Forgive me, but I have wanted to be a quiet ruin
not the kind you sweep away,
but the kind that makes you pause at the doorway,
hands heavy, wondering where the light went.
I know the cost of such a prayer.
To be missed like a lost limb
is to ask someone else to walk with a limp.
It is a humiliating thing, this hunger:
wishing a cold, immovable stone onto a chest I love,
just to know I was heavy enough to feel.
And oh, I burn with the shame of it.
The secret, selfish urge to linger
to sit like salt in the back of their throat
when they try to name something sweet.
I want them to reach for me against all reason,
to fight the slow, merciful erosion of time,
and to fear, even for a moment,
that they will never again be who they were
when my hands were still holding theirs.
It is a terrible grace to ask for:
to want your name to sit on a tongue
like an open wound that refuses to close.
Call it a sin, if you must.
I know the grief I am asking them to bear.
I only know that just once, before the noise stops,
before the dust claims my name,
I want to have mattered so completely
that forgetting me feels like pulling thread from skin.
As night creeps in with stealthy steps,
It hides the weariness of the pale blue sky.
Soft gray clouds brush against the crescent
Shy moon while streams of violet-hued light
Weave through the darkened shadows
Of the heart and soul of the esprit trees.
A gentle laden breeze awakens and stirs,
The clusters of black locust blossoms
Carrying the sweet ambrosia aroma.
Spring’s finest pastel weeds sway, sweep away,
Rise, mingle, lull, surge, and bend.
They flourish and grow, each a wild
Beauty with a quiet, profound charm.
There’s a power in your heart equal to the magnitude of a star.
The tide of your love can sweep away all cramped torments.
The symphony of your being overwhelms the dissonance of pain.
In your hand nestles the future of your every hope.
In your brightness glimmers the promise of endless days.
So, only remember your divinity.
Try to imagine the smile of God
when he made you an angel
and gave you to his creation
as a ray of angelic love.
Christopher M. Swan 2011
As earth
turns to sun
to sweep away
night gown
with broom
of light
unveiling colors
awaking sounds
drinking light
to nurture body
clocked to die
with seasonal fruits
embodying seeds
perpetuating life
so too
the eternal seed
in body of clay
awakened by God
from darkness
of doubt
to truth of Light
converting
from diversion
that needs refill
which death
cannot kill
or its hunger fill
turning to God
immortal spring
opens day
with colors of graces
beautifying it
with gems of kindness
and sparkles of tears
turned to joy
nourishing self
and hungry other
with ever present
fruits of love
leaving night
of cocoon habits
to fly on wings
of rainbow lights
love perfecting
everchanging
never ending
Paradise
Fourth Place Winner- Brian Strand-Premiere 1458-4/1/26
The quiet hush before the morning light,
Reveals the gentle promise of the day,
An epiphany dawns through darkest night.
When doubt and shadow tremble out of sight,
A golden thought begins its bright array,
The quiet hush before the morning light.
Bewildered hearts, burdened by their plight,
Find solace in the words so say they;
An epiphany dawns through darkest night.
The shifting gloom surrenders to what’s right,
In beams that paint the world in softest gray,
The quiet hush before the morning light.
We lift our gaze, our spirits feather-light,
While revelations gently sweep away,
An epiphany dawns through darkest night.
So let us greet the dawn, our souls contrite,
And bid farewell to fears that long held sway;
The quiet hush before the morning light,
An epiphany dawns through darkest night.
An epiphany dawns Poetry Contest
2/1/2026
Sponsored by: Unseeking Seeker
Soft as a marsh, the wave—
its homeland drifting far into the open sea,
should be heading for the shoulder of the horizon
the stars will soon erase.
Yet, drawn to the polishing
of an aura like yours, dusted with grains of sand,
it turns its back on the wind drunk with sunset
and rushes toward the shore.
Like the long scream of a half-moon
that the morning glow will sweep away,
the sun, swollen by evening light, cries out
that this is not the way.
The wave shuts out even the clouds
that once headed with it toward the old tree of home,
and cages the sun—now gaunt with worry—
on an island where its scolding can be put to sleep.
Jealous of the gulls beating their wings
on your shadow,
it rears itself like an enraged train
and rams toward the shore.
Whether it knows or not the weight
of its one-way devotion,
you mingle with other shadows,
building sandcastles.
Embedded and dormant,
they neither wake nor sleep
but defer and endure
until a sun-seeded air
percolates in countless
humming sepulchral lungs.
There is a foretelling,
an imminent rustle of shoveling wings -
the soil erupts,
whirlwinds swarm tree and leaf.
Now begins the cacophony,
the drumbeat of innate necessity.
Wing plates thrum
against chitinous abdomens,
a fretsaw orchestra hollows out
cavities for creation.
Grasping obsessions
become strangleholds of insemination,
then unto death do they pour.
We who sweep away or step upon
their stiffly crinkled corpses,
to our numbed ears comes a solace
as the raucous interlude abruptly ends,
nor do most keep account of the years,
until the next pronouncement
of yet another reincarnation blares forth.
On a dark night, when the moon cowers with fear
The night is shadowed in a fog so clear
One could stare at a spot for long
And can see their reflection, weak or strong
I walk onwards on the night of 31
Preparing to sweep away my worries and have fun
As I walk further along the cracked road
I see a Raven, so majestic, and it crows
Its sleek black feathers and strength fill me with wonder
I flinch in fear as I hear the sky’s thunder
The sky lights up like a message was sent from above
I watch as love flies in the form of a dove
I watch as children scream joyfully in delight
I smile as I watch such a happy and sweet sight
I look around me and notice a red fox
It looks right at me, gracefully, with its head cocked
I glance up to see the sky sparkling bright
As if it were released from a prison so tight
It felt restricted in its ability to be
And what I saw sparked curiosity within me
All around me, I realized soon after
As I heard the shrieks of laughter
A memory ingrained, and I know hereafter
I finally found what I long sought after
This is no time to die
Surely the time has come
Surely the time is near
When God and his angels
Will come out from the things
Of this world we worship asleep
In golden glossy mummy cases
And sweep away the dust of millenniums
Gathered in an old world of sarcophagi
Overturning the worn-out pages of
Death scripts and gross materialism
This is no time to die
Which brings in a new reality
With the force of the archaeologist
Shovelling dirt from the tombs
And launching it out into the wind
Over the Valley of the Kings
Into the wind of a discovered reality
Of joy and blessedness and life
Ruin gnaws a country church,
its eroding stones ever molting.
Mice nibble; winds whiplash,
roof slates slide slowly over
each decrepit year.
Edges made not to crumble,
return to rubble.
Plinths and buttresses
fade in their faith,
agnostic shadows stretch.
Bats and owls
sweep away as they shelter.
Masonry moves
its mysterious ways.
This downcast day
fleet House Martins,
seek out ways to slip through
every vacant widow,
in this rumbling
cloud-walled sky.
Far down below it's taking
Taking away the tandroms of guilt
Pain and cries.
I have felt, seen and heard
The rocks , flowers trees big
But here, it's a tomb of joy which sweeps
Sweeping away the ridges we have built from fear
From great theft of injustice
From cries and depression
Weakness and failures
We have come to leave the ill fate
The shock of being unwanted
As the winds sway pass,
Let your, my weigh down drums
Castles and rain of pain sweep away.
“Life is like a ship tossed on the wide sea
to journey amidst sunshine and wild waves”.- by author.
Braving the Wild Waves
When wild winter winds bend down mighty trees
And drive many souls to knell on their knees
When flash floods sweep away all on their way
And make many men their pitiless prey,
When stormy gales hurl one`s ship on the reefs
And the crew is immersed in seas of grief
When ahead lies the mouth of a steep cliff
That sounds like the resting place of a grave
Do we yield to scare or brave the wild waves?
Stars in the sky
Are always to high
For me to reach
Waves on a beach
Wash away my doubt
Lets my confidence sprout
Rivers sweep away anxiety
They give you a break from society
The churning water a secret lullaby
Waterfalls as they cry
Usher your not alone
That your not on your own
Colours that bleed from a a sunset sky
As the sun bids goodbye
Melt away my fear
Oh please just let me stay here
Here I can smile
Forget about my worries for a while
When finally those quickened hours come
that crept unseen behind tomorrow's door,
and waves of yesterdays upon me pour ~
few secrets left of just what might become.
In frost, the rush to harvest summer's yield,
when all of youth would break the vines of spring,
it seems an instant ~ now at last they cling,
impatient souls await in vineyard fields.
In warmth the sun of dawning will arise,
then weep upon your cheeks contented tears
and I will reach and sweep away your fears
when last I see the beauty of your eyes...
Cowboys
Let the cowboys be…
Let them tend to causes....genuine and real
To bequeath…an opportunity to be authentic.
To bequeath…a shot at redemption
To weed the errant and replant in ravines, chasms
In pastures new…
….the errant cowboys,
…..burdensome, irksome, oppressive…too much
….for sale, with privileges too plentiful
…..the ones acting out.. avaricious mode aplenty
……one too many errors
……. lives not to be trampled upon
………let the cowboys be, in bountiful pastures new!
Perhaps some coffee beans to sweep away the pain
The angst caused by servings of callous, and cruelties untold
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