It’s the full moon of our times
they’re awake and stir
the malcontents whine
the schemers slither
the conspirators whisper
the agitators rattle
the instigators coil
the hellions hiss
the hooligans hunt
the miscreants threaten
the scoundrels spit
the reprobates crawl
the thugs strike
the doomsayers gather
the hellraisers have united intent on mayhem
they’ll have their fun and think they’ve taken over
but the time is here for sanity and reason to reappear
I’m not kind not humble not soft
I don’t need you to like me
I don’t need you to talk to me
I dont need you to smile
I don’t need you to cry either
Stay alert stay alert stay alert
You wont know who’s in front of you
Until the day comes
you think that I’ll forget everything?
VERY FUNNY
you think that i wont care ?
HAHAHA
You think that I’ll never notice?
STUPID
you think that i’ll stay blind forever ?
COMPLETE BULL
you think that I’ll leave before get to taste you back ? ??
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
STAY ALERT STAY ALERT
Oh how bittersweet,
The way you hold me-
Only long after i cried, in defeat,
Cold vanilla coffee
-
Oh how you toy with your prey
A roof over my head? How generous.
Hold it over my head, and tell me that I must defray
Now tell me how I'm treacherous
-
Always hated how you never finished your coffee
Now i drink mine like I'm grown
Does it, too, remind you we're all faulty,
When you look me down upon your throne?
-
Funny how you guide my independence
Yet threaten to cage me when i spread my wings
''How rebellious, you lack common sense''
You're right, I'm sorry mommy, I'll stick to rusted swings
-
And like 2 peas in a pod,
Oh how easy your words twist the knife
Each one frozen in my heart, unthawed
And oh how quick i am to 'ruin' your life
-
I will admit, i still hate this bittersweet brew.
It quickly turns cold, and it reminds me of you,
But i know ill continue to drink it, even if i splutter
For in the end, blood will always be thicker than water.
You ask if they care and I laugh at you
You ask if we’re there and I scoff at you.
Belief in a system that covertly oppresses you.
Belief in a freedom that covertly profits from you.
Hidden files lost in time tied up in front of you.
Lies, deceits, corruption, ‘eyes only’ facts that’ll never be seen by you.
Statistics on lists that govern you.
Statistics on lists that threaten you.
Statistics on lists that control you.
Statistics on lists that kill you.
You ask if they care and I laugh at you.
Written: July 8, 2026, for a contest sponsored by Craig Cornish
********************
Others shutter windows
at the first metallic whisper—
I unlatch mine.
The heavens rehearse
with the rhythm of sanctuary,
and my pulse answers
like an old instrument
finally finding its tuning.
Lightning does not threaten me;
it signs the sky
with impossible handwriting.
Love has always arrived this way—
sudden,
unbidden,
splitting certainty
to reveal the living grain beneath.
The storm is not my adversary
but my mirror:
both of us beautiful
only when we dare
to break the silence open.
The pot is melting...
The 'great melting pot'
This elaborately constructed pot holds a motley of colors and flavors
Once strong and pleasing to the eye, bustling with all of its aromatic juices, flavors, and textures
The great pot of RED, WHITE, and BLUE draws so many, and the few
Indigenous peoples and many others from great and small distances assimilate in this great pot
For a while, the cooking and eating were good, I mean pretty good
So good that still more ingredients desire to be added to this melting pot to bolster the flavor even more
But now, this great pot is disintegrating
Too hot now, is this pot
Too hot with deleterious elements that threaten the constitution of this great amalgamation
The pot is melting
The 'great melting pot'...
It is melting
This fallen race
To a new low
Has succumbed.
Less to forgive
Sin of neglect's
Heartless plumbed.
Having first lost
With innocence
A garden
For caretaking
This untamed wild
Does threaten.
I want to be powerful
and have a voice that matters
I want to silence wars and battles
be the reason glass shatters
I want my whispers to be booming
and my shouts to threaten thunder
I want to live afraid of silence
and never have to wonder
I want my words to be greater
than speeches made by kings
I want to teach the world to listen
to hear the flutter of my wings
I want to be famous for my voice
and not the silence that engulfed me
I want my words to hold such power
that they leave no room for enquiry
I almost died in silence
so I want to live out loud
I want to show the world I matter
and stand out from the crowd
Let’s create authorities
Highlight their careers
Hide in vast minorities
Live in constant fears
Some of their performances
Threaten our rights
Didn't we expect all this
To perpetuate their lies?
So let’s excuse authorities
Their fails and victories
Their top priorities
Their contradictories
Let’s excuse us commons too
Aren’t we all suspected
In the crimes we have to do
For those we elected
They keep worsening our lives
For a greater purpose
And we cannot get more wise
Although we have learnt those
Bitter lessons, but in vain
It’s a sharper’s game
One can vote, or can abstain
It turns out the same
I am lured in by the smell of lemon muffins, so tall
the blueberry scones are calling me to the back wall
Oh, my goodness, are those Italian cookies homemade?
I enter the bright bakery wondering why they don’t pull the shade
The sun is pouring in, lighting up the day in fast order
Grinning big time is the proprietor, old Mrs. McCorder
We are making two homemade soups for lunch, she tells me
And you’d best come back for apricot pie, it will be ready at three!
No one has to pull my hair to get me to buy my fill
My sacks are so full they threaten to over-spill
I leave with rhubarb pie and three kinds of homemade bread
I’ll be back at three, I holler, to Mrs. McCorder’s sweet head.
(The Shattered Mirror of Avignon)
Five women stand, yet all are broke.
Against a curtain of ochre, blue, and white,
Picasso breaks the world with a savage stroke,
Reordering flesh into jagged, painted night.
Two sit in masks of African heat,
With eyes of daggers, vacant and intense,
Their limbs disjointed, monstrous, yet complete,
A fierce assault on beauty’s old defense.
See the prostitute on the left—archaic, frozen—
A nod to Spain, a shadow of the past,
While her sisters, on the right, remain chosen
To bear the mask, a spell of anger cast.
No sensuous reclining, no soft embrace,
But angularity that confronts the gaze,
Stealing the viewer’s quiet, private space,
And holding him within this broken maze.
They do not smile; they threaten from the canvas,
An “ugly” genius, a scandal wrought in 1907.
Rejecting perspective, a violent impetus,
Turning a brothel into a fragmented heaven.
It is the birth of the machine, the modern, cold,
A mirror shattering the Renaissance view,
Where beauty is not worshipped, but controlled,
And all that was known is made anew.
The lamb the dove The lion and the crow
Am I going to cry
When the domino's fall
In the name of God who is stronger
In the face of truth
Who is liquid who is steel
The presence of a war surrounding your shores
We saw faith in fairness and power in unity
We saw trouble and we'd help
When a country is on the cusp of survival
Things were changed forever by those who remained silent
The seas of eternity rage from.seeking old lands who sought out independence and learned economic independence
They invented themselves
They attracted attention of those who don't believe in friends
Now big powers seek to take over
Their society and wealth
Theirs minds and their lands
How will all this end
If the cry of freedom
Lost its fame to desire
Am I going to cry
For a people that needed our help
To occupy reason
Am I going to cry
When you tell me I have nothing.left to stand for
When my heart breaks and you threaten all what we believe in
Is there a god
For every season
Gunplay
The confused inner-city kid
had a gun.
Another boy didn`t show him respect,
So he shot him dead.
The gun boy fled into a park,
under a bush hid.
He is seen as a hero to younger boys, yet the weight of his actions and the cycle of violence threaten to define his future.
Sirens and voices, they have got him now,
One bullet left,
wished he was back home with his mum.
Thought of his option
to be a hero for all time?
The tape is red and white
Beckons rather than waves
You decided ten minutes ago
Before you'd even thought
This was always the way
So in you go
Beyond chain link
And glass
Crunching
Satisfying
Moss
Criss-crossing the concrete
The building doesn't threaten nor loom
It's morning
You have places to go
But this is the first stop
Wastrels of glass and metal
Plastic containers
I read their labels
And fall into a story
That isn't yet mine
But will be
This is the underworld
The risks are here amongst the weeds
The dead windows
I wade into these beautiful remnants
Of lost people
And wish I was one
Glancing into her brown eyes
you can see the reflection of the sunrise up in the sky
She wears her hair as her crown
you can’t deny the beauty lies in front of your eyes
Voice carries soft, soothing as lullaby
Big nose, big lips, childbearing hips
The body that bear a child for nine months
And snap back right in a matter of a glimpse
The type of woman to speak with her movements
To pronounce her words fluent as they watch and feel
Threaten
The type that is in better than the essence of a black woman
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