
His life must be hard yet he don’t care
He don’t even see it
He enjoys his suffering and smile like the happiest in front of the world
He could be your entertainer
He could be your friend
He could be your worker
He could be your brother
He could be your father
Nothing moves him any more
He has seen it all
Felt it all but
He is stuck yet don’t know
He is in captive yet don’t care
I once asked him why he never cares
he replied with a deep smile
I have nothing to lose
I have nothing to gain
But I have a life to live
And all you see is what I got.
cardboard mattress
concrete box spring
cocooned within the threads of shame
pillow stained
with dried tears of despair
air pockets
hover with a pungent force
that’s the way I remember her bed—
as I walk by.
Hang your head in shame:
kept quiet in the face of injustice
~ the lingering taste of cowardice
Wordku: 5-7-5 words
AP: 1st place 2025
I'm Proud of our Fathers
I'm Proud of their Actions
I'm Proud of our Mothers
I'm Proud of their Passions
I'm Ashamed of our Leaders
I'm Ashamed of their Creed
I'm Ashamed of our Bleeders
I'm Ashamed of their Greed
I remember staying quiet
hiding under a rock
a paralyzing fear
~ literally petrified ~
I'd lost my tongue
in shock at the injustice
my head spinning
in a whirlwind of confusion
It never occurred to me
that someone could be
found guilty and punished
for something I had done
And still I sat there numb
in my evergrowing shame
to this day guilty and unforgiven
~ I was old enough to know better
AP: 3rd place 2025
If Vulcan Wakes (c) 2025 by The Entangled Pair
If Vulcan fully wakes again and shakes his fiery dreads
unleashing hell in all it's fury on our fearful heads
I tell you once again my friends in words of common rhyme
we perish not in watery graves but in the fires this time
can't see the forest for the trees
can't see the flame for all the fires
can't see the streamlets for the flood
can't see the needs behind desires
if I'm the fire love, you're the spark
that sets my very soul aflame
and when I dance, I dance for you
the one who knows my sacred name
as I dance naked for you now
I feel no fear, no hint of shame
just the love and joy and rapture
that my heart cannot restrain
and so I dance for you my lover
comfortably in pain
now let us burn again my love, not in fear but passion,
let the fires now forge us stronger in their molten fashion.
if this world must end in ash, in cinders or in glowing coals
then let us kiss at end of time while wading through the shoals
and as we kiss our eyes must close as we are inward gazing
because if we must fall my love, we fall together, blazing
Science
has brought
us closer
to the edge of our oblivion
Nuclear fission
angel dust
processed foods
and smog
Two steps forward
ten steps back
ennobling every dirty fact
as children choke and cry
There’s one award
the Swede’s leave out
that’s missing
on their dais
The Nobel Prize
for mass destruction
as progress masquerades
— unchecked
(Sweden: May, 2008)
I kept quiet far too long.
I couldn't open my mouth,
it seemed, not even for a peep.
The perfect doormat.
Welcome to one and all.
Come wipe your feet.
Tolerance is that ugly sin
a coward learns to live with
while incessant cycles repeat.
Nothing changes when nothing's said,
silence being the prime enabler.
And like a weed, shame grows
in the shadow of acceptance.
AP: 1st place 2025
Shame is not loud.
A forest torn like paper
Like the spine of a child’s book.
He remembers the fire,
The silence of bees.
Hears cries of nature,
Shame is not loud.
Its a SCREAM!
In fifth grade, I earned first place
statewide for violin
against the girl I half-loved—
her fingers quicker,
her lineage more illustrious—
but that day,
mine did not tremble.
She chose a piece
with fireworks and pitfalls—
something by Tchaikovsky—
I chose Barcarolle—
plainspoken, sweet,
a boat gliding through moonlight.
I played it without flaw.
She slipped once,
only once.
We both knew I’d won
on a grace note—
not brilliance, nor fire—
just a clean line
held steady
while hers faltered.
Afterward,
she turned from me
like a violin
tucked into its case.
A week later,
dad took us to a restaurant
with cloth napkins and candles,
to celebrate my victory.
He smiled too much,
and talked too loud,
and the wineglass
trembled in his hand
just before he threw up
on the checkered tablecloth.
He tried to pay,
but the card was declined.
The cashier cut it in half.
He gave them his gold watch
as a promise.
I wished I could just
be invisible,
and we left without dessert.
Two years later,
I buried my medal in the woods
and never played violin again.
I thought at your fiftieth we would make up,
I saved every drop to buy you a new Ford.
Your Royce is still sweet, but it needs a backup—
Not a Lincoln, a Mustang I could afford.
But you threw the keys back at me in fury,
You let your friends mock me with horrid laughter.
On our disputes, you turned them to our jury—
They reveled, munching on our private matter.
You called me names you'd never used before them,
You left me unanchored in a wave of shame—
An abyss where you left my pleasance's scum,
Then heaped on me a full load of scorn and blame.
Is dating a prettier lady a sin?
Drown me in more shame—it quenches not the flame.
The more you dump me in your emotive bin,
The more she lifts me back into her love-frame.
-
Contest: Pick-A-Title, Vol 52
Contest Judged: June 14th, 2025 4:11:00 PM
Sponsor: Edward Ibeh
Placement: Third
I call her Ms. H
because names are easier
than saying—
I was too much.
Too soon.
Too wrong.
She isn’t loud.
She doesn’t speak.
She waits—
in the gap
between what I gave
and what you didn’t take.
Ms. H isn’t you
laughing at me.
She’s the one who dusts me off
when I offer my
beating heart—
just for you to
forget it on your way out.
She’s the one who sits with me
after you left,
and we sit quietly as the heart
slowly
stops
beating.
She’s always there,
just outside the light.
Her raven pupils so clear
they reflect my entire life—
and say,
Look. That was you.
I don’t want to look.
But I do.
And I stay.
_________________
Note:
Written on June 5th, 2025
Contest Title: Pick-A-Title, Vol 52 - Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Edward Ibeh
I lost a part of me last day. Stolen by thoughts of old. A memory in loves past-tense a bitter-sweet remembrance.
Today I gave away the rest of you. Martyred to my famed miscues, self-esteem and thoughts of few.
Tomorrow I’ll give away what’s left of us bartered lies and loves mistrust all in my broken and my shame.
The will to feel each other skin to skin while sleeping in one bed
you want me, don’t deny it
you know it’s not right, it won't be right
Trying to distract myself from crying
telling you perverse ideas
Making you sweat and tell me what you’d do to me if I were there
The ideas get more grousome each time we talk
tickets to my city are being bought
The hotel is being booked
I’m a child dressed up as an adult
Sitting on the edge of the bed
Why do I keep going? it’s not right
I hate how my body reacts to your words of holding me down, choking me, staring into my eyes
It’s all inside my mouth
All I see in my head is a repeating stream of fantasies
I reread them
imagine them
feeling it inside of me
for hours like in coma I repeat them in my head
and if you ask me how I feel
I wouldn’t know what to say
How dare I complain when I did this to myself
It's all just words and writings
If love is...
feeling unloved,
anxious and starved,
give my regards
Does the torment of love's hate
eliminate pain?
If love is trembling lips
and sultry eyes, upon them
everlasting cries,
Charcoal tears that pour
What answers are there
for these unwanted sores?
Binding spells of
the unforgiving way swells
She the accuser shames
with her bitter blame
Aging with, until the bitter end
Accusing of his unrequited love
Awaits for his apologies
with a scorn, torn in self-pity
Nothing gained, nothing learned
Yearn, yearn, yearn
Self-loathing is apparent
Possibly inherent
Therefore, never really knowing
love and its understanding
and had mistaken it
enamored in its--lustful cradle
When the soul still yearns,
The chaos in her heart burns,
lonely is desire
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