Contest Name: 1501 Sept 2026 part 4x4'
Sponsor Brian Strand
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How I hunger for the connection
that I always break
or fail to make.
Its absence is an emptiness
invading my personal space.
Deafening silence rings my ears
and making my head throb and ache.
Whether surrounded by people or all on my own, there's no change
Though its presence is unwelcome, it persists to overstay.
Insistent that within its grasp
is where, forever, I shall remain.
Imprisoned behind the bars
of its isolating ways.
Feeling crushed beneath the heaviness of its invisible chains.
Wheezing shallow breaths, suffocating and in pain.
Asking, telling, screaming, yelling; it just won't go away.
Neither will it set me free nor permit me to escape.
Sentenced my whole lifetime as its intimate inmate.
On Firtriculon V, the jagged sneels glide
through the deep and wounded river
Of course the river, aptly named The Scagerwat,
Would not be wounded if not for
The jagged sneels messy gliding
On Firtriculon V, the patterwattale plants
Reach up towards and put dirt on
The wobbling bobbling moon
Of course the moon, aptly named The Rastlying,
Would not wobble or bobble if the
patterwattale plants had not placed the
dirt only on the left side
On Firtriculon V, the weaving wheezing wahdels
Sing loudly at 2:83 in the aftermorning
And stop at 2:85 just as loudly
And of course the song, aptly named the ballad of werel,
Would not be sung as 2:83 if
The weaving wheezing wahdels didn’t keep a close
watch on the comings and goings
Of the popples on the ground
On Firtriculon V, people come at go
Ignoring the strange happenings around them
Because nothing is truly strange
on Firtriculon V
Gently, on a baked ceiling of a field
a boy ruffles my fluttering shirt
like a naughty, vagrant wing,
and picks a baseball on the grass…
this smaller kid of almond eyes
clutches it with deep longing to play,
but he could not; his wounded legs gave way.
Yet, he claps and screams like all gamers
such a radiant joy with wobbly feet,
that I liven him up to pitch for one round,
while the team rallies for a winning ride.
Taking in the fire of the crimson day,
this lean figure of almond eyes takes his spot
the crowd wheezing, ' take it home! '
grasping the orb as if it were a white globe.
In a precise twirl, the fast ball reels
curving much higher, splitting the air
until those limbs swivel off freely…
the batter out: through joy and pain,
one young limping boy of summer’s dream
becomes a brave, victorious man
that in this park's recreational feat...
he's never going to be the same again.
Millie was flattered by the whistling of men
But her friend, Tillie, told her to think again
"They're just catching their breath
but are as pale as death.
It's healthy ones, Millie, for whom we should yen."
"Well, darn it, girl. You know I'm hard of hearing
I thought those guys were speaking words, endearing.
"That noise is their wheezing,
and their looks aren't pleasing!
Let's move along now, Millie. Please stop leering."
Millie looked back but off fell her eyeglasses
She stopped to rip toots and expelled her gasses
"I know that really stinks!"
She laughed, "I'm such a minx."
Don't tell me I should take etiquette classes!"
They strolled until Tillie had to take a seat
for she was feeling a bit faint from the heat
Millie started to scold,
"Tillie, you're gettin' old."
"Not too old to kick your walker to the street!"
"I'm only saying those guys were old geezers,
not the sexy kind we once called 'strip teasers!"
And at that thought, Tillie smiled
In younger days, they'd been wild
"They're not what we'd ever call 'woman pleasers."
we do not all sense, hear or feel the same things
parts of myself are not in touch with other sides
when I hear another voice, sometimes it is me, wheezing
Spirit attempts to contact me through smell and electronic manipulation
the perils of being clairaudient and clairsentient
I do not share this with everyone, only people I trust or strangers
Christmas was over the horizon.
I was working and attending college classes.
Not easy at the age of forty-four, but I was determined.
A close relative passed, and I had to clean out their house.
The kitchen needed painting, so I did that too.
I was nearly exhausted after two days of this.
Another relative decided to come visit me two days early.
She followed my car the two hours home, and pushed in.
All I wanted was a nap.
Instead, I was cooking and baking and cleaning for two guests.
One complained because there were plants in my downstairs shower.
Remember, I had no idea they were coming two days early.
By Christmas morning I was so stressed, I was wheezing.
I had to go to Urgent Care; I had upper respiratory infection.
The bill was not paid by insurance, since it was double the usual charge.
My guests did not leave for another day; worst Christmas ever.
Fire licks at skin,
Burning, baking.
Blood spatters in the snow,
Dripping, staining.
The winter night was so cold,
Biting, freezing.
Now the fire keeps me warm,
Breathing, thinking.
She made a sound when she died,
Crying, wheezing.
I made a sound when it touched me,
Screaming, yelping.
A fire that does not burn,
Doesn’t warm.
A hunt without violence,
Doesn’t feed.
Death Bed Poetry: Karl Marx
(Epigraph: "Go on, get out! Last words are for fools who haven't said enough!")
The final dictate, delivered with a wheezing sneer,
A curt dismissal for the great, grave theater
Of the dying ego, demanding one more line
To cap a life and make the silence shine.
Fools, you say, who, having spent a lifetime’s breath
Defining the very engine that drives history to death,
Still clutch the air for one last, luminous phrase,
To illuminate their final, failing days.
A monumental architect of the printed word,
Whose volumes mapped the chaos of the world,
The ghost of surplus value and iron law
Haunted the margins of your every flaw.
Did you fear, perhaps, that any last poetic art
Would only prove you had a beating, fragile heart?
That all your monumental works would stand betrayed
By some soft whisper you accidentally made?
No. The dialectic spent, the argument complete,
You chose the only perfect, final, grand retreat:
To mock the final word, to scorn the need to speak,
Leaving only thunder where a silence ought to break.
Let me introduce you to Q.C, the herald told me when I landed on Near.
Will my spaceship be okay here? I asked, for I did not need it to disappear.
It’s fine, he said, come with me. Q.C. is persnickety he warned me.
If she’s not a cat, we’ll get along fine, I said, a mistake I’d soon see.
For Q.C. was not only a cat, she was THE cat, the ruler of Planet Near.
I began sneezing and wheezing and my eyes were running; oh, dear.
You are allergic to something, queen said to me, wonder what it could be?
I knew what it was, but kept my mouth shut. I was an alien here, you see.
Do nothing pages.
Both nothing and by myself.
Weird, scattered, brain poetry.
Chewing my thoughts as if there’s a train derailing.
Poetry.
Words collapse and they do.
Fall apart like beads scattered, nothing.
Trampling energy.
The sun bursting energy all during my thoughts.
Both nothing and with my friends.
We chatter around while I’m thinking about writing a poem about death.
With nothing except the sound of a trombone wheezing next to us.
Foolish pages.
Do nothing like a moth does nothing.
Just likes light, except we understand death too.
We think we do.
Scattered but it’s supposed to be that way.
Both nothing and having friends.
Bursting as well.
It is 3:48 a.m.
regular people are sleeping.
Proof that I am irregular
Just one more nail in my coffin
I stare at the clock
3:49, 3:50, 3:51, 3:52, 3:53
Maybe this will lull me to sleep
3:56, 3:57, 3:58, 3:59, 4:00
My whistling and wheezing have returned
4:03, 4:04, 4:05, 4:06, 4:07,
Twenty minutes of idiocy
Regular people are sleeping
Once I was starling voice at dawn,
A flock of chimed echoes on my tongue,
Wheezing whistles on choralled lawn,
Each verse a mimic so sweetly sung.
Now I’m a lyrebird lost in the brush,
Framing my solos in shadowed boughs,
With heart unfolding in trembling rush,
A lonesome lilting with hidden vows.
With cheeslets and flummox in my beak,
I sift the flock’s bright feathers from my core,
Icarus maps afresh a path unique,
A broken wing that yearns to soar.
There’s no rewind on a mimic’s mind,
No true home in borrowed refrains,
Yet in these feathers a quiet find,
A voice that’s raised beyond the chains.
.
every breath was a wheeze
sometimes it sounded more like a whistle
who was making this sound?
I stilled myself the best I could
my nose was whistling
my mouth was wheezing
two perks of being an asthmatic
add the perk of having to struggle to breathe
and you are part of this party
milk, eggs, shellfish
three common allergies
I know a family who lost a two-year-old son to milk
almonds, walnuts, peanuts, wheat and soybeans
five more common allergies
if you open a peanut butter jar, it can be deadly to some
my nemesis is hazelnut
after consuming, my throat closes up
I am wheezing and can barely breathe, needing my inhaler
English walnuts are a close second for me
after eating them, my mouth erupts into giant canker sores
all around my gums
something else creates hives in me.
We do not know if it is a food or what.
allergies seem to go hand-in-hand with having asthma
other symptoms of food allergies are
itching of the mouth, vomiting, and wheezing
Food allergies are serious; sometimes epi pens are necessary.
hello kitty pajamas
fuzzy pink footies
hot tea with honey
Vicks vapor rub
wheezing breath
walking pneumonia
I need my mommy to tuck me in
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