It begins long before the pen touches the page,
in the quiet habit of noticing what others miss:
the amber morning streaming
through slatted blinds,
the heron lifting up from golden water.
To live this way is not to speak in rhyme,
But to breathe, to watch,
To listen for the rhythm.
It is the tea kettle whistling its low hymn,
Flour dusted across the counter,
The deliberate pace of walking slow enough
To hear what silence carries when it leaves.
You learn that nothing is too small to keep:
A river rock worn smooth by tide,
The wild fire of an evening sky,
The grief you thought would crush you into dirt.
Writing is only the light you bring back.
The poem itself was the breathing,
The wide eyes, the steady pulse,
The courage to face the grain of living
And find in it
A reason to begin again.
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
The Early Morning
…… is an inspired artist
with a palette of celestial colours;
its paintbrush, brilliant sunlight.
I sit in the hub of the garden
absorbed as the sun clambers skywards,
chased by several scribbled-inked birds.
Sunrise now reaches out to anoint my house,
daubing vibrant light that glistens like gemstones
on windows, downpipes and lazed, garden furniture.
Even the washing line blinks in the morning glory
while casually tossing shadows of clothing
onto the faded backdrop of a lifeless fence.
Slowly, the morning’s lungs breathe out
and shirt, jumper, socks and trousers
start to shadow dance across the enlivened screen.
Then plants freckle themselves onto the slatted stage,
a neighbourly, mop-headed flower peeks curiously over
while an aged, garden spade stirs from its earthy reverie.
They all want to connect to the merriment,
parading in this slapstick, fashion-lit show
while the garden fence just creaks with laughter.
At a history museum
By the hearth there was a spit
With a slatted-wood contraption
By a rope attached to it.
When we read the explanation
We were totally surprised.
The contraption was a cage
In which a small dog exercised.
Like a hamster wheel, the dog would run
In circles so the meat
In the spit would turn, which helped
To make the cooking more complete.
With this mean but slick solution,
What was roasting would not burn,
But I hope at least the dog would get
A taste of what he’d earn.
Muse
===================
Just an un-thought thought.
The least touch of a feather or
draught from
the beating wing of a bird;
A telescope taking focus on
Saturn's rings,
resolved in image,
cut and colour.
The idea gestating in a crate
sealed shut under a slatted grate
asking to be prised apart with a
number nine tyre iron as
the gyrating stars gazed down
upon nothing,
rounding Earth's scimitar sharp crescent
with an ineffable and total
cosmic indifference.
Sitting in a coffee shop,
slatted chair back creaking as she chews
on the knock-knock joke of a long ago
eating popsicle.
It’s a hot day.
She says that before the modern
toothbrush, people brushed teeth with boar’s hair brushes,
& before that they chewed on sticks,
& before that even they chewed on fennel stalks
to freshen their breath.
“& before that?” I asked.
Apparently, before that people didn’t eat bread,
or fill their stomachs with refined sugar.
Why she knows the history of toothbrushes
I may never know. Perhaps she wanted
an explanation for why she chewed so long
on knock-knock jokes.
Who’s there?
If I search through old memories, shaking dust from visions long filed away, I can see scenes from my childhood. Whenever I am feeling old, I pull a few out, polish them up, and put them in a frame for a while. A constant rotation of nostalgia. They hang on the walls of my skull, eight by eleven and a half inches of glass reflecting the early morning sunlight that pours through my ears.
The vision that hangs behind my forehead now shows me a scene of green and orange on a field of sandy, shell-shocked earth.
The fox lived in that great floral house long before we moved in. From our deck, its joints creaking with each small step I took, I watched him check off things from his to-do list–grocery shopping, security checks, singing lullabies and other sweet songs to his children. We weren’t friendly neighbors per se, I never learned his name, but we coexisted well enough. From certain angles, he would look up through slatted wood and chitter an amicable ‘hello’ as he walked off in search of breakfast.
summer sunset
behind evergreen curtains–
the fox
Buttocks push; breasts boast
through non-existent crowds.
A choreographed squall
above the whir and clunk
of loaded appliances.
Hispanic girls acting out
in a Laundromat.
Hips gesture, hands stab
and tussle with unwashed issues.
I’m distracted by the overheated hum,
can’t read the print
of my paperback. Words run
naked over yellow pages
The girls are angry
but not with each other.
Skimpy shorts and gang-inks.
The porous waft of feral hormones
seethes over some slight,
branded onto a Facebook page.
They flop onto the slatted bench
produce a smart phone,
scroll through pictures,
moue and glower softening
as baby shots are thumbed.
Melting smiles, then
they hold up the cell for me to see.
we coo and smile together.
The they return to their world
and I to mine.
When they get up
the backs of their thighs
are marked by the wooden seat.
Washing spins on.
Strings of white fairy lights glisten on trees,
in silence I walk beneath this splendor,
not an accident of nature that sees
disquiet in every whisper of leaves.
There is deep listening inside me,
a gradual unfolding to find my pace.
I stop a while, my demons to set free,
let loose a pervading sense of sadness.
I wander with the wind to search for grace.
This wind, the live breath of the universe
promises to wipe all tears off my face.
Yet still I fear my joy will end in dust.
Though slatted rays of light I will embrace
some flawless monotony in my life,
it nourishes my soul with no disgrace,
no expectations for a joy that fades.
@jjote 081821
The Dak Dak
The room is small
With spaceships on the wall paper
A narrow brown wooden table sits quietly under the window.
Dark navy blue curtains fall
With cars and red, faded rockets
A small metal chair sits on the slatted floor.
It is midnight says the grinning, frog faced clock
And it is the time when the Dak Dak comes out.
He waits, until the house is silent
Until the adults are asleep
Then he crawls from under the boy sized bed.
His body smaller than his large green head
With a single eye, he stares, unable to blink
Large teeth glint, with sharpened points.
It is midnight says the story in the book
And it is the time when the Dak Dak comes out.
Human sense, crawls up the sleepers neck
A slithering, creeping scary alarm
There is no scream in the throat
It is buried in the fear of what came from under the bed
Only rapid panic rises to its height
To move the arms and pull the covers over the head
It is midnight shouts father, stop messing about
It is tomorrow when the Dak Dak next comes out.
Buttocks push; breasts boast
through non-existent crowds.
A choreographed squall
above the whir and clunk
of loaded appliances.
Hispanic girls acting out
in a Laundromat.
Hips gesture, hands stab
and tussle with unwashed issues.
I’m distracted by the overheated hum,
can’t read the print
of my paperback. Words run
naked over yellow pages,
sweat and lay down
under a fierce fluorescence.
Skimpy shorts and gang-inks.
The porous sound of feral hormones
seethes over some slight,
branded onto a Facebook page.
They flop onto the slatted bench
produce a smart phone,
scroll through pictures,
moue and glower softening
as baby shots are thumbed.
Melting smiles, then
they hold up the cell for me to see.
When they get up
the backs of their thighs
are marked by the wooden seat.
Washing spins on.
The meeting point. Where candle smoke, mixed with incense, meanders through the air. A latent image developing, like a polaroid of prayer, into microscopic particles of silver, weaving into an undulating bridge reaching to heaven. This writhing wreath of smoke, twisting in the sun’s rays, that probe with bright fingers, through slatted windows high above. Here, in this place, the fears, the worries, the kaleidoscope of chaos we call life, melts and dissipates, like the drifting, venerable vapours. I am emptied but enriched. In the presence of a love that bids me return, that reassures me, gives me courage, fulfilment and peace. The spirit surges, firing up within me like the old boiler in our hallway, roaring with love, re-igniting the flame planted within in me long, long ago.
Renewed, forgiven.
Reconciled. I understand.
I am not alone.
The Endeavors of Lips
by Michael R. Burch
How sweet the endeavors of lips—to speak
of the heights of those pleasures which left us weak
in love’s strangely lit beds, where the cold springs creak:
for there is no illusion like love ...
Grown childlike, we wish for those storied days,
for those bright sprays of flowers, those primrosed ways
that curled to the towers of Yesterdays
where She braided illusions of love ...
"O, let down your hair!"—we might call and call,
to the dark-slatted window, the moonlit wall ...
but our love is a shadow; we watch it crawl
like a spidery illusion. For love ...
was never as real as that first kiss seemed
when we read by the flashlight and dreamed.
Published by Romantics Quarterly and The Eclectic Muse (Canada)
Buttocks push; breasts boast
through non-existent crowds.
A choreographed squall
above the whir and clunk
of loaded appliances.
Hispanic girls acting out
in a Laundromat.
Hips gesture, hands stab
and tussle with unwashed issues.
I’m distracted by the overheated hum,
can’t read the print
of my paperback. Words run
naked over yellow pages,
sweat and lay down
under a fierce fluorescence.
Skimpy shorts and gang-inks.
The porous sound of feral hormones
seethes over some slight,
branded onto a Facebook page.
They flop onto the slatted bench
produce a smart phone,
scroll through pictures,
moue and glower softening
as baby shots are thumbed.
Melting smiles, then
they hold up the cell for me to see.
When they get up
the backs of their thighs
are marked by the wooden seat.
Washing spins on.
Sitting in my backyard on a mild evening
A tint of coolness breezes in the wind
Watching the clouds show their shadowy faces
I close my eyes and rest awake
I sit with my head tilted back...
Waiting for the hot sun to redden my face
With my neatly cut grass a lay
The smell of green touches my nose
Sitting beside me, my pup Maltipoo lays in comfort...
Resting as the sun warms her mane-like hair
The forest behind my slatted fence...
Echoes, from the fluttering of blowing leaves
Shadows are everywhere
Hidden in the bushes...sparrows sing in rhythm
As my hair blows...
I open my eyes; thinking
Such a marvelous day
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