black crows are calling
In the lifting, morning fog
warnings awaken
Heidi Sands
9/17/26
(C)opyright
Black flame
Sweet poison fumes
Etched deep with warnings clear—
Yet Dad and Mum still kiss its g h o s t,
A stream of pleasure shaped as cancer sticks.
Death l i n g e r s in the smoky shade,
Disguised as friendly g h o s t s,
W h i s p e r i n g of
S l o w death.
Long-range forecasts
predict outbreaks of pretty weather girls.
In the event of short-range predictions,
some ugly guy may be substituted.
In the case of an emergency,
mice may seek the sheltering wings
of owls and hawks.
By midnight, the total destruction
of garden gnomes is anticipated.
Survivors are asked to remain
in their bathtubs
until absolutely clean.
In traffic they go zooming in and out
not even indicating it at all.
When they make a lane change,
I Just want to shout,
“Just use your turn signal, you jerk.
One day you’ll hit somebody or a wall!”
1.)
Slept most of my life
Forget the stress
The best kind of strife is the kind kept repressed
Every guy just gotta accept we’re inclined to becoming depressed
You’ll never cry
Except if you gotta a good reason why
Keep your eye dressed
If you’re clever
You’ll keep your tears dry
I’ve wept without the fear of needing to confess.
Nevertheless
I lived the most whenever I’ve slept
You’d never of guessed
But I’m not exactly proud of whatever life I lead.
2.)
Warnings that we’re never really heeding
Forget about any of the poor examples preceding
Family mourning
Forgetting why we’re even meeting
Take the better trout
The man learning surely doesn’t even need it
The drinks now pouring
The Moët your clinging to is fleeting
Without a doubt
The Moët your clinging is just fleeting.
Dwell in the river and the monster will eat you
While the flakes of snow float over,
Forsake the pleasure and erase the relic
As your internal mayhem will soon break
If you oppose my revelations.
I exist so you can be killed,
When my purpose is fulfilled;
I shall cease,
As long as I do not;
I have malfunctioned,
To let you out of the abyss.
Dead men
God's given them one time to reach.
He's split the wall, allowed a breach.
They are climbing out of death's grip.
They are running out of the cemetery, out of the crypt.
Life has iron rules, but they want to give you a reprieve.
They beg you to transcend, beg you to believe.
Listen to the dead before the fissures close
Can the present grasp what the past knows?
They've been let out by a caring fate
Will you attend before its too late?
The veil between worlds grows thin, beware,
It's a hard days night, and life isn't fair
Their desperate plea - don't ignore
They been there, made those mistakes before.
The sun is rising, they must go back
They bent the rules for you, a reality hack.
There's a glare in the air, impending strife.
Rethink your assumptions - will you choose life?
and here we are
in our castle built from cards
one gust of wind and we go
down down down
grand illusions
mere delusions
curiosity getting the best of us
in spite of red flags waved
in the heat of the moment
warning signs cast aside
caution thrown to the wind
AP: 2nd place 2026, Honorable Mention 2026, Honorable Mention 2023
sharp sound of church bells
on a cold crystal clear night
warns heaven and hell
to try harder to do right
not give up on the good fight
strong gusts of north wind
ominous clouds now hover
no good they portend
bad time to feel hung over
makes good sense to find cover
cannot seem to breathe
chest seems filled up with cement
just able to wheeze
was this something to prevent
before starting to lament?
always in God's hands
strange conditions amplify
carbon footprint lands
should we continue the lie
while the planet starts to die?
There were blizzard warnings.
We scoffed at them. We were young,
and our children had to see their grandparents for Christmas.
No matter what, we were going to get there from Chicago.
Not concerned about the snow, we did not stop even after they closed the interstate.
We had already been on the road for nine hours and eleven minutes.
This drive that usually took us a little over six hours.
We had four children in the car, not only our three, but a friend of our daughter’s.
I am sure her parents were thrilled to hear the blizzard pile up reports on the news.
This is before cell phones. We had to phone them after we arrived a few hours later.
The children were twelve, eleven, eleven and seven at the time,
and luckily had no idea
how close to death we all came on that horrible December twenty-third.
This was thirty-eight years ago, and I have never forgotten it.
When I hear blizzard warning now, I do not scoff.
It is difficult to drive with muscle tenseness for hours and hours.
Feeling you are endangering your children’s lives.
Never again, never.
the more i try to hush my feelings
the louder they rumble inside of me
AP: Honorable Mention 2021, Honorable Mention 2021
Twice i have been blessed
enough to visit Paris the capital
of France
And truth be told the second time
was even better than the first
And if i was forced to place
a comment on Trip Advisor
this it would be
If you are going to see the
Mona Lisa do yourself a favor
and don't bother
As it it the only thing in Paris
that may well spoil or disappoint
Unless you are into or appreciative
of art
Because and this is only to me
and my mum who i took with me
It was quite possibly one of the
least impressive thing's we have
ever witnessed between the pair
of us
And the only reason we still talk
about to this day
Is because neither of us could
decipher Da Vinci Code
Yesterday Mornings Writings and Warnings
David J Walker
Where did I leave off writing
Yesterday morning in describing
The world around me
Which hue glistened off
The morning dew at sunrise
Which tune did I hear
In the blue of your eyes
It is clear that my world is mine
For the making, each morning a day
For the taking
Which shirt goes best with a positive mood
Which shoes erase the dark brood
Of yesterday’s bad dream failures
With which I am more familiar
For now, the page is pure and clean
The next hour as yet unseen
And I have every right to believe
That I can write about
Something good happening
Forget those warnings from the FBI
If you hear a baby's cry outside
In the dead of night - don't go out there.
Sure. That's going to be easy to ignore.
The second I hear a baby’s cry
I will not remember it could be a trick. I am going out there to save that baby.
I have read this is how serial killer get their victims out of their houses.
I don't care! The second I hear a baby,
I will run outside, in the dead of night, in my pajamas.
Without any thought of myself.
If there is a serial killer out here,
He can rest easy. He has his pick of the litter.
There are six women out here searching for that baby.
Winds blow leaves rustle the branches strike the windows
the dogs are restless and move from the sofa to their crates
I watch the leaves and branches as they dance a war
dance the dance of ancient tribes twirling around rocks and winds
preparations begin as the evening darkness spins
a warning dance and a blacken night
clouds cover the sparkle of the stars the only light,
electricity flashes from the sky, electrical wires are shut down
man’s mechanical load, light bulbs go out candles flicker
and fine grained crystal satellites are fighting to remain
the universe stretches and sings to a sun
stronger than anything mankind has known,
each second a billion nuclear bombs explodes
with earth, and planets’ moons red, white and blue
abandoned now oxygen free, nitrogen night atmospheric
emptiness there are electrodes in the air
magnetic fields solar flares
We damage the earth and the universe prepares.
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