Written: December 07, 2025, for contest sponsored by Benjamin Bartley
**************
One day, the wiggle-wobble wobbliness begins to shake.
They writhed and jiggled in a truly amusing wake!
They dashed across tunnels and bounced on a breeze.
Tickled the blossoms, and sniffed the trees.
They gulped laughs, they sipped up the sun,
They hiccupped together—oh, what fun!
They painted the sky with a bubblegum tone.
And carve the skies with one or two stones.
Wizzle, a Woozle, exhibited socks on his head.
One other donned pancakes in place of his bread.
They drummed on their drums and shook their rattles.
With twiddly thumbs, they sang "Zibble-Zabble!"
Both the adults and the children laughed.
Wherever Woozles woo, they convey a raft
They educate us that stupidity is vibrant and bright.
That absurdity twinkles and tickles the night.
Thus, if you feel blue, grumpy, or gloomy,
Simply summon a Woozle; they will dance and draw me.
They will chuckle and wobble, rhyme and rattle;
And allow every moment to prattle.
Written: November 15, 2025
*******************
I am no feeling thing—
a moribund pastiche
of dulled mornings,
threadbare in soul,
writhed into silence.
No reason.
No why.
Just the torque of transience
grating against my sacred sapidity,
a palimpsest of vanished warmth.
Someone—
pinch me past this paucity.
I need your touch,
your rubicund ripple
to resile my wilted mettle.
Let your finger feel
be my panacea,
a seraphic catharsis
to evanesce this numb imbroglio
where even grief feels distant.
Come—
at your behest,
I will abase my hubris,
prowl through the seraglio
of memory’s panoply,
and rake through the riparian dusk
for one scintilla of you.
Let me feel again—
not the panoply of pain,
but the luster of being,
the emollient ache of presence,
the dulcet burden of love.
After all this time
you held my hand
you shoved me away
and came back again
you continued to strike and fill me more and more
the poison you had left me acidic
filled with lust and a bond trauma inspired
you coiled and writhed when i became tired
but in the end i separated the strains
that made you so poisonous in my veins
and free from the poison that you shot into me
i was finally able to see
with every passing second my hatred grew lighter
and i told myself to turn the other cheek
with a new outlook and a burning fire
i moved on while you stayed sour
So take it as is or take it as not
when i broke past a new sight came and i shot my shot
a better friend and lover then you'd ever be
and now I'll never think about you in eternity
Cold air buzzed through the window.
A stranger in autumn visited my room.
An alate, tired and despaired,
Counting its last breath,
Slowly died before my eyes.
I wonder—it wasn’t for a nuptial flight.
Wings didn’t fall—only writhed on the ground.
While tiny ones crawled around.
Written: September 15, 2025, for a contest sponsored by John Lawless
*********
Perhaps it was never love—
just a fipple of breath in velvet dusk,
a suction of names unspoken,
burnished by the stygian hush
between your glance and mine.
Perhaps the ossuary sang first—
an aria of alabaster bones,
each note a necrotic lullaby.
We writhed in the molten ache,
palliating truth with ephemera,
inveigled by the aureate hush
of what we dared not name.
Perhaps this is the Desideratum—
a triptych of sacred forgetting,
Lethe in a chalice of dedication,
The hex of hope is still undulating
beneath our slack-jawed silence.
A tumultuous time came unushered in my beleaguered life
that writhed in the crushing clutch of destructive agony.
My heart broke, bled with desperation in pining pain,
found no arms stretched to be embraced by solace.
At the edge of hope as the helpless mind sorely got
the unmistakable signal of the beginning of the end,
it surrendered to the benevolent power of the almighty,
prayed for the miraculous results of divine intervention.
In the darkness of opaque nights the tormented life found
in the wilderness the winding path illumined by His light.
My soul swam in the sea of infinite faith, the supreme savior,
to know that the creator’s grace protects what He creates.
As the servile senses perceived the ways of providence,
the feeling of getting assured protection in His benign shelter
invigorated the mental strength for the destined rejuvenation,
and the heart responded to the divine healing touch for revival.
Tumultuous time came unheralded
in my life that wandered in the wasteland.
When in the crushing clasp of suffering
my heart broke and writhed in pain,
I searched for the comfort of calm arms,
but found none to cling consoled.
Plunged in the stormy sea of agony,
I tried to swim through the dark night
to the safe shore afar not in sight.
I heard a voice from within tell me,
get detached from the delusive desire,
see hope dawn with the new sunrise.
My broken heart then grew wings,
flew free across the sunburst horizon
to the valley of blooming flowers,
where fragrance floated in spring air
under the cerulean serene sky,
that glistened on the grey of gloom.
In my tranquil mesmerized mind
the floral shower of beguiling bliss
drizzled with the cadence of ecstasy.
In the inner sanctum of sublime solitude
I sensed in the bud of essence the soul unfurls
piece by piece the petals of peace.
ART!
He painted my death,
With such dedication I've never seen before.
Every stroke of his brush, on that paper, marking out each curve, twist, and turn my body made
As I writhed in pain.
Premeditated murder, or a death masquerading as suicide, or perhaps just an unlucky soul.
My hands on my throat as I choked to death,
He didn't need to add a drop to my tea to pronounce me dead.
Because every time I brushed his gift to me,
I was gasping and blushing at how beautifully he depicted my death,
And swore that it was breathtaking.
It was really breathtaking!
My body was found lying on the green grass,
Sprawled in a weirdly shaped position, just as he had predicted.
I gave him his last gift:
A live picture of me modeling his artwork, in afterlife.
Who would know that arsenic was the green-dye monster,
But was also made into a painting to die for.
Emer
. for public domain
I scoffed at hearts that writhed with pain,
that fell from broken promises,
for I had naught to do with Love,
it's folly or its gain,
but now I find that not to love
is not to live at all.
The stones on our paths outlast us all,
but I dread to exist that long.
I choose to risk feeling pain
than to feel no pain at all.
Jupiter is a very great orb,
but in living, very small.
connection
A longing, my dear stranger
expression
Put it all back together
I know it fits
We fit
Spiral dynamics
The mountain and
Its wet reflection
Reflected back to heaven
Upward, onward
Connection!
You're in my visceral section
I'm in your sacral area
With one heart between the both of us
Severed up and down
Sectioned side to side
Earth and Heaven
Male and Female
How long we bore this cross
This vivisection
Restore! Make whole!
Connection!
Pouring myself into you
Is exactly what i needed
Today
Tonight, i receive you
Interpenetration
Not up for interpretation
Coronal crown
life, so virile
with this eye
I see
we've overcome
Tomorrow, as though it were yesterday
The sacred serpent
Like a trumpet
To our lips
Writhed himself into us at the tip
And received our fluid chemistry
Producing musical harmony
what have we become?
when mastubation's lost its fun, my sweetest friend
connect
Connect
CONNECT!
HOLY
Holy
holy
Past, present, future
A single tapestry
Woven of a single fibre
Our very being
connection
The night hung still
beneath the clouded moon,
and from our deck,
we watched the hazy glow.
The crickets softly chirped
their mating croon
as shadows spread
by trees, danced down below.
And then, we saw it
slithering out far!
Out on the grass,
it undulated there-
a snake-like vision,
crawling- so bazaar;
streaked white and black,
it writhed- gave us a scare!
Soon heading closer,
monster-like it moved.
With night binoculars
held to our eyes-
could not believe-
with vision then improved,
this mystery became
a huge surprise!
Sleek, white and black-
and moving like a snake,
a skunk with five kits
lined up in a row
as one big monster-
such fear did awake;
was wriggling in the grass,
real low and slow!
she strung him up
shook him out like laundry
he writhed with frenzy
I have enclosed you with gloom
inside the womb, babe's safe haven
attacking your fortress as your Mom
writhed in agony drowning you
against rejection fluid…
Then I welcomed you with hopelessness
watched your struggles to yell
miraculous survival shout
yet skeptic about your Mom’s deafening wails
accepting her loss over your birth…
Finally, I sealed you around
grievous abandonment-asylum
since your Mom signed freedom waiver
liberating you both from each other
toward partnership-severance…
But, now… I accept my failure
seeing you thriving in love
as God verily champions
grace and compassion*
with your orphanage family.
*Lamentations 3:22 It is of the LORD's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.
May 13, 2023
10th place, "Anatomy of Melancholy" Poetry Writing Contest
Sponsored by Craig Cornish; judged on 5/14/2023.
Marianne said
pointing to the moon
“The sun doesn’t smile brightly”
“grimacing” “depressed”
rolled up curtains
mother’s gaze looking down
at her daughter beckoning
in front of a window with
16 small windows
the footprints of the night
were drawing a map of love
she walks over it.
Morning, early morning, hungry morning
putting cheap bread in the toaster
going back and forth forgot
as the house filled with
smoke and smell the bell rang
opened the windows, ventilated
I sat down on the dining table chair
my eyes caught the machine
burnt bread
let’s pressed the button
was broken bread popping out
Shouted, “It is love.”
Two eggs were removed
from the refrigerator
and dropped into
a heated frying pan
even though, already dead,
writhed with heat
I was startled
when that voice popped up
reached my arm skin
they become one to make a heart
and I ate fried egg
with a glass of grape juice.
Great Aunt Ada
not thought of her for years
she made me laugh
till I cried real tears
fascinated by her talk
never wanting her to go
her every sentence finished
with like and that you know
hidden under the table
her delicious visiting days
mentally counting
each use of her phrase
as she gossiped away
about him and her and so and so
just general village chat
like and that you know
hands over mouth
trying not to laugh aloud
as she chatted away
about the village crowd
such a nice old lady
with a conversational flow
and to emphasise each point
her like and that you know
I don't know why
she came back to mind
I reminisce a lot
these days I find
a horrible child
I hope she didn't know
how I writhed with joy
like and that you know
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