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You smell the smoke—
so what do you assume?

That I’m dying?
That I’m weak?

Do you think you know fire
just because you’ve run from it?

I don’t flicker.
I don’t beg.

I seethe.

What did you think light was?

A comfort?
A cure?

I don’t chase the dark.
I hold still
while it blinks first.

This isn’t hope.

What would I hope for?

Permission?

You don’t like what I illuminate—
so whose lie are you defending?

I never asked to burn.

But now that I do—

Who’s going to stop me?
This sound,
like a friendly wind,
walking through
my lost memories
from irreversibility,
from the cold reality
of indifference
returning to fulfilling promises
as an answer to my invocation

A unique, sweet sound
is calling me now,
after twenty-five years.
I bought that ticket,
sitting in my narrow seat,
holding in my hand
a piece of uncertainty
that deforms
every time I get on board.

I used to take so many trains:
traces, luggage, running passengers,
waiting, wasting minutes.
They brought me,
step by step,
station by station,
to this voice,
to this tone of being,
in tune with silver threads.

The windows are yet closed.
I carry in my cells
the code of Alef,
a crystalline illusion.

The lens caves in
and swells outward,
seeing the elusive past
still living in me,
playing under a different sun,
through elusive existences.

We came as twenty-one souls.
Twenty I found.
One was lost—
the one closest
to my breathing truth.

The final deal:
Am I losing
or will I rest
in deeper words?

Yes.
I did it for you,
changing alternative worlds,
pulsing around me,
invitations not accepted.

I open the gate
to a new home:
to warmth,
to creativity,
made by sweet recognition
of blooming Fall to come
waiting patiently
for your move
for your not-yet-published story.
Time, like dry sand,
Trickles between the fingers.
Substance-less it flows
As if the yesterdays
Had no more importance
Than the tomorrows?
As if the complexity
Of just, being,
Quantified the
Resultant meaningfulness,
Of the ebb and the flow?

For twixt the expanse
Of birth and death
Lies the pulsing vacuum
Of time, of being.

Indulgently,
It is ladled, consumed
With the importance
Of self.
In actuality
It emulates a flatulence,
A triviality,
A nothingness
Of ego,
A vanity!

For where
In these four-score,
Years of Life,
Or so,
Lies substance?
An actual achievement
Beyond that
Of self-indulgence?

Search the avenue
Of your
Halls of Conscience.....
Candidly,
With certitude
And with deep,
UTTER TRUTH!

And in all
Honesty,
Can you deny
This Great Void
As being, actually
Comprised,
Otherwise?

M@Foxglove.Taranaki.NZ
27 July 2025
Tic-toc sings the clock
Where's the meaning,
Does it stop?
Is it black or is it white
Filled with promise or of fright?
Why this quest of four score years
As indulgence perseveres?
Why compulsions grasp for more
Reveals why we slam the door?
Tic-toc sings the clock
Laughing now, to sadly mock!

Uncomfortable about this?
I'm not asking you to reveal anything but I am demanding that you search your soul with integrity.
This write is not about sunsets and daffodils, this is about your grit and the fire poetry instills in your heart!
M.
Melancholy is thy name
Though you claw, always, for fame,
Serendipity, thy way
Despite the fact you seldom pay?
Riddles in their issues reek
Like thee, they just decline to seek!

M@Foxglove.Taranaki.NZ
Oh the riddles of we poor estranged mortals,
Name for fame but seeks to speak,
Reeks to seek his way to play......
Jeez Nick, which ever way we pay to play this riddle... it reeks!
Ha!
M.
It knocked
softly
a breath at the door
but I
bolted the windows
and swallowed the key.

It came wearing warmth,
but I mistook it
for fire,
for teeth,
for grief with a new face.

So I fled,
faster than joy
could reach out its hand
afraid it might feel
like home.
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