Singular Reflection
Don’t lose yourself in other people’s opinions of you
Your reflection only stays centered in the mirror as long as
you are in view
Sometimes you must assess and evaluatively esteem your own self-worth
That’s an inside job and I’m telling you not one you should lightly delegate to others or disburse
Step up, or be ousted
Front and center or be overshadowed
And don’t you make a wonderful you? Selah
Written: May 6th, 2026, for contest sponsored by Sara Kendrick
1st place contest winner
*****************
Soft silver sky-foam shimmered as I strolled,
seeking a sly, star-stitched secret to behold.
A sprightly breeze sang stories through the trees,
its sibilant sighs designed to soothe and tease.
I met a saffron cat with a mischievous gaze,
She sashayed past with svelte, superior praise.
The sunset spilled its syrup on the well,
a molten gold incandescence cast a spell.
Somewhere a seraphic laugh began to swell,
so sweet, a spell only stars could tell.
The swales grew soft beneath my wandering feet,
each step a sacred syncopated beat.
And in that scarce scene of dusk’s caress,
I felt the world spinning into happiness."
The bartender mixed metaphors
smiling her sweet simile
Allegory she would not settle for
serving up a passion-filled sonnet to me
In the throes of rhymes without reason
couplets stuck in my craw, mercifully died
She offered me a drink apropos to the season
~ plied me with iambic tetrameter ‘til I ‘bout cried
A singular clock chimes out the wee hours
Gothic in style, with magical powers
It ticks off the minutes in a melodic way
As its welcoming in a new break of day
Magnificence shines from the face all a glow
As it collects up old secrets and all that you know
The stories it holds of the people gone by
Of lovers and duellers; could make ones soul cry
Of children's sweet laughter filling the air
Of dangers ahead and times to beware
Solemnly stoic it stands all alone
Rhythmically ticking its bid to atone
in the sky
a sharp picture forms
clarity
of shadow
omnipotent silhouette
just as suddenly
observe the single
uniqueness of its essence
solitaire
stars align
prodigious melding
of the One
I gaze upon an opaque silver sky,
Descending dewdrops, developing above the mustache maw.
Ascending the nape to taste cherubim cry,
Permeating petrichor, pervade the nasal in auspicious awe.
Palpable pain of tactile taps
Kissing canker sores and rainstorm rush.
Radically rampaging, for its rapid relapse
Rain, it's infinite, swirling fervor flush
To drown by an inundated impound,
A vehement, vicious, void that immersed,
Wandering weakly on the ocean gored ground,
Drowning, isolated lungs; bellowing burst.
The tyrant tsunami my miracle world-wide flood,
Exploding existence, imploding insistence, ichor pools; blackened blood.
“The mystery of life isn't a problem to solve, but a reality to experience”. Tom McCallum
****************************************************************
Like Stars a Mystery
Gazing at stars on a clear moonless night
Is to the eye and the mind a delight
So unique and so singular they are,
So mysterious, many miles afar;
Like stars, each man remains a mystery
Despite all strides in human history.
A SINGULAR ACT
Do is a single verb word
Say it once, it is enough
If it’s just one time, it’s me
When Do Do it’s you
I have been everybody,
dead or alive,
as you have been.
How peculiar
that we all appear
without a timeframe
in every place we look?
There is only one of us,
and that one is not human,
though it expresses an idea
of humanity.
The game of this life
we profess to be living,
is a game for one player only.
How strange that so few
will meet themselves,
on any street that they can
and will imagine?
Velvet is bizarre
its perfume we smell in touch
softness on vision
A singular thinker misses the blinker missing the link up trying to sync up
drinking the drink up now he’s a dreamer convinced what he dreams up seemingly sees stuff pulling his sleeves up walking with knees up because he can beat us believe we’re beneath his world supersedes us believing his greatness so high he is weightless in the stratosphere spacious among the creators aligned with the makers but he’s just a being above where he’s being imagining what he’s seeing imagination set free in manifested but breathing but it’s dead like a sinner a delusional winner brain cells getting thinner unaware that they simmer to a simple beginner just a singular thinker
In a moment of rapture I still could not capture all that lies "in between"
I was able to gather all the pieces that fractured, but not the one I had seen
I only saw it once, a singular occurrence, and now it is so elusive
My hunt became hunts, I looked back to the front; the results are inconclusive
Don't think for a second that I have abandoned my mission
I know that relentless pursuit will produce fruition
I don't ponder for one moment that I will tire or collapse
I will wait for the bestowment after enough time has elapsed
A Singular Presence
A singular presence among a throng of grass blade,
Green as worm blood, her marked grave devours dead air,
Like a convulsing snake slurping a rat’s tail for dessert,
The breaths of ghost winds embrace a shuddering tree,
In numbing grief with robes made of hollyhock and bearded iris,
Her still cry is frozen in the icy prisons of vague remembrance,
Then a single flash of monarch orange astounds the mute witnesses,
As it flutters like a praying monk on fire, landing on drooping leaves,
And her name, etched upon the singular sun-dried tombstone,
Sends to the tranquil estuaries a roaring river of inconsolable tears,
And her awakened soul finds a respite at last in its rush to rise.
Who Protects the Singular and the Few?
Acknowledged without reward.
The Predator took my talents,
My gifts stolen and used.
I am without rewards.
I never wanted them,
The Agent, Some Union dues.
Who protects the singular or the few?
The masses need protection too.
Questions are often bigger
than their answers
With horizons wide and spacious,
timelines unrestrained
Questions often lead
to other questions
With answers left to wallow
—in a singular refrain
(Villanova Pennsylvania: May, 2019)
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