my chest has been exploding for years,
no rhythm, the offbeat
heart thrums—
the eyes harp ocean water charged
faux tears.
Who is this assailant wearing my
face?
she has no right to feel this way,
She is not
who
I
want
to
be.
sad little nothing, begging for love—
pleading for scraps
from siblings tongues
resign, release.
Please
Nothing is not what
I am meant to be.
Written: July 6, 2026, for a contest sponsored by Nayda Ivette Negron Flores
An inward journey is not a road
but a **return** —
a slow aurora rising behind the sky,
a hush where the heart begins
to hear itself again.
It is the moment you stop
careening through the world’s clamor
and feel the subtle susurrus
of your own becoming.
It is a lantern lifted
in the labyrinthine dark,
revealing not monsters
but mirrors —
each one a mythic reminder
of who you were
before the world
told you otherwise.
It is the quiet courage
to clear the noise,
to sift the ash from the ember,
to find the single, ductile thread
that still thrums with truth.
It is the place where your pulse
finally speaks without fear,
where your spirit, long beleaguered,
stands up again
after falling seven.
Embrace the journey
that doesn’t invite you to shift
into someone else —
it calls you to recognize and reclaim
the luminous self
you have always been.
Tomorrow’s Dawn
This concert-filled night thrums with slow-motion static.
No signal, no return, with no way of meeting you.
Our sense of consciousness has become an intermission,
On a winding road in the fog, as the night fades.
One moment before, when melancholy weaves an overturn
For part one.
Subconsciously, it orchestrates a Cassandra. Met with impediments, as this moment resonates.
You’ll find yourself in the scene,
As emotions rise and fall in the
Waves of our concerto.
That fades into limbo.
Only to part tremolo passages
through mirrors of moonlight, the lover’s duet
Adds a refreshing luminescence to the atmosphere.
Allegro vivace, rushing into,
Tomorrow’s dawn.
Twigs clutch like fingers~
no sky, just darkness.
Wings hum above me~
my small heartbeat thrums.
Trapped in this cradle,
I taste wind’s lost song.
The mama doe
and her spring fawn
do somehow know
the place I dwell
within the dell
is safe for them
to rest awhile
from nature’s storms
and all hostile.
Cherry blossoms
with perfume thrums
the song of life
and liberty
of wild places
rare artistry~
come sit with me
and you’ll agree
Spring is alive!
A former place this, a patch where roots rattle,
where stubble has a ferrous frizzle.
A long-truncated railroad stop
humming still with a faded reality.
As dry voices on the wind, they return
- the homesteaders and journeymen,
the harnessed horses.
Pants' cuffs carry kernels
long planted elsewhere.
Caps, coats, and carts
Sweat, rustle and creak,
an invisible locomotion of leaving and arrival.
employed upon an iron labor.
The tall dry weeds are talkative.
Brown boots seem to shuffle
as they wait here or idle.
A hollow clock clacks,
its innards now
are a nest for ticking birds.
Dandelions anticipate twirling flight
under a corn fed sun.
A mid-day heat thrums fragmented rails.
The station seems almost ready
to receive
as if its bygone world
had not forever disembarked.
the tsundoku trail beckons me,
a promissory path of pleasures to be had,
veiled in the haze of unexplored possibilities.
i take my first steps into the secret museum,
strolling into the forest of forgotten volumes,
each one brimming of worlds yet unseen.
my breast thrums with curiosity,
echoing the eternal rhythm of the psuche:
"what lies missing, these dogeared pages?"
now that my friends, is the mystery..
“welcome to Poetry Soup.”
We dream of silence, pure and still,
A space where noise suspends its trill.
Yet in the void, a whisper still, hums,
For silence never ever truly comes.
In quietude, a heartbeat strums,
The pulse of life forever thrums.
Into such stillness, wily wind whistles will creep,
And drips of drops through cracks will seep.
The breaths we take, the sighs we weave,
The quest for silence, they do deceive.
A distant echo, a memory foretold,
Reminds us that silence can’t take hold.
For even when the world’s at rest,
The heart still beats within our chest.
And the mind speaks in words unheard
Mimicking sounds, quelled and deferred.
Even ears when dead and deaf to sounds,
Make it up, when tinnitus abounds.
For quietude can never ever be true.
For its cause is lost in solitude's glue.
Now starved of sleep I watch the shadows creep,
this selfish heart now seething with desire,
beats and beats - relentless thrums grow deep-
they hide, oh how they hide inside the fire!
Then...peaceful in the meadow is this gloom,
in lunar lumen's self-defining light,
that cowers from the truth that dwells at noon
in one forgotten moment of its flight.
Precocious shadows sweep the slumbered fields,
like children of the day that tease the sun,
to loose the resurrection that it yields
while owls of conscience watch which way I run.
As moonlit meadows wander in my dreams,
my peaceful posture's not quite what it seems...
People, we are the pulsing heartbeats,
Pumping life through this world's veins.
Our words, the rhythmic thrums,
Echoing through endless plains.
Poems, they are the arteries of connection,
Channelling thoughts from mind to mind.
Conversations, the capillaries of communion,
Weaving bonds that intertwine.
Life, it's the ever-flowing river,
Carving paths through rocky terrain.
Concerns, the rapids that threaten to sever,
Tossing us, testing our will to regain.
But communication, ah, that's the lifeblood,
Coursing through, keeping us alive.
It's the oxygen that our spirits so crave,
The sustenance that helps us thrive.
So let your poems be the heartbeat's cadence,
Syncing with others at the perfect time.
Let your words be the arteries of compassion,
Bridging the gaps, making connections sublime.
For in this tapestry of life's conversations,
We are the threads, interwoven as one.
Each voice, each thought, a vital pulsation,
Keeping this grand symphony forever begun.
People, we are the heartbeats of existence,
Poems, the very blood that gives us form.
Let's flow together, in perfect persistence,
Weathering life's every storm.
sun …
glints off sweaty trickles as
they plop … plop …
little lad’s littler fingers tickling a
tide pool’s papery face
things of mysterious intention, darting
there to here to there …
wide eyes wider in amazement
tiny thrums quick’ning
dividing breaths
like swells divide the time
and tides …
a splash and a grasp, tightening
some small watery beast
cold-red cheeks blooming wide to
parody the dazzled bay
grins and giggles to mock the black-backs
for this shrimpy monster, squirming
is the prize of a wee fist
gamboling its way to
proffer some mad-mommy shrieks -
slimy and squiggly and
oh, so wondrous!
hunter, home from the hill
Ahab and his white sea demon
perfectly prideful,
invested surety of a silly smile
warmed by the sooty
afternoon …
sun.
Copyright © Gregory Richard Barden, June 9, 2024
Incline your ear and press it to the earth dear soul on fire
feel the moist wet clod of God's rich dirt and don't speak a word;
Listen to the sound of your own heart beat
as it thrums through Mother nature's girth
move slowly, like the mollusk does
across The Sacred Land of its birth
Life is a song unsung, if you don't have love
so sing a canticle of Glory to the heavens
and for goodness sake look up child
recall the lullabies your mother sang to you
the Heroic Anthems of your Father's story
and let your song be heard
from the mountains high !
When the last drop of rain falls upon hushed leaves,
and thin threads of hope seep through petrichor perfume of life,
an array of sun kissed colors bursts forth secrets of the sky;
a Komorebi of dreams woven amidst frolicking shadows of moonrise.
I search for an answer to the equations within my hazy mind,
I ponder if poetic verses can paint a forest burnt from ignorance?
as I’ve long been sketching drizzling sakura foliage to find healing,
from butterfly bliss strokes of faith that never fades.
But love is the celestial maestro orchestrating
a cloudless chorus-
where mockingbirds croon to the notes of the sun and moon-
reflecting along rolling ripples of liquified lakes.
Is there a summery phrase to illustrate
the gossamer warmth of cascading rays?
Maybe canopies of emeralds need no lyrical words,
for the heart of moving light only thrums and throbs in sanguine silence.
when true love rains,
rose moon reigns~heart
thrums strains in stars
Oft’ the person remembered by a song.
Short trip to the base, in the come along.
Don’t know much about the driver,
(We were bound with military fiber…)
but the cool-cassette-high in the carpool.
(Solo was free, paid for the fuel)
A country song, so sad my heart thrums -
Kenny Rogers, his “Lucille”, marriage outcomes…
The lyrics of grim, delightfully illumined my brain.
True of Country magic and its complaining refrain.
I can hear the twang, though separated by years.
The refrain from the man broken, small & in tears.
Lucille’s conquest couldn’t get going aft’ the outburst.
Their time together, though kissed by whisky, cursed.
I think the driver was Glen. Don’t remember much,
but the lingering song - and the get along crutch.
7/3/2023
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