Her suffering was her currency as she would trade in sympathies among a band of devils driven wild by their needs to be possessed and to possess in a world seldom fair being built in complications simple heads never seem to ever understand and.
She was Magnificent.
They way she tore me down. Only one other thing had ever hurt me more.
—For What Could Not Die—
They say true love outlives the reach of death;
then why make war when we must say goodbye?
If wrath can keep thy shadow warm with breath,
why forge another bond before we die?
Thou lift thine eyes into the vacant blue,
as though some hidden dweller waits for you;
and sleep withdraws when evening seals the night,
as if one absent face withholds the light.
I ask the men who trade in roads and bread;
they name each street, yet cannot name thy trace.
The world wakes on; I hear its iron tread,
yet every road goes empty in thy place.
That primal word—Be—called the dark to flame;
thou mayst unmake my world, not what became.
He walks in a world of mirrored glass and gold,
Where every coin is made of teeth, and time
Is measured not by clocks, but by heavy lead.
A dog, a ghost, a myth of hollow bones,
Buried beneath a weeping willow’s song.
He seeks the Table carved of jagged stars,
Where suited phantoms trade in shattered breath,
And penance bleeds from leather-bound decrees.
Beneath the neon rain, the shadows twist,
Weaving a coat of sorrow for the dead.
He aims, a cipher in a waking dream,
Through catacombs of chalk and snapping glass,
Where adversaries dissolve in clouds of ink.
The pencil falls—a catalyst of wood—
And writes a symphony upon the brain.
He bleeds in shades of bruised, electric blue,
Rising again to face the shifting maze,
A tethered phantom in a tailored suit.
The path winds backward to a sunlit grave,
Where peace remains a memory of smoke.
in one mere week
Kansas went from the nineties down to the forties
I am zipped into my footie pajamas with two pairs of socks
I had to trade in my sandals for boots
I am not putting my shorts and t-shirts away just yet
no telling what next week will bring to Kansas
this is the Midwest
our temperatures are bi-polar
I should be sleeping,
Softly drifting into peaceful dreaming,
But I’m awake with a jagged leaning
To trade in my rest and fight what I'm feeling.
The shadows are creeping,
Across the floor where the light is seeping,
The silent watch that the walls are keeping
Is a heavy price for the soul I'm reaping.
I’m plagued by flickers of fictitious whispers,
The static hiss of a thousand blisters,
A hollow chorus sings in the ghostly distance
Twisting the air into brittle splinters.
The silence is breaking,
To the rhythm of an empty aching,
Between the giving and the taking,
I’m just the ghost of my own making.
I’m getting a new computer tomorrow
I love my tech about as much as I love my boyfriend
It’s M5 chip, 10 CPUs, neural processors and GPUs
will mostly idle away as I grope for the right words
but they won’t show their impatience - no -
they won’t sigh and tap their shoes like a boyfriend.
I’m getting a new computer tomorrow
I’ll love it’s bright, starlight, smooth and flawless skin
maybe not quite as much as I do when I’m groping him
but I’ll sigh with delight as I run my fingers over its form
few things in life completely delight and please me
I know one or two - and one of them will be brand new.
.
.
A song for this:
Joburg jam by Pogo
Nobody by Kate Earl
.
.
*every year I trade in my Macbook Air for a new one, it only costs ~$250 so why not? That way I have the latest, greatest tech.
We see you clearly.
We know your names.
White hair, clean suits—
but a stained conscience.
You sit high on seats of power
while young girls stand on hunger,
on fear,
on dreams still unnamed.
You call it “help,”
but it is trade in pain.
You call it “love,”
but it is a trap for those with no choice.
Need is not consent.
Silence is not agreement.
A hand that takes from weakness
is not a hand—it is a chain.
You buy forced smiles,
you pay for futures in fragments,
then return home
without ever looking back.
But every tear
becomes testimony.
Every broken dream
becomes an accusation.
One day the voices will rise—
not with money,
but with truth.
And history will call your names
not “great men,”
but abusers.
My husband and I are retired;
Our car is an old Subaru.
Our lifestyle has never required
A trade-in for cars that are new.
As long as the engine is running,
To get from Point A to Point B,
A late model we will be shunning,
No fobs for my husband or me.
Yet circumstance somehow conspired,
With mileage and tread in the mix,
That our car will, like us, be re-tired,
So together, we’ll have our last licks!
We do not kneel to stolen thrones.
We do not bow to bought decree.
No law that feeds on human pain
Shall claim the right to govern me.
We were not born for quiet chains
Or gilded cages made of lies.
Our breath is older than their rule.
Our hope outlives their empires’ rise.
They write their power into stone,
We write our truth in living flame.
They trade in fear and call it peace —
We carve our justice from their shame.
No hunger forged by greedy hands
Shall teach our children how to beg.
No whip of silence on our tongues
Shall make us crawl where we once led.
We are the ones the songs remember.
We are the spark no storm can drown.
We are the many, standing tall
Where once they told us to lie down.
Let history hear our thundered vow:
We choose the good. We choose the right.
We choose the dawn against the dark —
And build our world in living light.
Blessings, I am him
Legend tier amongst the greats
Trade in sins for God
What ruse is so effective
that someone blatantly perverse
can succeed all so easily
to convince one after the other
to give it all up
to trade in their integrity
to renege on their values
to turn their back on any moral compass
to literally sell their soul to the devil
And… have the gall to walk among us
still with their head held high ?
Seems like we’ve entered an alternate reality
beyond the stretch of imagination
where nightmares are the new norm.
AP: Honorable Mention 2025
The sun still spills on the oranges' skin,
Bright as the lies we bury within.
The sea is patient, the palms still sway,
But silence gathers at the edge of the bay.
How many rules must the warm wind bear
Before it forgets how to kiss the air?
They scribble statutes in hurried ink—
Do they ever pause long enough to think?
Children dream under moonlit skies,
While lawmakers trade in their lullabies
For leashes on thought and tide.
Liberty wilts when shadows need not hide.
Let me lie down where the wild birds go,
Far from the noise of the men who know.
A law for this, a law for that—
But none to hush the diplomat.
Oh Florida, must you cage the breeze?
M
a
y
I, you may
play dress up
with showers
treat your crown
to flowers
trade in the cold
for warmer hours
M
a
y
I, you may
tiptoe outside
whisper
to the zephyr
eye the blossoms
as they sashay
port and starboard
M
a
y
I, you may
remember
Mother’s Day
with tears
and smiles
and cheers
M
a
y
I, you may
look forward
to Summer days
with a plentiful
garden of praise
The very first rapper preceded
Ice-T by aeons and eons
Though his rap-a-tap-tap
never earned him lights in neon
Humbly plying his trade in forests far
from billionaire rapper stars
The woodpecker taps out his tune on trees
~ at times nearby, have a look-see
Yankee-two-kilo
Yankee-two-kilo
Can you read me?
Y2K
The year 2000's on the way
The new millennium's almost here
To write January 1, 2000 will be weird
Star Trek's beam me up Scottie was
A far out idea
But now the space shuttle goes up
Several times a year
The crew of seven went up that day
(don't look up to watch it burn)
they had no fear, now their view from heaven
Is crystal clear
When January 1 comes will
My computer freeze?
Will I get my money from the
ATM with the greatest of ease?
Did I store any staples and canned
Goods to keep my mind at ease?
Will I be able to trade in the
Stock market as I please?
Y2K
Yankee-two-kilo
Calling all earthlings!
Come aboard
The space center on the moon is
Ready (it has so much more
More than you'd ever imagined before)
Don't look back to watch it burn
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