The globe is a shrubbery we must safeguard like our own world,
World of women’s physiques with un-upkept in between,
In-between growing huge shrubs untended and jamboreeing silent bugs,
Bugs spread as weeds when a savannah of hair buckskins the sun.
Sun vanished in thickets can distress the peace of hubbies,
Hubbies ramble like agrarians looking for grounds that respire with health,
Health produces where spotless rivers run and razors clear the trail,
Trail through the wasteland teaches that shaving is pruning.
Pruning protects both soil and skin from pungent shade,
Shade over basins or over women offers unseen diseases,
Diseases cautions us that negligence of earth rears regret,
Regret dwindles when we shield every allotment with affection.
Affection describes such a woman who never weeds her land,
Land producing human beings should not be that bushy,
Bushy and causing it smelly, a condition able to generate germs,
Germs that spoil the body and the feelings that repel lovers.
Poem by Mugisho T.N
the aliens arrived in mid-July
this planet is like Mars, we are going to die!
the sidewalk is full of sizzling frying eggs
there is nothing any of us keep on our legs
we melt into hot puddles as we run to our car
this place is Hades, the aliens scream from afar
for they have taken off in their spaceship
Determined to never return to this planet on another trip
the dogs are reluctant to go outside to do their biz.
Some have marked up our carpeting with all kinds of whizz.
the cats have moved away from their nests near glass windows.
the garden is untended, littered by abandoned hoes.
we can go outside until about seven o’clock a.m.
After that, we stumble about, on fire, earth is condemned.
The devil must be here, because I think a pitchfork I see.
No wait, it’s just a forest on fire, started by one burning tree.
just something light and whimsical for your yuletide enjoyment....
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Midnight dusted
with frostbite whispers,
they come~
small thieves of warmth,
pocketing embers
from fires left untended.
They take:
a ribbon,
half a gingerbread man,
the last sigh
of a dying candle.
They leave behind:
the faint ache of
almost-remembered
laughter,
the sense
you are not quite alone
in the long,
bright yuletide dark.
The dark night comes riding a razor's edge.
The day comes shining, but no solid pledge.
The peacetime smolders like untended coals.
The darkness, a blanket, for bedless souls.
The late summer leaves, ready for a fall.
The frost of winter starts its yearly crawl.
The shiver of a long-lost lover's thought.
In a timeless loop, the world is caught.
The spin of the Earth the whole human race.
We always tried to keep up with the pace.
Riding out this technological storm.
To our destiny, naked we are born.
The truth is out there somewhere, lost in time
We search the night sky waiting for a sign.
We came to this place to find who we are.
The poor lost orphans who fell from a star!
she plays scenarios in her head
till she can’t distinguish
shades from fact or fiction
it started out all innocent
at first she didn’t sense the danger
she let her thoughts play drift
and skip ahead of herself
like an untended garden
the weeds soon taking over
she spirals down a private rabbit hole and
plays such games not meant for children
the type with hidden consequences
like mental variations of russian roulette
she’s gone offtrack
caught in a cycle
she’s really lost her way
it’s gone too far
i see her deteriorating
and i can’t save her
it breaks my heart to see her fear and mental anguish
that's sadly now her cross to bear
AP: 3rd place 2025, Honorable Mention 2025
I was born with dreams, not my own, but woven like a spider's web into my blood,
by ancestors who left this world without fulfilling their desires,
they pass down ambition like an heirloom of old silverware, polished with memories,
caressed by the dust of decades, yet too precious to be left to fade away.
Each night, I feel them breathing at the nape of my neck, whispering like an ancient wind:
"Do not waste what we could not become, do not let the dreams fade into oblivion".
But I wonder, what happens if I want nothing of this at all?
What happens if true freedom means letting dreams lie untended,
renouncing the burden of inherited ambitions, carving my own path through the labyrinth,
where the shadows of the past cannot touch my light, living a life unchained,
becoming a shooting star in the sky of my own freedom, a constellation of choices?
Perhaps, in the silence of the nights, I will find the answer in the echo of my unheard desires,
in the quiet between heartbeats that dream of something else, of a universe of possibilities,
where the courage to be nothing but myself becomes the true magic of existence.
The untended plant
withers away, leaf by leaf ~
a time of indifference.
Why do we falter,
poised at the divine altar,
blaming it on gravity?
Listen to this grief I tell,
How love away from me didst wind.
And though in time, I think she’ll find
I loved her better – never mind –
The whole of life, its parts combined,
Are only sorrows intertwined.
But on the Plains, the Plains of Asphodel,
Shall it all at last be well!
The whole of life, ‘tis nothing deep,
‘Tis fodder for the compost heap.
Life laughs at us, I laugh at it,
We last through lethargy and wit.
Yet this my rule, ignore the rest:
‘Tis he who dies the first, dies best.
Untended lie the acres of my heart,
Where once a field of roses bowed and swayed.
And gladly from all sorrows shall I part!
Nor by a dismal voyage, be dismayed.
Regret!
What do I learn?
When the world shifts
And someone's gone,
Leaving a void
Their absence lingers,
A ghost in the air,
Unnoticed, unheard,
Until it dawns...
The wave crashes down,
Remorse takes hold,
and Sadness seeps in
Like a cold wind blows.
Barren land,
Dug up, untended,
Seeds of regret,
Sprout and then wilt.
Thoughts, a storm,
Washing me over,
Promises unspoken,
Neglect unaddressed.
Death, they say,
Makes us wake up,
But the dreams fade,
And I'm lost again.
But can't I learn?
Can't I break free?
Live differently,
Embrace the change
Life, I implore you,
Let the lesson last,
Not just fleeting promises,
But genuine change.
The cycle repeats,
But hope remains.
To live better,
And remember…
When a whore house was fun
I sat down to write about flowers, those often
called weeds and grows on untended pavements
but another thought got in the way as I recalled
that flowers in a whore house are usually plastic
except for a chrysanthemum on
a painting on a wall of an artistic whore
I have had much fun in houses of ill-repute
it is not only sex but also laughter and dance
The girls liked young sailors and the possibility
of a steady relationship.
It did happen to a sailor coming home from Brazil
with a blushing bride, no need to tell how
they had met
Time has changed, women are victims of men's
sexual demands and places where many victims
operate from have been closed down
Just as well, women in this trade are sex workers
and if not treated rightly, can take a customer
to court, or try a little blackmail
Whoring was more moral before you paid and
had a laughter, not hard-headed business
as the line of work has become
Makeshift art
patches of cloth
second-hand music
on textbook drums
Cuisine foraged
from lawns untended
literature culled
torn pages blended
Creative genius
knows no bounds
objects of derision
make beautiful sounds
Oh painful pain lingering
throbbing unjoyously
flaunt that false grin again
bring me terror of the unstable mind
where rabid horses trample garden gates
where pampered vines bleed broth and sap
no food no flavors just herbal failures
not yet extracted
the untended tend to decay
“thank you no” do I ever say
I talk I think I never pray
gracious gratitude fails twice
to patronize with sincerity
I then bend as if to bow
in garbled words of paradise lost
I mumble hollow truths
to appease omniscient listeners
who know nothing but ideal fears
admire and adore their perfect faults
escape/avoid/evade the drought
desiccated hope like dust is blown
out of your mouth and into my mind
dreams become fossils
molehills colossal
I loved him in a Summer's breeze,
though Summer ripened into Fall.
His Winter arms, a cooler squeeze,
a chill became an April squall.
A season's moment left ungrasped.
I thought of love, but love is blind.
Its daydreams easily unclasped.
Untended, quickly they unwind.
He left in Summer, with no glance;
his mythful "white horse" ran away.
My heart, he nicked with paper lance.
I can't recall his face today.
Promises penned in Summer's air
are lost as they waft everywhere.
March 20, 2023
for "A Simple Poetry Contest" poetry contest
by John Lawless
Only ten is she.
Assailable as a child can be.
Her mind drifts, worry at best, fear at worst.
Her ally is her art that expresses it so vividly.
The face that she wears on the page,
a tear drop just below each eye.
This is her identity. Her surroundings exposed.
Can you see her pain,
hidden behind those beautiful eyes?
She wants to be loved like little girls do,
The doll she embraces wants love too.
Through art, her heart is uncovered.
The tears so vivid on the face of a shadowed image.
She is that face.
Rejected by a mothers sin
who can relieve her from this life she navigates, but one friend she holds dear to her heart.
Untended, wasted and forsaken but by God.
If she can find Him.
Letter
Lost art
Sonnet
For You
Fireworks
Within
Sunshine
Rainbow
Halo
Vivid
Docile
Dazzling
Island
Serene
The door
Opened
Entwined
Knitted
Endless
Hopeful
A wall
Stealthy
A gulf
Anguish
Estranged
Dismay
Poem
An ode
0ctober 8, 2022.
2022 Poetry Marathon Mile 16 Poetry Contest,
Mark Toney.
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