I came this morning
Wine bottle in hand
Looking for you under the tree
By the shelter
You must have known I would come
For you moved your bags.
I think I've fallen in love.
Why would you trust that?
What might you see in me who
Put you on the streets?
"Homeless, welfare mama," we called
You in scorn.
I saw behind those eyes
Woman
And your image sleeps with me
On restless nights.
“Awake,” I tell myself, “you are
Just an unwashed pig dragging your daughter through
The gutters of Philadelphia.
You should get a job."
In my half-sleep, those uneasy eyes
Haunt me into sweats of apprehension.
Today, I finally knew I must meet you;
But you moved your home.
I hated him,
fought with him,
threw words sharp enough to cut.
I called him a psycho,
as if he was
and he—
he just nodded,
as if guilt was his to bear.
He took my beatings,
my storms,
without a single strike back.
And when I broke,
when tears came like floodwater,
he didn’t turn away.
He pulled me close,
patted my hair,
and whispered,
“It’s okay… I will be with you.”
That was the moment,
like Tom understanding Jerry,
we stopped being enemies—
and became something more.
The duties are paid, yet restless remain these eyes,
Without my beloved’s sight, in vain remain these eyes.
His radiance softened my roughness away,
Helpless in their watchful pain remain these eyes.
Truth is no healer holds a cure to impart,
Afflicted with the illness of heart remain these eyes.
I cannot accept that another may see,
Slayers of grief and disgrace remain these eyes.
“Bhav” still stands humbled in the endless queue,
Whether love’s confession or death remain these eyes.
Creation…brings aggravation,
what I’m plinking…can’t match what I’m thinking.
It’s this way…since our early days,
sad to say; but I’ll keep going.
What I see…lives only in me,
can’t come out…wants to, but not allowed,
hear it plain…what I make to play,
ain’t the same; but I’ll keep going.
The details…I try to no avail,
share what’s clear…make it all appear,
always fails…what I write down seems pale,
gnash and wail; but I’ll keep going.
His image…our work just a scrimmage,
not the game…that’s well beyond our brains,
has to be…full force we can’t see,
beyond me; but I’ll keep going.
And I bet…most folks will forget,
roll their eyes…he thinks he’s worth our time,
or they blast…it seems a thankless task,
makes you crash; but I’ll keep going.
What is true…we can’t do it for you,
always there…can drive some to despair,
never ends…something now comes again,
cannot mend, if I don’t keep going…
Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder Poetry Contest //Sponsored by: Crystol Woods
( 1st Place )
Written: August 07, 2025
They say stillness is absence, an empty space between worth noting,
but I have heard its melodies in the pre-dawn chapel where stillness reigned
and still the walls exhaled calm.
I have found stillness and not loneliness---
but in two hands clutching without speaking,
the heart knowing inside out
language would only raze.
Silence is like sunlight before it shines,
the tranquility after I sleep and
the reluctance before "I forgive you",
It grips what chaos cannot express--admiration, agony, dread.
Even when grieving and when at a loss for words,
calmness is at hand and says it all.
So let the world fill with echoes.
With clamor and vivid proclamations.
I will still turn up beauty.
In the lull between storms,
In the hush between instinct and doubt
In the sacred calmness, that hark,
Not to respond, but to understand.
"The more in science we advance,
The more do we grow," you say;
Still, Nature's love, abundance
Forgive us all in every way.
She lessons us to endure
Just like the green grasses do;
We, humans, can't all ensure;
We fail to remain pure and true.
Time's supposed to take all away;
She teaches all how to accept;
Rise and fall, the night and the day
Pass on, as per the global concept.
I can't breathe, I run, I run
In the lap of Nature;
"There'll be the moon and the sun,"
Tells me the Great Teacher.
Life must, must have turns and bends;
Life gifts us melody;
My frail heart now comprehends
There must be threnody.
I come home I am smiling
Look do they see me ?
Do not say anything
Knew I was gone?
Something inside me
Dead for a long time
I feel its heart beating
Beating along.
What does it mean?
This stirring inside me
Look through the tiny cracks
Of my hearts home .
Don't they know that I'm dying ?
To be once a family
They do not see me
Always alone.
The hymns bend backward, curved by mass,
Where light itself cannot surpass.
No chapel stands, no bell is rung,
Just gravity’s unending tongue.
The scriptures float, unpinned by law,
Their ink consumed in cosmic jaws.
A preacher prays, but time distorts—
His voice is trapped in falling thoughts.
What god survives such dark collapse?
What faith can cross event’s last lapse?
The soul’s equation must be clear:
No heaven lies beyond this sphere.
Yet still, within that silent maw,
A question stirs the minds in awe:
Does meaning stretch where matter ends,
Or fall, like light, as space-time bends?
And is belief the last to die,
Or just the urge to ask—and try?
Today I’m grateful for understanding my importance in the continuum of life…
my place in the spectrum of happiness and peace…
and knowing no matter how old I grow
my importance will never diminish or cease.
Because every generation inherits a world it did not create…
and to that world must add more love, acceptance and laugher
as that generation become the guardians…the trustees
of the generation…coming after.
May each new generation…understand the stakes.
May each generation learn from the generation before…
and not make the same mistakes.
When it comes to each generation
may more love, kindness and acceptance find them…
so they can hand off a better world
to the generation coming up behind them.
What is the meaning of it all?
If I told you, you’d surely bawl.
Cry like a baby, yes you would,
If all of truth you understood.
Truth can be so enlightening,
Also, can be quite frightening.
For from the start, we’ve known it all.
Our greatest challenge is recall.
When recalled the truth is real,
All empty spaces it will fill.
We all were born from just one source,
And are guided by the same force.
From one source till our paths are done,
And once again we all are one.
I’d like to slip behind
the silence of your eyes,
to wander the remembered roads
your footsteps once believed in—
to see what you saw,
to feel the ache of your longing
before the world taught you
what not to reach for—
and to find the child
who once asked why—
and is still waiting
for an answer.
I’d sit where memory
holds its breath in the dark,
listening for the story
you never gave voice to—
the one that made you flinch
behind your stillness
when no one was watching,
the one buried so deep
even your dreams can’t plumb—
and what spirits hurry
to dance and whirl beside you
in the hush of 3 a.m.
And if you let me near
that secret turning place—
where wonder once opened
before fear learned its name—
I would not speak,
only breathe beside you,
and keep the silence warm
until you remembered
the sound of your own voice
clear, unhidden and alive.
Today I’m grateful for understanding
the power in the gift of kindness:
Knowing any time we reach for kindness
and are blessed to have achieved it…
How it cost nothing for us to give it…
but was priceless to those who received it.
We are inheriting Art and Arc
Of trying to understand.
How once, we were fingers,
Born of the same common hand.
Miniatures born into this land
Of thought.
Tactile each, and that ought,
To have been enough.
But,
In the sound of each brushed whisper
Overheard in the billowing clouds,
We fought the thought
Of the popular injunction.
Loud as a newborn’s cry,
Yet rough
As an unwanted memorry.
We are the ones
Still trying
To Understand.
Today I’m grateful for understanding love and hate
and all the ties that bind them…
that whether we’re looking for reasons to love
or reasons to hate…
how easy it is to find them.
How, when love or hate are left free and unrestrained,
nothing can impede them…
and how the only way for either to grow
depends on how we feed them.
Related Poems