Vultures, eagles, and dragons seem to rule;
Have tigers entered the kingdom of deer?
I feel like I'm drowning in my own pool.
Why does the bright sun seem to be unclear?
Wolves are trying to hunt roosters and chicks;
No parrots and parakeets are safe here.
Are crocodiles and whales planning new tricks?
Each step seems to be a graveyard of fear.
Fear envelops like the winter darkness;
Is fear eating up nature's credence zones?
Does the sky care to bear the earth's starkness?
Flesh decayed, fields are filled with broken bones.
Why do blossoms of the soul fade in the frost,
While on cosmic seas, the shattered sail is tossed?
Sitting beneath stars at midnight
free now to shout and just let go.
Imagination feeds their show,
I’m witness to a streak of light.
I no longer wonder what might
come out of the pursuit of peace.
Turning off the room’s centerpiece
I am not detached from darkness.
No distractions within starkness
hesitation will always cease.
nothing there would be
without the vast Universe
no humans, land, sea
none here for better or worse
no lineage and odd verse
with no galaxy
adrift in cosmic darkness
no angst, apathy
rather complete absurdness
wrapped in unholy starkness
without stars above
could there still be you or me?
no rush, push or shove
all silent with nought to see
without longings roaming free
no blue, green planet
circling the Great Attractor
no floors of granite
no acts by a strange actor
sin becomes a non-factor
none subject to change
no progress or thoughts divine
nothing to arrange
no strange dreams or past bed-time
bound inside the timeless time
without history
when ancestors were not born
total mystery
when from existence we're shorn
leaving none to weep and mourn
such is human debt
while life is in the offing
driven to regret
when cosmic paths are crossing
'tis not dice we're tossing
The world descends into darkness
with each turning wheel of the sun.
Our hearts grow heavy with starkness,
an emptiness we can’t outrun.
In the black pit of midnight,
we do not fall asleep.
We welcome the year with solemn might,
yet by break of day, our vows don’t keep.
We grasp at frivolous dreams,
believing they might save us still.
The world unravels at the seams
as power, looks, and lust shape will.
We toast to new ambitions—
the promotion, the figure, the balance.
All self-focused missions
to build our private palace.
But the grain must die,
or it withers alone.
Self-focus is a subtle lie
that beneath the world’s weight groans.
Yet with each crisp ring,
the old bells still call—
atop the steeple, they sing,
arms spread wide to break our fall.
How long will we wander
in this murky midnight hour,
promised better dreams yonder,
only to turn our souls sour?
All the while, He waits
and counts down time.
As we count up, clocking fate,
He counts down to the final line.
Midnight bells—
they ring,
they sing.
Oh, those midnight bells,
a truth
we cannot mute.
Written: December 19, 2025, for contest: Sponsored by: Hilo Poet
******************
The mist paints a nascent landscape tonight,
I stand aboard, ready for yet another flight.
Today, as the sun wades to its final breath,
I watch the year exhaling up to its death.
I recall the tears and laughter on the way,
The memories drift somewhere farther away.
I remember the light, I remember the starkness,
And the days I was left alone in the darkness.
I have found my freedom, my wings are free,
Yet I feel uncertain, lonesome still to be.
As mist departs and clears my view,
I wish upon the last star true.
For a less chaotic world, that is my dream.
A wandering brook whispers gently, stream.
A hearty ovation for a task well done.
A year ahead, full of options, not guns.
I welcome dawn’s first tender hue,
A year reborn, with hope to renew,
A brighter path for me and you to pursue.
This twenty-six may have an unbiased worldview.
Velvety reds adorning soft beds
Golden crowns on children's sweet heads
Emerald greens of the freshly chopped pine
Dancing coloured bulbs all hung in a line
The starkness of white on a dark satin sky
Soft beige and browns of the solo mince pie
Vibrant amber flames spread warmth through the place
The presents all wrapped with cream chantilly lace
Red, pink and white candy canes hang from the tree
With orbs of bright silvers and golds; dazzlingly
Magenta poinsettia displays in the hall
The colours of Christmas welcome you all
Morphing moments of the seasons;
shifting winds blow from the north.
Feeling chills and seeking reasons
for the changes coming forth.
Ebbing tides seen in the oceans
leaving shorelines dry and bare.
Moving slowly through the motions,
trepidation in the air.
Clouded skies add to the darkness
on this bleak November night;
in the dim I feel the starkness,
symptoms of a pending blight.
Turning pages on this journey
closing in on chapter’s end.
Morphing moments of my lifetime;
working days I now expend.
November 7, 2025
Poet's note: After a 52 year career of crunching numbers, I have decided to move on to the next chapter of my life... retirement !
Silence whispers beside my empty bed,
Even loneliness whimpers to flee my side.
The darkness deepens the starkness of my fear,
Yet my mind is made — I won’t beg heartache back.
Of what use is a marriage in which love exists
Only in my mind, never in my home?
Whines and nags were the only music~
the winds played when my soul begged for rest.
Today I met your footsteps that went outdoors
And begged never to be allowed back in —
Even if your knocks dent my door with persistence.
My mind finds peace where you have hidden it.
So long as life befriends my soul and mind,
So loneliness finds peace within its depth,
So I can sleep and close my eyes without~
the fear that a knife might pierce a hole in my heart,
So emptiness can bring back my sanity.
Please—never reply to the plea of my loneliness,
To fill it with the trouble twelve years taught it to love.
And never mind emptiness begging you
to stock it with your figure filled with hatred, not love.
shining light upon a naked void ~ will always reveal more darkness
just as the peeping Tom went blind ~ after exposing only starkness
By
David Kavanagh hms!
UN delegates walk out on Israel’s Prime Minister speech
They all walked out, feigning scorn
This is how decency gets mourned
That walk of shame, like the perps
The deaf and dumb, immoral twerps
The rotten body of UN
It shows it’s worth, I am no fan
Most sided strongly with Hamas
The slime that dreams of “Jews to gas”
The world’s a very cruel place
It wants a scum in Zion’s space
Condemning not kidnapped and killed
“The Palestine’s Sweethearts Guild”
Baptized by shame, for all to see
They wouldn’t listen to a plea
Well done Hamas, Iran, Qatar
This walk, both vile and bizarre
The evil spirits ran for cover
In hallways they preferred to hover
While facts dissected utter darkness
The uglies couldn't stand the starkness
Yet truth prevails, be it known
Israel wins, if all alone
No, never be no Palestine
An outcome to which resign
September 26, 2025
“Day dreams lay dead in dreams, but when life is breathed into them, they soar beyond the boundaries of success.”
— Poet
My dream is to be great in life,
That all I touch shall turn to gold,
And melt like butter on hot knife.
Thus my reward shall be tenfold,
Full of thriving, less of strife,
Grow finer, like a wine brewed old~
That buds find its rhythm in fife,
A belief I hold in heart bold.
So surprising it becomes,
When I dreamt this dream in dreams,
And dance to its beats on drums,
Then its true essence truly gleams,
And its true purpose it sums.
Its starkness guided by beams,
As if life's dreams are like ripe plums,
That come as easy as they seem,
Such that to no loss it succumbs.
True dreams are fulfilled in sleeps,
And not drowned in dwams' dams,
Where doubt constantly creeps,
To make dreams appear as shams,
Yet my life-dream still peeps
Through this life's tangled jams,
To a place no one weeps,
And free from dreams' logjams.
Strangeness
the grotesque
the starkness
the edginess~
miraculous stories
all courtesy of
appearing separation~~
Soon, I will journey to the middle of the moon,
There, I will proudly place a memento with flair,
Fine sculpture shaped for reduced-gravity design,
One like proud Lady Liberty, facing the sun.
Like a bright beacon blazing in starkness, a spike,
Soaring melodies of beauty gently pouring,
From a breath of fresh air deaf to bees’ noisy hum,
Bold, elegant masterpiece dipped in crocks of gold.
Steady for the frozen silence of moon’s eddy,
That unyielding oak that confines winds to the mat.
Carved to freeze time, for history not to be starved,
Set in stone, clothed in a bright future free from threat—
Sweet treasure that no storm will ever dare unseat.
As she drinks nectar from a flower, sweetness from heaven falls like dew
anointed with a gentle rain amidst sun showers she appears as if on cue
Lifting her wings she lands on a Zinnia beneath a tinted sky of April blue
flight of fancy fanning fast, fabulous marvel, she is beauty true on true
Pheromones fill the air as the males call the females to their abode
their abdomens linked tail-to-tail, and on the damsels' eggs the male seed are sowed
From thereon, dull caterpillars slowly transformed into exquisite beauties
then, to a new hope, many newborns flew, making gardens filled with cuties
She then whispered that before brightness, there was a very dark darkness~
so don’t give up on your life just because your present swims in starkness
"Learn from my life cycle," she further said, "beauties that once were can still be
so your belief in sunshine after this raging storm is paramount and key"
From then on, she became me, and I became her, and hope of a better tomorrow fills me
far from me, fear then fled—I face my problems with glee, from hopelessness my life is free
Clouds rolled overhead as the wind whipped up molasses
The sweet heady scent of the Incoming storm
I call for you now, to come in and shelter
A call left unheard in this wild open space
Clouds swiftly darken casting shadows of starkness
Sweetness turns brittle as the air hunkers down
Echoing sounds of the wind determinedly surging forward
Air smothering daylight in a heavy cloak of velvet
I call again, to summon you home
A call caught up in the billowing gale
The crashing shriek of branches breaking
Herald warning to seek retreat
Then all at once, eeriness falls
Deafening silence enveloping
In the eye of the storm all I saw was you
Your bright amber eyes holding my gaze
Calling me home to come in and shelter
To weather the storm with you on my lap
Calling me in from the storm and the chaos
Too late as I hear the thunderstorm clap
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