Using religious piety,
To spread hate in society,
Cancer masquerades, to destroy
Using every malignant ploy,
Spreading spite - feigning honesty,
Thriving well as a fallacy -
A wolf with warm deceptive eyes,
Charms one and all with its disguise.
Its rule is avid bigotry,
Feasting on the minority,
Spreading uncontrolled all-around,
All of compassion’s voice is drowned.
Breaking walls; tearing hearts apart;
Hateful seeds sown in every heart.
Muzzling dissent, playing a perilous game,
Fascism is this cancer’s treacherous name.
Copyright © by Crystal David John
Written: May 3rd 2026, for a contest sponsored by Line Gauthier
2nd place contest winner
*****************
Shadows shiver with the shape of you.
Your ghost-warm whisper cuts straight through.
Memory is a moribund mirror, cracked and cold.
My heart holds your hollow hush, uncontrolled.
Night gnaws softly on what we used to be.
And silence bleeds your absence back into me.
Brian Strand, the poetry man..
Sits high above with judging hand.
A keeper of the crafted line..
Deciding whose words get to shine.
I send my verses, raw and true..
Each syllable a piece of you.
Of heart, of hurt, of things I’ve known..
Yet back they come.. declined, disowned.
No golden tick, no praised reply..
Just silence dressed as reasons why.
No “almost there,” no guiding light..
Just shadows cast on things I write.
So why, dear judge, with seasoned eye..
Do all my efforts pass you by?
Is it the rhythm, rough and wild?
Or truth too loud, too uncompiled?
Perhaps my lines don’t fit the mould..
Too sharp, too real, too uncontrolled.
Not polished clean for safe display..
But scars that never fade away.
Or maybe it’s a quieter thing..
That art’s not crowned by any king.
That taste is fickle, hearts don’t match..
And not all flames are yours to catch.
So Brian Strand, the poetry man..
You hold the gate.. but here I stand.
For worth’s not stamped by one decree..
A poem still breathes.. if it’s in me.
I brought my hammer full of hope,
A pocket lined with careful plans,
Determined I would finally cope
With slipping dreams through restless hands.
I chose a spot upon the wall,
A place where things were meant to stay,
But what I held refused that call—
It wavered, trembled, slid away.
Each time I tried to pin it there,
It shivered loose, it would not bind,
Like fragile thoughts, like whispered air,
Like moments racing through the mind.
They told me, “Hold it, make it last,
Control the shape, don’t let it fall,”
But some things never can be fastened—
Like Jell O pressed against a wall.
And in that struggle, breath grew tight,
My hands grew tired, my heart unsure,
Was I too weak, or was I right
To chase a thing I can’t secure?
So I stepped back and let it be,
No hammer raised, no desperate fight,
And in that quiet, suddenly
It shimmered softly in the light.
Not everything is meant to stay,
Not every dream must be controlled,
Some truths will always slip away—
Uncaptured, fluid, uncontrolled.
And maybe peace is simply this:
To lose the need to make it all
Stand still beneath a forceful wish…
Like nailing Jell O to a wall.
How firm are your branches that you’ve spread across the earth?
How great your disguise?
Can I detect you with one eye?
How sorry are you for the things that you’ve done
To get you where you are-.
Put others down in the dirt
You've taken your path and I've taken mine
You better hope we don’t collide
‘cause there’s gasoline inside you
And fire in my eyes
There’s some words on my chest
that I can’t ignore
Like I do with all the rest
You say “stop it”
but I can’t resist this
The blood on your hands is too red for my conscience
And you can’t clean the crimson away
Even if you scrub and you scrub
It just won’t be enough
Sin's roots are buried too deep
and you’ve been feeding on the feast
Can't get away from the addiction that is crawling in your skin
You try and you fail
but the disease is in your blood
And you’ve had too much
Too much sustenance has made you greedy and cold
Too many years down the hole
You blink and you’re old
All that’s left is a reality that no one foretold
the emotions you withhold
Burst out uncontrolled
Unmet expectations damage your demanding mind,
your senses become the fast spreading wild fire.
Uncontrolled, it boils the blood of your intrinsic pride,
and as it flares up, it burns my gentle demeanor.
Its ferocity blazes the bonhomie of bonding chords,
my life turns into an urn filled with your ill feeling.
Your flashing eyes can’t conceal you seethe inside,
generate an inferno of malice for me in your heart .
The twisted tongue spills out your sentiments so sadistic,
smeared with the vicious venom of your malicious mind.
The scorched petals of my floral essence are dislodged
to feel the dreams turn into debris, suffering in silent pain.
I pray to God to give me the strength of tolerant psyche
and the acuity of empathetic acumen to sense that
“the only way out of the labyrinth of suffering is to forgive.”
So, the spontaneous spurt of imbibed divine forgiveness
emanates from the fountain of my benign soul,
and I perceive my genial mind evade the pangs of agony.
When you give me your eyes
Its me getting roses
Two precious things
Looking at me with poses
Those two things we use to bring
Satisfaction, desire and devotion
The tools we use to unconfuse
and plainly show emotion
Two arrows shot with two lines
To pull the captured in
Bring attention to the lips
That sometimes give a grin
This thing called love uncontrolled
That eyes take and bring
Unspoken words to a heart
That listens to what it sees
I am so inflamed a blizzard is falling,
every toxin taken in I’ve been stalling.
Ice rains as magma plows the ground,
a lethal storm arrives without a sound.
Laying the land to waste in an instant,
it is best to let a disaster stay dormant.
There’s nothing to grasp once it is loose,
you touched off a catastrophic fuse.
Weather you could never prepare for,
should have thought about that before.
With fury next to impossible to diffuse,
be careful the words that you choose.
This pattern of rage is not intermittent,
it will do what it does never quite spent.
Frozen daggers wield a temper unbound
such icy eyes a Cat 6 is now crowned.
Uncontrolled smite is now overflowing
devastation is all that is left standing.
To follow the law or comply with
Asks Mister Smith
Forwarding though the current
Or drift
The flow is uncontrolled
The task is manifold
And distance within
This our engine
Appears both new and old
My only nemesis
Placing an emphasis
On something we must understand
Humanity fantasies
Trans and the extasies
Deity rules should be banned
As time you spend your day
In data flow
Don't be surprised to find yourself on deathly row
As reading of the fiction
Enriches your cognition
Invigorates the vision
With adequaCY THOUGH
And differing the fiction
And real facts of life
Is really your own mission
And target of your strive
Where computing meets
Unsolvable for it
My horse move greatly beats
And thus get you Merit
Distinction makes distinctive
And thus the difference
Who made wild life extensive
The flea adheres
Life of the parasites are for the parasites
To choose a way to earn approve
Remove the satellites
Theres a flood today in Crick.'
Uncontrolled migrants; on the uptick'
There is football till morning.'
When they normally were snoring
And drunks in their, park being sick.'
r = f(?)
Spirals
Archimedian
Logarithmic
Fractal
Mirabilis
Uncontrolled
One point to the next
Ever widening, no end
So with arguments
~kcm
A Story of Santosh that was entangled in grief
It was just another day, he thought
He stepped out of the house with his family to return
Unaware of the danger awaiting at the accident spot
He and his wife, children went out jolly, talking about
They got onto the bike and went for a ride as usual
Oh, Santosh, if at all you knew
Your day ends in a dreadful growl
You are broken and bleeding, growling on the side of the road
Wounded, wondered who would save his loving family lying a distance away
His wife watches from afar helplessly, two kids and her husband mourning uncontrolled
Oh, that dreadful day, will they ever forget the misery life has thrown
The death of his only budding toddler, struggling to breathe and left the world reeling
If at all, he knows the danger ahead.
His family would be living safely and securely
Santosh had to pass this day and face the pain as long as he is alive
God allowed this, and they have to let go; their sorrows and pain
Which seems to be healed but remains fresh in life, displeased
Life gives joy and sorrows; smile in your good days and cry when no one sees
noon’s furnace: asphalt shimmers; air—thick, slow—
cracks open. cicadas drill through stagnant gold.
a sprinkler’s hiccup-hiss: the pavement’s glow
un/curls in steam. the hydrant’s shout: uncontrolled.
children shriek!—a liquid burst of now,
popsicle rivers bleed; knuckles—sticky, green—
cling to handlebars. shadows stretch: thin, lean
across chain-link. each blade of grass—laid down—
bakes. but dusk? a match-strike: fireflies!—
the yard exhales jasmine; stars prick the bruised eaves—
porch swings gasp. the melted things—still writhing—
pool in gutters: chalk suns, lemon peels, dreams.
the silence hums. even time—soft, unspooled—
beads on your neck. and summer? stays. but cooled.
I’m so tired of spendin’ nights alone
The test of time has left me like a stone
Drinkin’ time—I feel it in my bones
Feel so numb, I can’t pick up the phone
Drownin’ in sorrow, can’t find my way
Lost in the darkness, day after day
Tears fill my eyes as I silently pray
For a glimmer of hope to guide me astray
Should’ve known that fortune favors bold
Tried so hard just to go break the mold
Drinkin’ time, it got so uncontrolled
Now I’m dead, so far deep down below
Drownin’ in sorrow, can’t find my way
Lost in the darkness, day after day
Tears fill my eyes as I silently pray
For a glimmer of hope to guide me astray
Unmet expectations strike hard,
hurting where they languish long.
Unkept promises are blows earned,
hitting where they find no resistance.
Unkind words are slashes harsh,
ripping through the calm conscience.
The dormant volcano within the soul
then gets the upsurge of melted psychic mantle
in the crust of brittle tolerance,
that collapses in the caldera cradling the vent,
reaching the magma chamber in the core.
The soul erupts the lava in the wild,
burns the gentle patience as it flows.
Uncontrolled, it blazes the heart,
undowsed, it singes the sane senses.
The smoke billows up thick and intense,
clouds the deranged essence.
Words rise like Sphinx from the toxic ashes,
perish the patient face of mental restraint.
The flame surges in the stream of neurons,
no longer the carrier of conformist signals.
From the volcanic inferno of the soul
the erupted fiery lava called anger flows
in the torrents of blistering words,
scalding whatever comes in the way,
blazing a furrow for the reticent life.
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