Longing for you fell upon my lines,
Staining the pen-strokes a shade of green;
Your color spread across the page,
And your eyes revealed that singular meaning.
Letters aligned themselves with precision,
Standing in rows like soldiers;
Words embraced within my heart,
Filling the pages of my notebook.
My eyes counted the pages gone by—
Pages that wrote of nothing but you;
The poet fell silent,
As the words spoke only of you.
a leafless branch with me
but that's not what God did see
God spoke over me
of me He poured into
God spoke over me
now restored and renewed
for I'm a branch on His tree
a limb poised for prosperity
God spoke over me
of me He poured into
God spoke over me
now restored and renewed
fruitful purposeful
I longed to be
saturated with godly abundancy
pruned fine-tuned
precise in Christ
ready to be filled
In this new life
A leafless branch was me
but that's not what God did see
God spoke over me
of me He poured into
God spoke over me
now restored and renewed
a new creation in Christ
living an abundant Life
God spoke over me
of me He poured into
God spoke over me
now restored and renewed
God spoke over me
of me He poured into
God spoke over me
I'm now restored and renewed
When the weight
Pressed on my neck
And my spine
Was about to snap
...I spoke
When the responsibility
Became an infinite number
Repeating the cycle
Until hope was almost gone
...I spoke
When the empathy
No longer moved compassion
And my steps became thick
Til I almost cracked the foundation
...I spoke
When the fear of change
For those I wanted to help
Became bondage to my soul
And the mission was almost lost
...I spoke
NO MORE...I WILL CARRY YOU...NO MORE!!!
Written by Trudy Schrader on 09-06-2026
I opened the bedroom door
a voice from inside says
"wait...not yet"
Gave me goosebumps and chills
Without moving for three seconds ... 1-2-3
the room was empty
A meeting with the spirit world
it is impossible to say
- incapable of solution
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Waves eroded the stones
on the shore line where
for ages the days and nights
had been subject
to the tides of the sea.
Such habits of the sea
the high tides
and low tides
make the hungry visiters
here caustious
they gather here in morning
to harvest the crustains
for breakfast
somemussels, periwinkles, limpets,
and oysters, naturally live and cling
to shoreline rocks in intertidal zonede
puration or purging
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Pateuxent County Md.
Misusing jargon and
confusing complex words
he became Dabber of idious
right before my face
his voice and online
presence
made him more exceptable to my
belottlings.
Saying I spoke such when I didn't
was fair game in such exchanges as I collected his words
to make him spectacle among his friends.
then might the words be spoken
to ruin what had been said as
queit and strong a type
of presence that ladies loved
and woman adorned.
When he began to speak I found
him vulerable to beleifs and superstitions.
Having music in the background often made it worst
as he then was a charcter
for folk to make a specticle of.
Mirror, mirror what I see
A face is staring
It is my reflection
She decides to speak
The voice is not mine
I stood and listened
She smiled then she spoke
In the sun, I'm your shadow
We walk together
I am always with you
Every day I see
My reflection stare
We begin our day
With a smiley face
To begin our day
A Spoke broke.
Once Bespoke,
In the ruins I toke.
What a joke.
Wish I'd croak.
Could a fire stoke?
Can it go unspoke?
Too much smoke,
Im bound to choke.
I see my Shadow as a cloak.
It looks so baroque.
I peer to see no folk.
The fire grows with burning oak.
I might die of heatstroke.
What I heard was not misspoke,
The time has come to uncloak
Yea yea slow poke,
Take another toke.
Just rememeber, you cant de-coke,
Until you fix that effing Spoke!
President John Kennedy,
A very wise man was he,
He spoke about the moon
And won the election soon.
Rust and chrome, a hand-me-down bike,
granddad’s grease still singing in the spokes,
each turn a prayer he hammered back to life~
the bent frame straightened under stubborn love,
the chain baptized in oil and patience.
Ten years old, I straddled time itself:
the saddle, cracked like his laughter,
the pedals, spinning secondhand stars
beneath my untested feet.
He said, Every wobble teaches balance,
and the road rushed up to meet me,
not as a stranger, but as a conspirator~
wind in my face, the world unspooling
behind me like a liberated kite.
Even now, the ghosts of those handlebars
twitch in my palms—how they trembled
before they learned to trust the fall,
before the wheels, like memory,
stopped fighting the curve.
O first flight, O rattling heirloom,
you were never just a bike~
you were my resurrection.
related memoir vignette can be read at
poetrysoup.com/short_stories/a_girl_a_bike_a_librarian_and_a_magical_spell_13645
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It wasn’t the current that woke me~
nor the moon’s cracked reflection
slipping between the reeds.
It was the hush,
the way the water paused
mid-sentence,
as if gathering words
from the silt,
from the bones of fish
who forgot how to swim upstream.
Then~
a voice like wet stones,
like roots unbraiding.
Listen, it said,
not to me,
but to the banks,
to the willow’s slow bow,
to the heron’s hollow legs
standing knee-deep in time.
I waited for meaning,
for a prophecy curled in riverweed.
But the water only chuckled
a sound like pebbles rolling downhill~
and flowed on,
carrying its secrets
to the sea’s open mouth.
The heavens opened and poured thunderously,
Sending all beasts deep into hiding.
Birds cooed softly from their nests,
As trees swayed to the wind’s wild song.
As the rain softened to gentle drops,
He clasped her hand, steady and warm.
Gazing sheepishly at her angelic face,
He led her across the emerald plains.
His heart hammered, trying to break free,
As doubt tightened its grip around his throat.
Fear snatched the vows he longed to voice,
So he let the wind whisper for him.
Summoning courage, he parted his lips,
But the words betrayed him once more.
"I do," she whispered with a knowing smile—
She had already read his heart.
The dandelions spoke gibberish today,
their wishes in disarray from a roiling wind
sweeping through lowland fields and meadows,
and among the gnarled roots of elder trees along the riverbank~
I squint my eyes trying to shade them from the glow of the setting sun,
to watch bubbles of joy
from yesterday wash downstream
toward the dark valley of disillusionment.
my father was a quiet man
He spoke with his eyes and his smile
We heard not his voice unless mother was out of the house
No surprise, we were all a bit intimidated by her
She was queen bee, quietly, unobtrusively, stealthily
father was a salesman; and quite good at it
He could sell glass igloos to giant pony dog owners
we did not know this for years, but we learned to believe it
because everyone told us about his amazing deals
His terrific stories, his insane antidotes better than other salesmen
We have no doubt he would have been a marvelous conversationalist
if he had not used all of his skills on the world at large
when he got home, he was completely at rest
lying in front of a tv set, snoring away his free time
but when he did look up, he spoke with his eyes and his smile
and it was more than enough.
sturdy foundations shake
mountains look down on the storm ~
silent grace blooms bright
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