azure ...
quite sublime …
cloudless, clear and bright
I watched the birds -
the strange, colorful birds
flitting in the sun of
a perfect, pristine morning
taking to the sky in flight -
soaring, drifting, falling ... falling
from heaven, into the
hands of God …
odd they had no feathers - no
wings to press against that
glorious, sparkling September air
but beautiful in their way
in their deadly, dancing descent
until their screams
were close enough to hear
and the sickening
thud of sinew meeting …
pavement.
#neverforget
~ POETRY AGAINST POVERTY ~
( photographic art by Richard Drew borrowed copyright-free by the author from public domain files at FreePik / Picasa )
Red, a garnet vein
Drips into the pool
A shade away from you.
You, with your quiet fangs.
Palm, turned over
My cadaver wrist spasms
Carnation sinew spilling.
My eyes of soot,
My eyes of amber,
My eyes spitting ash.
Turned over, over.
Over.
Drip.
A wet burn emerges,
And it submerges me
Right into the lake.
Tears an empty bath
Black heart staked
Tears a jaguar trap.
Gnaw, gnash, bite
Rip, claw, tear-
My eyes, my eyes.
Drip.
Drip.
Red, a garnet vanity
Bleeds into the soil
Smudged, the mirror
My face, your jaguar snare.
Written: June 18, 2026, for a contest sponsored by Constance La France
Quote: "The brain discovers, but emotions replicate past occurrences forevermore." By Poet
I glide amid suspense as the air grows dense.
Through amber fractures that scrape the fence,
Still blazed for the thrill your shadows wore—
The anchored verdict, of evermore.
A silted shard of time daze,
A wire-mesh mirror that grate and glaze,
It scrapes the shell where the marrow tore—
A signal throbbing evermore.
Through gullies choked with a sullen scent,
Through spans of gloom where lumber's bend,
Your strobes ignite on the slatted floor—
A sizzling earth expanding evermore.
You lodge inside the strained strain,
A white-hot core that no veil can drain,
The pulsing pitch, I cannot ignore—
A sinew humming evermore.
And after the casing snaps its seam
When digits fuse in a blinding beam,
This vacuum slams on a rock-bound shore—
The engine stilled in evermore.
Though metal cools in the still space.
The spirit-volt is gone, without a trace.
A hissing heat on rusty shore—
the agony intensified, evermore
Creak, creak
I hear the boards speak
The wolf is running about
Don't wiggle
Stifle that giggle
Never let the air out
Little girls learn
How to quickly discern
The choppy river in motion
It crawls, then falls
Into fragmented balls
Reaching for the magic potion
The smell of cedar
Damp chicken feeder
Pinches nerves in a knot
Just trying to live
Through pain that gives
Innocence a black thick blot
I hate sound
That surrounds
The mirrored soul with glue
I'm tired of healing
The huge onion always peeling
Layers of skin to sinew
Written by Trudy Schrader on 05-28-2026
The rain falls faster, faster now,
Plummeting arid plains below,
Eroding bits of blackened soil,
Washing away decayed petals.
One by one, they slip out of existence,
Walking out rusted doors.
I stand under the cold, crisp water,
Letting it soak through layers of frayed fabric,
Seeping into skin that's leathered with age.
Scents of petrichor shift through brisk bursts of wind,
Trapped within the mess of my mind for far too long now.
The resounding smells flood my senses
With bygone memories,
Snapping between past misunderstandings
That turned into reverberations of us,
And fears of a future
That slipped through calloused fingers.
Looking down at what materialized in my wailing hands,
I dig the frigid steel deep into my chest,
Cutting beneath layers of flesh and sinew,
Past a cracking ribcage,
To expose a beating heart, screaming in agony.
I slice it from its hollow home,
Position it on a tarnished platter,
Place it as an offering at your sacred feet,
Interminably holding me in your gnarled heart forthwith.
Just as the beauty, the love, the radiance all come from within
so does the healing energy of your illimitable self
like an ocean tide that sweeps away all complications
of sinew and nerve.
Nothing can stop the inner power of your soul from emanating
into every molecule of your body, tenderly
undoing every knotted impediment.
The entire cosmos of yourself responds to it
because this is home.
This is your very beginning
and unending fulfillment.
Christopher M. Swan 2011
Line of inquiry:
“What if life is a lucid dream
Borne by thoughts we ourself did stream
Wherein our designated role
Is to dance atop love’s moonbeam”
A new sunrise is born with love's advent
Binding every heart, throbbing every sinew
Filling every hollow, silencing every sigh
Making the earth fresh as morning dew.
When love overpowers every heart,
A new world is born free of all strife
With glossy dreams borne of our own thoughts,
Rendering a fresh glow to the whole of life.
Love is the song that make us twirl in joy.
With it, the universe gets woven in endless grace.
It is a force that overcomes every defeatist thought.
Love shall eternally burn, illumining every space.
May love weave, its mesmerizing rhythm
And let’s dance atop love’s moon beam.
As an Epiphany dawns, ride the crest of a wave
Cradled in the folds of a new hope, a new dream!
a crowded glass bottom
sobbed empty on a vine
flowered look is stopping
pain's time for telling time
Lambrusco's weight mopping
a crowded glass bottom
circles make more circles
another one tastes you
metaphor lies shingled
its pass with my sinew
a crowded glass bottom
part they, my countenance
ruby shadow filling
falling through the chalice
it spills like heart would freak
a crowded glass bottom
when empty your bouquet
the dehydrating drink
in my dripping grape play,
the pressure of seeing
Written: December 27, 2025, for contest Sponsored by: Miranda Hawley
***************
Nutrition hums in quiet seeds that wait to rise,
A vow from earth and flesh, body never denies.
Exercise is motion’s hymn pulse that keeps us true,
a dialogue of sinew saying live in what you do.
Water shapes its quiet course through all that's unseen.
It shows us how to bend, yet remain serene.
Sunshine is the ancient fire that crowns the waking day,
a golden grammar written on the skin in slow array.
Temperance is the narrowing gate where choices meet,
Discipline of turning from the sugar to the wheat.
Air is the first and final gift, the breath we never own,
a borrowed wind reminding us we’re travelers alone.
Rest is the hush that gathers all our scattered parts,
a night-long stitching of the seams in tired hearts.
Trust in God is stepping where the lantern’s glow is thin,
believing there is beyond what the senses pull us in.
We licked ink from our open wrists,
a contract signed in salt and longing.
Our syllables stitched into sinew,
each verse a gash we chose.
You crawled inside my name,
built a cathedral from my echo.
I slept in your apology,
a pillow soaked with dreams that died in the cradle.
What is marriage if not mutual decay?
We baptized ourselves in entropy.
In every moan, a gospel;
in every silence, a dirge.
We made a sonnet of ruin,
willingly,
gladly,
dying syllables on each other’s tongues.
Happy Mother’s Day!
Hooray, should I say?
Nay! ‘Tis naught but disarray you fool
I dodge ducks – their beluga-toned feathers at least–
and the platinum pillows from whence they came
Whizzing by like my long four years of fame,
Eggs of pikachu hue, toast of darkest sinew
Oh no, I must go
She’s as happy as a blobfishy
How was I to know
Her special day was two months ago?
To live in abundance and magnify your fortune you must DIVINELY work for it. The far measures of where man will go for an instant magnitude relentlessly disqualifies the thoughts of having abundant control over their own hearts with love and forgiveness. And in addition, the practice of satisfying skin compared to a clean heart, mind, and sinew is thoughtfully illogical. So in result, men must find true value worth more than gold. The treasure that rings so loud but a number undoubtedly and purposefully ignore. For the true measures of the world is written in the best history book known to mankind. The book that shares how to live. The book that shares how to obtain in a righteous way. The book that speaks of the dead and the only ONE to have walked the earth, and as well risen. Therefore, in an always profound and crucial manner it is the responsibility of this world to read, study, practice, pray, and liberate our hearts to The Truth and only Way of Light as we breathe his presented gift of life.
Progress flows like a river of light through time,
transforming the old man into a shadow of smoke,
a titan of sinew fading into the mist of memory,
replaced by an avatar of contemporary gentleness.
This one, sculpted from new desires and norms,
carries the days like a dream of vegan colors,
where meat is just a myth told by extinguished fires,
and wine, a relic of victories from long ago.
He, who neither smokes nor drinks, yet infuses his soul
with essences that seduce his senses in a dance of change,
in a world where ecology becomes a green religion,
and dogs are companions through the gardens of eternity.
Progress sings to a society that hides its shadows
beneath the mask of the blue light of vibrating screens,
sublimating evil into electric-hearted benefits,
where civilization is born from glandular dreams.
In this world, every person is an island of dreams,
a pawn on the board of a game with changing rules,
where progress is a new garment for old desires,
and the flow of consciousness is a wave of carried melancholy.
I am 1,248 songs of complicated rhythm. Prose and verses tell a story of my decisions…my indecision. I am skin shaped, in 42 different shades of foolery, a life lover doing my best to avoid an other, but they seem to be everywhere these days. Crawling out from under rocks, or latent in my twisted fantasies. I think I may be terminal with delusional romantacy. A proverbial symphony strung together with sinew and longing. Discordant chords bending into melody when I blink too long or laugh too hard at the wrong moment.
I can admit, I have been the composer of songs that I was never meant to play. Still, I finger at the keys, an untuned melody stretched thin across the vastness of possibility, a quiet rebellion whispered in 3am silences, telling truths I didn’t ask to know, but I can’t help but pick up on the tone. I am every note you thought I missed, the calloused fingertips of my mistakes, still strumming, still singing. Harmony may elude me, but the melody is mine to claim. Yes, I am 1,248 songs of messy humanity, and I’ll rewrite the chorus as many times as it takes to finally hear it in my own voice.
Enjoy the hunt.
Savour the kill.
Sinew and bone.
Blood let to spill.
Such little flesh.
Least have your fill.
Was not to live.
Only the thrill.
These woods are mine.
I stalk this place.
Of twisted mind.
Outwitting pace.
Driven to hide.
Drunken on chase.
You think me lost.
Drawn to your trace.
Skin my cover.
As be yours soon.
Beguiling trickster.
Lyre or loon.
Quick to tire.
In heat of noon.
Your final darkness.
Night without moon.
Pluck out the heart.
Remove the arrow.
Destroy the cortical.
Suck out the marrow.
With victims broad.
And focus narrow.
Resume the hunt.
Intent to harrow.
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