A skull
A cup
A mug
A house of ribs,
No heart
No lungs.
Crooked serifs,
Fall like teeth.
No name that fits,
And no room to breathe.
Fingers,
Pinch the tongue—
That couldn't speak.
As every word runs away,
Scampering on little feet.
Oh.....
Look there goes my ghost.
Out here on the street.
~Kynsie~
Little life, unnoticed living
Ghostly presence, quiet leaving
After lunch, without a cause
You’ll be mentioned, I suppose
Like they speak of summer days
Drowned too soon in autumn haze
It’s futile to speculate
Was it little life, or great
It depends on point of view
That no one will share with you..
Past the borders, in between beliefs and life
I loiter until I can steal a brief little glimpse of light
From of what there can be until it's my reason I fight; is this a trade between my capacity to seek
For that of my sight?;
Is it the mistake of the dream to find its way to please a sickened mind?
Or is fault rather in the distance made when it leaves a hell it left behind?
And at what point will the world listen if not when it's right?
Am I looking at what's left after time?
Will peace attend?
Will we please the dead?
Can we let people in?
I don't know what I'm looking for.
I can retreat to the narrow tongue
And bask in the yellow breath of fires
cast upon me out of love
And I'd burn as a bulb
Retiring in a burnout
In a hope, a desire
To help you know,
That if it's love
Then when I go,
I gotta go,
There's a time
I know
I'll have to be replaced
You need your light
Use me and let me go
When the soul - stars dream and die,
And all the hopes have turned to dust,
I tear the filthy leaves of my life
And throw them in the current of time,
Hoping they would be left behind.
But they do not go away;
They remain within the pages of my past,
For the story of my life
Would be incomplete without them.
Breath Without Apology
I stand here,
with a chest full of echoes,
and a tongue heavy with prayers.
I want a life,
not stitched in fear,
but woven in safety,
like a blanket that never tears.
I want a love,
not a riddle,
not a puzzle with missing pieces,
but a flame steady,
burning without question,
a hand that does not tremble
when it reaches for mine.
I want peace,
not the fragile kind,
not the one that vanishes
when silence enters the room,
but peace that lingers,
like incense in the rafters,
like dawn refusing to surrender to night.
I want simplicity,
the kind that feels like home,
like laughter spilling in kitchens,
like children chasing shadows,
like the sound of rain
reminding us we are alive.
And if you ask me again,
what I want,
I will tell you
I want to breathe without apology,
to love without armor,
to rest without ghosts,
to live before dying,
to begin before ending.
© Tr. Elvis Otieno Gikoi
® ArtFromHeart
Written: September 11, 2026, for a contest Sponsored by: Eve Roper
Note: You may listen to this poem lyrics in the attached sound video.
*************
Close your eyes—
let the music find your feet,
let every heartbeat be a drum beneath the street.
No need for light when rhythm knows the way;
the night has learned the language of your sway.
Reach for the sound—
let it circle, let it rise,
feel the thunder blooming softly in your hands.
You are not lost;
you are the motion in the song,
and every step says: I belong.
- Even darkness shines in a dance with butterfly wings - quote by poet
She dances in the dark
expressing passionate emotions
Through movement
with a partner or alone
Dance gives her a sense of belonging
stimulates socializing
A bridge between the visible
and the invisible world
As humans, we are equipped with
a wide range of passion
regardless of whether you are blind or not
Dance serves as a delightful sanctuary
In dancing, as experienced by my eyes,
I see figures of beauty and of grace,
in steps, choreographed or improvised,
moving rhythmically through space;
but, as I see others, I become aware
that others may set eyes on me as well,
another circumstance, altogether,
as they see a homely man without hair,
not an Arthur Murray clientele,
and much heavier than a feather.
Yet, by replacing sight with other senses,
I find it was my eyes that did impede,
with self-conscious, self-constructed fences,
but now, my joyous spirit has been freed,
and I can connect, engage, and hear,
as my body, merges with the sound
of the rhythm and the melody,
and my feet, my heart, my soul, my ear,
lose themselves as I twirl madly round -
thankful that I can no longer see.
A door opens into night.
Sky close.
A seam of brightness.
A staircase rises~
steps lit from within,
quiet as held breath.
I climb.
Below me, the world loosens.
Above me, patterns shift.
Light drifts across my shoulders.
Old moments flicker
in the glow of each step.
At the landing:
starlight spreads thin,
a horizon waiting.
I stand.
The quiet widens.
The path upward speaks
without sound.
Splitting
Nothing is
A task for
A word
To make sense
Of it all..
More words
Assist on a
Task without end..
Breath grinds stone in the hollow chest,
time loops, cruel clockwork chewing marrow.
Each step refracts an endless cascade,
mirrors eating mirrors, swallowing meaning.
She watches herself dissolve, still walking,
hands trembling over undone buttons.
The walls bend inward, whispering static:
a language faceless, flat, unending.
Memory slits its own throat quietly,
bleeds until the air stinks of void.
Faces blur, cruel smudges framed in frost.
Fingers forget what they’ve once held.
The ceiling fractures, mercury spills night.
Dust coats the tongue, sour scripture of collapse.
Sanity laughs, teeth like shattered porcelain.
She screams and keeps on breathing.
Nothing stops. Nothing starts. Stillness spins.
Somewhere in the debris, she remains
a scream folded inside a name,
a self rusting softly in endless loop.
Breath grinds stone in the hollow chest,
time loops, cruel clockwork chewing marrow.
Each step refracts an endless cascade,
mirrors eating mirrors, swallowing meaning.
She watches herself dissolve, still walking,
hands trembling over undone buttons.
The walls bend inward, whispering static:
a language faceless, flat, unending.
"Echo without collapse"
Memory slits its own throat quietly,
bleeds until the air stinks of void.
Faces blur, cruel smudges framed in frost.
Fingers forget what they’ve once held.
"Echo without collapse"
The ceiling fractures, mercury spills night.
Dust coats the tongue, sour scripture of collapse.
Sanity laughs, teeth like shattered porcelain.
She screams and keeps on breathing.
Nothing stops. Nothing starts. Stillness spins.
Somewhere in the debris, she remains
a scream folded inside a name,
a self rusting softly in endless loop.
"Echo without collapse"
You called me Without a sound My mind was calm My heart was beating My being was in longing My feet were running Until I arrived I saw nothing You were not there You did not hear What a cry What a commotion I was A body in memory A soul in the wind
She lacked the heart to say goodbye,
to look into my eyes and speak.
She left me beneath a weeping sky,
with heavy vows she grew too weak to keep.
I would have bled for one honest word,
though it tore my ribs apart.
Instead, only a hollow silence stirred
a sudden frost across a tender heart.
Some break the glass and turn to run,
refusing to behold the shattered floor.
They slip away before the rising sun,
and leave you reaching for a closed door.
The deepest ache is not the final end,
nor watching love turn pale and cold
it is knowing someone I held so close
lacked the courage to let the truth be told.
two more times around the clocks,
one more time to tie my shoes and socks,
another day without you, in an infinite line,
to regret a new way the fault was mine
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