Red and Gold leaves crunch
And snap cinnamon wafts up
As I slough through piles
Of dried, dead leaves stacked near trees.
I wonder if slugs creep here.
Dear anxiety
You have been getting to me in the past few days
Can you leave now?
My head hurts too much
My body refuses to move
My mind is paralyzed from the weight
It is making me suffocate
It's too much now
The pills are finished
The feeling of disappointment leaves marks.
How deep? Uncertain?
I wonder about the way I should die
I hate hanging, I might go with the knives.
It's okay
Nobody will even notice that I'm gone
My presence won't stick
It will slough and shred
Even in your memory
I will be discarded
My legs feel stiff from running too much
Bandages mangled with the scars hidden
Nothing is wrong with me
Just an empty mind
And a body feeling like prison
Tear me apart
Piece by piece
Spill them on the floor
Then step on me
Crush me a little more
What do I do
Wait for a miracle
Or just watch myself crumble
Maybe neither
Already the knife is stained red
The blood is free
Blissfully happy to fall.
Contest 2026 - 04 - 02 While Beautiful Tarzarma Sponsor Constance La France
A Therianthrope’s Harsh Winter
Snowflakes sunk into my soft fur
I purred as my fur began to puff
the puff wetting my once so soft fur.
I fluttered as my fur began to puff.
During the Nightengale, when its cold,
When my head is filled in the slough
tarnished in scuff making me less bold.
My lips shuddered in the freezing snow,
flakes flowed and i decided to bring my body to a fold
from hind legs to long legs nestled in snow
wallow in the warmth, losing my wool
soft skin leaving me in a soft glow
I run against the snow and its cool
running back to my home and no longer being a fool
drugged winter fighting against the null
A Therianthrope’s Harsh Winter (Alternative Ending)
Snowflakes sunk into my soft fur
I purred as my fur began to puff
the puff wetting my once so soft fur.
I fluttered as my fur began to puff.
During the Nightengale, when its cold,
When my head is filled in the slough
tarnished in scuff making me less bold.
My lips shuddered in the freezing snow,
flakes flowed and i decided to bring my body to a fold
from hind legs to long legs nestled in snow
wallow in the warmth, losing my wool
soft skin leaving me in a soft glow
I run against the snow and its cool
running back to my home and no longer being a fool
What do you lack, they say.
I lay, when they sway!
Ask me, why this misery?
A trifle poet's mystery.
I carved my path here,
Not questioned, nowhere near.
Spare me the little life I have,
They consoled, Oh! Child be brave.
Love alone is not enough,
The crowd in this ambience are slough.
In now I drown,
Lost and now I frown.
Rejuvenates skin once and twice,
Running after victory being rat and mice.
I craved a natter,
Though I'm not yet better.
Prevails wait for peace to come around,
An embrace as heavy as a hundred pounds.
A wail emerges to eradicate this agony,
The soul tore itself free the atomy.
The blue demands more,
Shattered hearts and bones to the core.
Yet, I can't see the vein,
Damp eyes, quivering hands, hiding the pain.
I am a watcher. I watch. I think. I am standing by a laminated wad of rotting brown ice; glacier. Somehow she is more resplendant for her age and degrading slough. She will carve off in hunks, destined to float in the sluch of a Svalbard inlet. Destined to become brown water a million years old. And this is still beauty. A beauty of age is of more substance than a beauty of youth, for it as endured millenia. Like the Greenland Shark; he lives for hundreds of years himself and is beautiful. For his knowledge.
dying ice sloughs off
melting, warmth of ice water
rinsing off shark remnants
Standing alone at night on the window
As I look at the bright moon
I think that you would be doing the same
Hope it isn't a counterclaim
It feels like you come beside me soon
I can feel that shiver deep
The thought of not having you around
Surely makes me asleep
My girl longing for your touch
My love for you is such
The thoughts are nice
Just that you are feis Wems
Getting lust overprice; mad oo like you are in love
It would only make things worse and land you in a slough
Make money
It may not give all
But will make romances honey
That's what lasting bond befall
This is a modern era
Love needs it for bond not to collapse in depression like a caldera
Abi na lie¿
57.
My Prayer Against the 7 Deadly Sins
Lord, abet me put aside
The vain and frivolous pride
I nurture within me inside
Lord, do not allow to seed
Vicious barnacles of greed
Eventhough I am in need
Lord, erase the vanity
Revealed by mask of envy
Searing me to atrophy
Lord, shield me from glaring gust
Of humid, temperate lust
For it taints my soul with rust
Lord, allow not to gather
In my heart and mind anger
Make it lag, take it faster
Lord, let me not be clumsy
Due to frisky gluttony
Horror of obesity
Lord, shun me from insolence
Brought by putrid indolence
Rip this slough of negligence.
-11/20/2011
(Dumarao)
*reflective mood
Meet me halfway,
Cross the slough and the mire.
Meet me halfway,
By the strands of barbed wire.
Relinquish our vows
To ravish each other,
And just for the moment,
Be brother to brother.
Meet me halfway,
Cross this killing field.
Meet me halfway,
My arms shall I yield.
Our eyes have both seen,
Such death and such sorrow,
Both of us know,
We may die on the morrow.
Meet me halfway,
In this realm of the dead.
Meet me halfway,
Where the fallen have tread.
Damn with the old guard,
So willing, we die.
Loud and persistent,
We’ve heard the death cry.
Meet me halfway,
Cross the slough and the mire.
Meet me halfway,
By the strands of barbed wire.
Let us share in good will,
Bare our souls, one another.
Meet, not as my foe.
But meet, as my brother.
Meet me halfway,
By the strands of barbed wire.
Meet me halfway,
Let us call a ceasefire.
Let us both discover,
Each other’s worth.
On this sacred night,
Of our Savior’s birth.
Meet me halfway,
As we walk towards the light.
Meet me halfway,
No longer we fight.
No longer the need,
For us to be brave,
Alas, both of us now,
Lie in our grave.
The blank field is a whitewashed wall
between
eyes and incipient thought.
A neatly printed line
emerges out of nothing,
fingers sleep
as they plant words in inky rows.
Meaning searches for meaning,
each symbol is a cracked seed
shed from a blacked-out window -
brain particles blindly seeking.
There is meaning here,
but it is as yet formless,
what is seen is slough and spillage,
mind-molt
struggling into an appearance
of notion and idea.
Now the word is flesh, a glossolalia,
a mute speaking in tongues, yet
breathless of any spirit.
At once the painted parody of self
is free to wriggle forth,
to sew and bind together
discernable images,
it must surface above the silent page,
lift up the emblematic
as the hammer-arm
of the insubstantial, until deciphered
by other necromancers
who then speak
for the dead-voiced word.
This then is the tipping point:
the space between sight and seen,
a place to speak into existence
the once immaterial
or surrender all coherence
to the un-lettered reticence of God.
Although
it’s a hard row to hoe
a rough furrow to harrow
and a tough trench to plough
there’s many a meadow to mow
I hereby avow
and tho' it may be news to you
farmers have the need
to sow their seeds
where milkmaids milk the cows
swineherds feed their sows
and shepherds have their pie
and eat it too
in Slough now
It's a fresh day
To play in a new way
To convey each light ray
More pray, no delay, fair pay
We stay where we lay
What can I say?
Stand up, quit your sit
Take a breath, rest a bit
Ensure you stay fit
Get ready for the hit
Grab your jumping kit
Fall not into pit
As he'd walk into your block
In seconds, he'll knock
This folk you name clock
Needing a talk but you lock
It'll mock you into shock
You can't stalk the stock
You can water the seed
And extract all the weed
Indeed growing at speed
But when you succeed
Never mislead this creed
We need to impede the greed
As it sheds its slough
My skin is no longer rough
No batter, nor pastry, just dough
So chewing ain't been tough
This stuff? Calling it enough
You laugh until you cough
Step clear in your gear
Hear this, oh my dear
Here the end is near
This day, this month, this year
Every tear will disappear
What do you fear?
The sun having a frozen side~
a wish like a snowball in hell,
or netting the wind while oceans b o i l
in f i r e.
The rage of its heat needs curtailing.
I'm melting...
like chocolates and candles~
roasting like chicken in an oven.
How then
do I hide the cry of my fat?
With the frozen side of the sun,
snowflakes fall but never thaw,
painting my doorstep in white,
chilling my bones dry,
shaking my limbs stiff.
Birds hide their faces...
and songs become faint echoes in snow-draped distance,
while rasping hoots of early-rising snowy owls
mimic the whispers of restless winds—
announcing the coming of an impending
dark sky
that will not abate...
the ceaseless dropping of white flakes.
I'm b o i l i n g—
a tempest brewing...
not as a boiling frog syndrome
but like a fish out of water
in a slough of despond.
My skin scathes,
heat burns leave sores on my soles.
Long rays of shine pierced my sunshade;
sweat formed oceans on my skin.
And I w h i s p e r e d—
in the absence of ears~
"I need the frozen side of the sun."
All of me is open for review
every moment spent in time with you,
the wakening with the rise of the sun
washing, dressing, breakfast on the run,
warmly heated cars rushing off
driving along the pothole streets slough
a bumpy start then no paths to ride
smooth and steady glides,
stiff chairs and desks set prone
e-mails, urgent papers shown
the daily grind keeps us here
in the physical reality sphere;
but somewhere in the daily quests
there is an escape but little rest
as all the efforts I have made
slip in and out of the twilight shade
and this here and now is not the only parade;
my life exists throughout the days
finding refuge in the clouds at bay
here the senses ignite to send me reeling
exceeding seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, feeling,
it's an emotional flush
wrapped in imagination's rush
a virtual escape
why would you hesitate?
Slip up, slide in and out your personal shroud
to the virtual reality up in the cloud.
A slough of love
serenading moonlight
A snowball chance in a dream
Buffalo riders playing rodeo
A lovers touch in spring
petrified on time
Absent friends
on the wreath of time
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