strumming Kurt Cobain rock his sciatica attenuates taut guitar strings snap in revolt
meanwhile
vanilla pods attenuate her cocoa dreams, scintillating pink paradisical whiffs
both watched
bright orange flicker flames attenuate across calm lake two kundalini gently twisting
Becoming better . . . what does that really mean?
Each person on this planet daily is learning.
Learning in school, yes, but mostly from experience.
In becoming better, will you be returning
to the place of light where God wants for you to be?
Make each new dawn the harbinger
of a glorious and beautiful destiny.
Let love be the tune your heartstrings are strumming
so that in death, you’re rebirthed into heaven’s sunrise
as the effervescent spirit you’re becoming.
She deliberately sashayed across the room,
the very breathless harbinger of lost desire;
all the men whom she passed by seeming to consume
this effervescent commingling of ice and fire.
In an instant, witless men succumb to her becoming,
as she played them like a bass fiddle, strumming.
Figure of Eight got me thinking
It's infinity on its side!
Eight days a week, I rode till dawn.
Slipping behind eight ball's shadow.
On Cloud Eight, with just one to come.
While strumming eight-note blues on drums;
I figured eight had found me out~
Swirling around its loopty-loops.
There sits a man in the room below me
Strumming gently on his guitar.
He plays notes out of key sometimes,
And he doesn’t sing,
Simply hitting subtle rhythms,
Softly playing his chords.
This man though not knowing,
Has created a serene beauty
That only he and I
Will ever know.
I await his playing nightly
To help me sleep,
Imagining that he is playing for me,
His audience of one.
First published in Big Question Literary Arts Magazine, 2026, all rights reserved
stillness motionless with peace-pulse humming
at source outside appearance of space-time
finds in organic form spine’s harp strumming
as music so sublimet, a soundless chime
heartbeat of God continuing to mime
where any node may take pole position
depending on where sparks bliss ignition
nary a ripple in silence humming
body-mind being but a point in space
we’re at peace with bliss beats within strumming
doing nothing thus, we imbibe God’s grace
Hold me in your heart,
when the morning starts to glow,
when the soft winds begin to flow,
between you and me, my sweet beau,
to and fro, and fro, like an echo.
Hold me tight once again,
when our stars drift far apart;
breaking what binds us heart-to-heart,
when we must go far away and depart,
to make amends, back with a fresh start.
Your laugh is like a doubloon,
a gift of gold, a little tune,
turning a drab, rainy afternoon,
into a swooning croon, a balloon,
replaying our much loved honeymoon.
So hold me in your heart,
where the sweetest dreams belong;
where our every word becomes a song;
so true, so deeply, ever so strong,
that nothing can ever ever go wrong.
Hold me like a gleaming star
showing everyone who we are—
true blue lovers, near and far,
softly strumming the one guitar,
singing karaoke, like a mega-star.
left little room
for ambiguity
There are wrinkles
in the core
Here
and cardinals
sing along with white-
throated sparrows
in various cadences
above my head
while I write lesson plans
on a glass table
about meiosis
for tomorrow
(bad jokes
included)
“Mom says
I can’t do
meiosis
until I finish
my interphase”
She was younger
than me and brimming
with possibility
a decent job
friends to meet,
appointments,
and azaleas turning scarlet
I try to live a life
of clean example
Somehow I ended up
with the remnants
of mistakes
and forgotten dreams
Maybe I will meet
Picasso in the next heaven
where I am a cube
of his former love-life,
strumming a guitar
in cubism
compare
painted brushes
and humbler
fantasies
and possibly
create a new
genre
I listen to the guitar strings play
as my heart runs laps around my mind
There's deep loss, pain, darkness of its kind
It lingers outside the window until it moves with the sun
I can't hear the music, only tear drops on the table top
They're dripping into blackness on the floor behind the chair
Will these teardrops be the last fallen for you?
It has been so many years, oh so many tunes!
My heart is still strumming a guitar playing memories
leaving patches on this road in my rear view!
Heidi Sands
4/13/26
(C)opyright
Death is always with me, at my elbow
sporting a jaunty beret and a fake French accent;
at dinner, making judicious remarks on the wine;
playing cat’s-cradle with cobwebs on the bus;
baffling me at chess with unheard of gambits;
strumming his mournful guitar with a pick of thorn;
and snatching flies that vanish into his fist.
He's almost the only thing I'm going to miss.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
It was the most empty basement I’ve ever felt.
Creaking, support beams, and spider webs.
Nothing nice like flamingos or lip gloss.
A chair for so long.
Then not even a molecule.
There’s nothing in a shoe box except shoe prints.
Things that don’t move.
Or even try to jump out of the way.
It was the most empty basement feeling ever.
I stopped getting tangled in spider webs.
It stopped, it did.
It was the most…
Like a collection of walls and the support beams that mean well.
Empty.
I got caught up in the relaxing dust, and must.
It was the most empty basement sound I’ve heard.
Strumming along with a bass hum.
I have an empty basement inside.
Got fumigated one too many.
Softly playing, nature’s guitar strumming
Feelings blessed by such abundant hues
Hints of blue and blush, softly humming
Murmuring to the wind who’ll choose
To light the forest’s muse in joy so becoming
He was serenading me with such soft singing
On the first Saturday of the New Year.
So sweetly staring at me while strumming.
I smiled, finally realizing I've nothing to fear.
I almost hear voices.
Sometimes.
It feels like a camera is there.
Humming, strumming, getting warped.
I almost talked back to them.
The whoosh, but no splashing.
No evidence, not even in myself.
So maybe I’m delusional as the browning of an apple core.
Sometimes, I almost certainly hear voices.
Staked right outside my room.
Which I could bring to my lips like burning lip gloss if I cared to.
A trap door could be there.
I like hearing voices.
Mostly, it’s just the “ahhh” sound.
The start and collapse of a howl.
Resides close.
I almost, sometimes hear voices sneaking closer.
Like a fish jumping onto land then into my second story window.
I’m grateful.
Maybe they are too.
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