Dear poetry, my intrinsic ally,
Inaudible voice striving to be heard,
There’s a lifelong pact between you and I -
Crafting lasting legacy, word by word.
I have wild notions and an endless drive,
You mix the inspiration and the muse,
I pen the drafts, you spark them all to life -
You’ve got the final say I can’t refuse.
Respectfully I gracefully accept
The harsh rejection of a ruthless judge.
So when you deem my rough copy inept,
I vacillate but I don’t hold a grudge.
I posit we two share the ties that bind -
Literally I’m tied up to a chair.
Quid pro quo I reciprocate in kind -
If I don’t pen you, you haven’t a prayer.
Dear, you’re stuck with me, even if you try,
Unless you swap my sweatwork for AI!
August 30, 2026
(“Citadel of Light Merit Badge”, 2016, original pen and ink)
Battle For Your Mind
We live in a time of upheaval and change,
Challenge and war,
But the biggest battle
Is what some call “jihad”
An internal struggle of light and dark
As a soul makes their way along the path.
But along with the esoteric jihad
There is the exoteric,
External struggle for your soul,
And battle for your mind,
A battle between the Death-eaters
And the Life-givers.
In this battle of temptation desertion is always an option,
And as many times as we may vacillate
What matters most is where we finally settle,
And in an infinite universe on a timeline of eternity,
As Led Zeppelin said,
You can always change the road you’re on.
But once we know how it will end
Then the momentary ups and downs
Cannot confuse and distract us.
This is the Path of Seeing
The path of no return, the warrior path
In the battle for your mind.
(9/16/25)
i mistake the divine
as i tend
to worship your tune
let the music define
and then rend
what is left of me
tilt your neck against mine
do pretend
i'm all yours to wound
it's your touch on my spine
that may bend
all reality
rest the world
vacillate through the wires
and i'll spend
an aeon or two
harmonizing the ire
to augment
the trills properly
in staccato desire
your movements
cleanly cutting through
when you're truly inspired
you suspend
my breath entirely
and god heard
with such a gentle stroke
play your hands
on my throat
i'm a slave to the bow
fingers dance
cold and slow
with a grip on the scroll
trace the strands
carve the notes
an octave down or so
lay entranced
in my throes
the pegs turn
deftly scale through the length
of everything i am
when i'm your instrument; rosin-drenched strings
severed and bled
an insanity's musings
the echoes resonate within a dream
within my head
your sonata is playing
and when the music fades
will i still wake
or just be left
humming
NO HIDING PLACE
I know
Just everything
At least what’s important
Yet that’s my assessment, not yours
Should you deny or try to vacillate
I will ensure it all comes out
Across all media
Embarrassing
I know
Voters ventilate
Politicians vacillate
Democro-demise
I confess that these are false memories
as I’ve never been to the Paris’ and it’s
arrondissements, and these days, I avoid
air travel what with climate change.
Yet the name evokes places and times
which filled my imagination with wonder
at the tales of Mme. Cabot would tell our
high school French class on her good days.
All this has come back to me because
I’m in the Paris section of my online
cours de français, where I vacillate
between obsidian and pearl levels
depending on my work frequency.
And though you couldn’t accuse me
of Hypermnesia, the art, literature and
songs of Montmartre, pendant La Belle Époque
have seeped into my temporal lobe and
brightened my grey matter.
But with the war in the Ukraine,
it also reminds me that in 1940,
the Montmartre fuel depot bombing
inspired the people of Paris in their
resistance to the Nazi occupation.
Poetry notebook in my jittery hand, I vacillate
what if she finds it dull… obtuse…
beneath her... culturally insensitive?
What if she laughs at its pathos,
groans at its length,
smirks at its earnestness?
As I begin to falter, I ask myself
(denying all the aching echoes of indifference)
how much could it possibly hurt if she doesn't like it?
Could I ever forgive myself if I chicken out?
As my internal arguments fire torpedoes at each other,
she begins to walk away.
Incensed at my cowardice, I detect a gravitational pull
impelled by the bonfire of urgency
lit by a lightning bolt of past meltdowns
I take a step of infinite unknowingness, and clear my throat
"Hi, I'm in your writing class…
might I ask for a brief moment of your time?"
...silence.
She glances at my poem, then stares into my eyes -
stretched between two souls is an imaginary tightrope
leveling her balancing pole, she slowly smiles…
"I thought you'd never ask"
written 15 Mar 2022
This is what I am enjoined to be:
Hyphenated !
Bound to vacillate between self-aggrandizement and self-annihilation
I straddle two unrecognizable worlds
only to find solace in none
I am the begetter of my malaise
all made of ungraspable memories and deferred living
Unable to liberate presence from the grips of absence
I dwell on both edges of supposed being
that meanwhile refuse to be reconciled
?for fear that I dare reconstruct my long lost identity
There I stand
a hyphenated land
gazing at imposed images
donning the masks of free choice and self-agency
So comical is the struggle
As we so vacillate
Myriad desire forms juggle
Before each we prostrate
Make still the shaky heart
Simply add love to cart
Behold desires depart
Heart unstable
So comical
20-November-2021
Quietus
'Sea calls me to sail on amorous flow.'..... Poet
Sailing in Sea
Sailing in sea on my speed boat
in frolic fun aiming no port.
Dear! Please come with me to support.
I wish to be close with my sweetheart.
In my speed boat going to sea
to float in fervor not to flee,
sinking in your blue eyes on glee.
wish your closeness not to be apart.
My speed boat to swing, oscillate
Turbulent waves to propagate.
Emotive urge not to vacillate.
Dreamy desires active and smart.
My speed boat dancing up and down
Pearly foam adorns you with crown.
It’s not trivial : Don't make frown.
We will take oath not to depart.
08/22/21
Re edited on 07/26/22
Sailing
Contest by Julia Ward
The void beneath the synaptic cleft
Place of precision warp and weft
Neurons are space ships fired at will
With dying breath then they still
Billions of neurons drive my brain
Trying to understand~it is in vain
Neurons are sparking as I contemplate
What next to write then I vacillate.
Second by second day after day
Neurons are friends as I wend my way
Different at night when deeply asleep
Neurons fire backward ~ we are unique.
Warp and Weft:
The art of weaving is a subtle metaphor for understanding the workings of the universe and our place in it.
The Void
Poetry Contest
Sponsored
by
Unseeking Seeker
I was once for compromise.
Then I came to realize.
That when you go for middle ground,
Both sides wish to shoot you down.
Well, they should.
For you are no good;
When too timid to choose a side
And in the center wish to hide.
Please do not take this wrong.
We should all attempt to get along.
Jesus never tolerated hate.
He asked us all to relate;
But he never did equivocate,
Hesitate, prevaricate, or vacillate.
He always claimed that he was boss;
Even when nailed upon the cross.
I count it that I’ve once again won
For being fifty one:
On this day, the 15th June
High my stereo with tweeters tune;
In noise–prosecuting quarters to Victory ululate,
In advance vowing to not later vacillate,
For only a just-caught-and-now-brooding criminal
Or the fast-wasted by a disease terminal
Would to the Euphoric say “Nay”
On man’s caution-depriving Birthday…
Really, the day to puff up one’s chest for boasts
With paid filled glasses for appropriate toasts,
Save for the life-jailed already gathering dust
And facing a tomorrow of inescapable rust
Or the piteously dying with his graveyard space
Reachable with not so much as a long pace…
Happy Birthday to the Gemini
Here in Nigeria but very sure He is in “Germany”
Already ambitiously eyeing Fifty-two years,
The prayers that should take him to it selecting all their gears!
Our planet is weeping, and faith is at low and vacillate.
A severe risk as a result of the global warming challenge
Concerns have arisen as an outcome of a wavering climate.
It is not due to hairspray or baby oil; it's our fate.
Rapidly melting Arctic glaciers are causing damage.
Our planet is weeping, and faith is at low and vacillate.
Carbon from fossil fuels is the major emission element.
A ferocious shockwave of metabolic blaze stage.
Concerns have arisen as an outcome of a wavering climate.
Concerns around the ozone hole depletion sprout.
Sea level is rising due to melting ice and warmer plage.
Our planet is weeping, and faith is at low and vacillate.
War and turmoil look trivial compared to climate.
Despite that our kids are at risk, newly threats emerge.
Concerns have arisen as an outcome of a wavering climate.
To allow plant life to thrive, we need to alter our zest.
Retain the air safe and car-free with zero carbon discharge.
Our planet is weeping, and faith is at low and vacillate.
Concerns have arisen as an outcome of a wavering climate.
Written April 20, 2021
A MAJOR WORLD PROBLEM Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: L MILTON HANKINS
"Little Beaks"
A voice in the tumble clouds
deep silver crackles like thunder threads
Clouds of starlings
Blacken the eggshell blue sky
drowns many
A little beak
Heartbeats morph
together murmurate
vacillate their minds to unify
wings that hum like bees
A dance of seduction
envelops Blue Sky
The unseen
Superlunary
shatters the reversing
unrehearsed reverie
The Hidden One
in a forgotten
prophecy
speaks
Come little beaks
and night creatures
Daylight dares
the darkness one last taste
Like true romantics
and dead poets
mandolins their hearts
strummed eternally in seasons
Like words written on the sky
dance to make love of fun
Come starlings
little beaks
come taste
The Golden Sun
(LadyLabyrinth/ 2019)
gvlm
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