Somewhere between the god and demon rift
I staggered on the edge of reason’s drift
As silence fell upon a sightless soul
I sat within a darkness none should know
Had I not shared my sandwich with a child
Held the trembling hands of those beguiled
By the preachers and the poachers Ponzi schemes
As tears fell on the embers of their dreams
Now echoless the empty chambers cringe
Soft organs overwhelmed by endless sins
That dance within the shadow of life’s needs
To fill its vacancy with ancient creeds
The preacher a mystery weaving fraud
That serves a lost and needy demon god
An armadillo leaned on a fence,
too wilted to muster a proper defense.
His cowboy hat slouched
like a biscuit overbrowned,
his dignity having long since left town.
The relentless sun blazed down with cheer,
roasting the pasture for the fifteenth month this year.
Grasshoppers staggered.
Mesquite trees panted.
Even the buzzards looked disenchanted.
The dillo squinted west and sighed,
I reckon I'm medium-well inside.
One more degree
and y'all will see
roadside jerky where I used to be."
A bead of sweat rolled down his snout.
He watched it fall. He watched it sizzle.
"Autumn," he grumbled,
"has missed her exit.
She's probably lost near Abilene."
The fence post offered little aid.
The shade was merely shade-adjacent.
He tipped one claw
to his hat and said,
"If anybody spots October,
tell it I'm awaitin'."
Where the blast of winter goes,
snow and moisture always flow,
strikes the bush, the rock, the tree,
any building that stands free,
builds a protrusion of white,
like some sped-up stalactite,
ice-trails pointing with the wind,
staggered lengths of icy fringe,
bends the saplings with its weight,
stresses old trunks, some will break,
buildings grow a rounded form,
often look lifeless, forlorn.
Stark and sculpted is its work,
alien world on the earth,
just grows bigger over time,
the snow-mixed coatings of rime,
too much may even cause loss,
but it’s so fun to chip off…
Years from Oklahoma’s past,
Air brisk in the Mexico scene,
Her footsteps on streets unseen.
Dance floor lights began to flash,
A wild Thursday a Tijuana bash,
Merchant dreams, a Legion's plea,
At the El Grande Rancho,
I faced my grief.
Tijuana night where memories clash,
A brief escape turned to ash.
A thrill that wasn’t worth the price?
Forever I ponder lost in this vice.
Leaning on the wall, a drink held tight,
Watching me stumble as she liked.
I ask her name, the die was cast,
Staggered out
In an alcohol haze,
My eyes locked on her gaze.
It was her the one I missed,
A ghost from the past
In a whiskey fueled mist.
Sitting with a smile,
Friend by her side,
Sharing laughter,
I start to slide.
Can’t find the words,
Thoughts run slow,
Is it her, the girl
I used to know?
“Is it you?” my heart longs to say,
She acts like I’m just in the way.
Fate’s cruel twist
Or time’s harsh play?
A witness tonight to my dismay?
Here I stand a soul adrift,
In shadows deep caught in the rift.
Tijuana nights where memories clash,
A brief escape turned to ash.
I went out in the sunshine
to feel a little glow~
but Texas cranked the thermostat
to way above “too low.”
My forehead felt like frying eggs,
my cheeks began to bake,
my brain said, “Girl, we’re melting,”
like a marshmallow on a stake.
I tried to walk with dignity,
but staggered like a mime~
the sun was doing the hokey-pokey
with my sense of space and time.
My vision wobbled sideways,
my thoughts turned into soup,
I swear I saw a tumbleweed
perform a hula-hoop, loop-de-loop.
And if you hear me muttering
about dancing sycamore trees~
just pat my arm and hand me
a cold drink, pretty please.
Photon, poison. Photograph.
Fates and Furies, laugh.
Engrave, O my epitaph.
Chart a graph, you chaff.
Hated are the sights around!
All done poor and bad.
Holy ground, surround? Unsound.
That will make them sad.
Garbage rich and decent poor.
Rhythm, rock and roll.
Summoned, system? Are you sure?
Opinion, thy poll.
Competition? But from who?
Faces turning blue?
Hopes of you? Will these accrue?
Fondue, thy stew! Through.
Boredom. How the hours fly.
Time, you do math hard.
Lately I feel desert dry.
Fried in lard? Pulled, card.
Wisdom. Suffering, you rang?
Bite, O boomerang.
Stories told in slang? Taste, tang?
Gone out with a bang.
Clang! O prison gate, why wait?
Wasted lands, be home!
Staggered gait? I've come in late?
Wife out on the loam!
Foam in mouth, O rabid dog?
Slaver, how you burst!
Waterlog? High hog, thy slog!
Came in last and worst...
By Phan Tan Hai
One day you slammed the door,
and for a lifetime you walked far away.
A hundred years my soul stays open,
waiting for you through seasons of fading flowers.
One day the old fragrance lingers still,
a lifetime drunk on its sweetness.
You left—my soul swayed and staggered,
waiting for you through the ruin of love.
Your red lips still mark the wine glass;
you’re gone, yet your laughter remains.
How can I find the right words
to untangle your wind-tossed hair at the edge of the sky?
You left, but your shadow stayed—
once you stood on tiptoe,
breathing into my soul a slant of dying sunlight,
a kiss lost among the dusty paths of this world.
A single, white thunderhead
tainted slightly, with the pink-shine
of a late sun coughs
lazily in the vast grayness
of an elegant sea,
somewhere—
a sea still asleep.
Greedy cries of gulls
fill the saltiness of the heavy air
and through the early mist
people of the day appear
in straw hats and red and green covers.
The night-crowded streets,
baked and earthy,
move on among carts
and fresh purple blossoms
and over-ripe fruit from the sea,
to and endless sand-scape.
Staggered and restless,
the ocean-lights appear,
and a warning from the sky
floods and nourishes
the clay walls of an empty palace.
What Is A Poet 4
Inspiring poems ready to emerge
As ink continues to bleed from bloody pages
Thoughts pondering are always jagged
Her ambitions are always staggered
Navigate through madness
Company is never needed
Yestermourn has vanished
Is it bribery to write just one more poem?
One day the wind will carry on my ashes
Will poems last forever
With wisdom, remain grounded
For reflections of a poet
Remains isolated for a reason
For no one understands us
For we are deep thinkers upon colorful meadows
i travel barefoot on the hot sands
of a deserted mind
a plane of shallow dunes that tower above the distance
lost in the equivocate of direction
the blaze in the sky exposing the void between my eyes
each step forward staggered and hesitant
regret scorched soles aching for direction
to the score of my soul’s pleas for supplication
i thrust my palms to the heavens begging for an audience with God
“guide me, open the door to your mercy to a weakened heart”
there is a shift in tablature
springs of honey, water and oil
emerge from the barren earth
bringing bouts of life in bounty
ranges of juniper slopes cluster the horizon
colour spreading vast beyond my step
ever sweet is the restored air
As Twilight gleams by, from the arrival of dusk,
Both were engaged, in conversation being brusque.
were They wholly sat, beneath the darkness subdued_
Overwhelmed with replies, "I'm not you."
Staggered were thoughts, embedding the head
Where altruism gets mould into such schadenfreude'
While benevolence vanquishes and affinity becomes due,
For the reasons they clarify, "I'm not you."
The name they chant or the bible they preach;
Profound logic they share, comprehended to each.
Entirely identical, though the question stands by..
"I'm not you" and "you're not I"
Have you ever been struck so hard by life
that the world flickers
black spots, little stars
as though the sea itself blinked?
Equilibrium lost, I staggered in the tide,
face to the sky, gasping salt and air.
"Get up. Show up. Speak up,"
the current whispered.
Nothing hits harder than living.
The road is never set
it twists beneath us like sand in motion.
And those you called friends?
They change like waves
smiling until the pull drags them elsewhere.
Were they ever anchored,
or did they simply use me to stay afloat?
Their kindness wrapped in cunning,
their warmth a mirage above the reef.
I never saw it coming
I never saw you coming.
Now when I think of you,
I see not a person, but a shadow,
a dark fin slicing through trust.
Promises made, promises broken
you swore you could never cut so deep.
But you did.
You cut me loose,
left me to drown
and in that drowning,
I learned to breathe anew.
the judge sat there
like a tired dog—
papers shuffling,
lives bent in half.
she said I ruined her,
I said she ruined me,
and the walls didn’t care—
they just held echoes.
love, once drunk and laughing,
now staggered under oath,
and the clerk stamped the silence:
no touch, no talk, no return.
their can be no reconciliation,
if the process --
is adversarial in nature.
Is
Unwriting lend
Trample undered doubt
Nill grace, staggered taunt
Farthings tormented delays
Whispered daughter on hilt
Aphrodite sours the lengths rend
Milkened ponds
Battles fetch, torn and bent
To no hearthed bends hallow he crawls
The Athens
August in Athens is always confusing
I spent the evening looking at a white wall the moon had lit up,
waiting for the movie to start.
Staggered into a church where bearded priests handed out bags
of yesterday’s cake.
The elderly lady behind me got none, it was her second time
she had been in the line
I gave her my bag and felt good about my act of charity.
In the deep shadows of the park, I found a grotto displaying
Jesus in he looked like a sleeping angel, one painted by Caravaggio.
The painted Jesus opened his eyes smiled like an urchin
selling himself to a paederast.
Behind me, the nuns giggled and I fled this religious horror.
Came to a lone bar run by a horse that had fled a Russian circus.
As Alice Walker said” horses make the landscape more beautiful.”
I drank ouzo, she had hay.
At midnight we rode through the summer night.
Sub Categories
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