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 Jun 18 Zeno
Maryann I
I plant a garden with trembling hands—
then salt the soil at dawn.
I lace the sky with paper birds
then chase them off with storm songs.

I cradle peace like porcelain,
but breathe too hard,
and shatter it.

The mirror forgives me
until I touch it.
Then it cracks—
right where my face lives.

I keep building bridges
out of wax and wishbones,
then light them from both ends
just to see
if anyone notices
me
burn.

Some nights,
I set fire to every chance I prayed for,
just to prove
I don’t deserve warmth.

And still—
I water the ashes,
hope something bruised
might bloom again.
I’m learning not to push things away just because I’m scared they won’t stay.
I’m trying to grow things without pulling them up to check if they’re still there.
It takes time, but I’m trying—and that’s enough for now.
 Jun 18 Zeno
Sora
If this was your last
Would you be satisfied
With the words you had to say to me
With whatever's on your mind
 Jun 18 Zeno
Rob Rutledge
The wasteland looks like eden
After a long and tortured road.
We were promised no such land
Nor any home that we are owed.
Still we took that beaten path
Knowing well where it may go.

By the gods what fools we be!
Seeing neither haunted forests
Or the weeping, dying trees.
We saw instead clear flowing streams
Ignored the way they slithered,
Withered valley and the rose.
Or how the heart can carve a lily
Into a candle in the snow.
 Jun 18 Zeno
badwords
I do not know your name—
only your silhouette
etched in the echo of things I was not given.
Your absence was my alphabet.
I spelled every woman with your ghost.


They loved me.
But I loved you through them.
Your hands behind their voices.
Your eyes haunting their praise.
They were flesh, and I was kneeling.


I made gods of strangers.
I made homes of hunger.


Mother—not mother.
Lover—not lover.
I could not hold the difference.
They all became symbols
and I became a shrinekeeper,
tending lies with tenderness.


Forgive me,
those I touched but never saw.
I was trying to reach through you
and forgot you were not them.
And they were not you.
None of you asked for this altar.


I am dismantling the myth.
I am returning the light.
 Jun 17 Zeno
Ciel Noir
always looking
from the outside

all alone
rejected
wrong

I keep people
at a distance

all alone
where I belong

I chase time
into the darkness

all alone
unknown
unsure

there where my
shadow surrounds me

not alone
not anymore
 Jun 17 Zeno
1DNA
Ether
 Jun 17 Zeno
1DNA
~
Gilded glitter spills from her wells;
In a field of marigolds,
Aureate sap oozes
From cracks in amorphous sky-dust,
Abdicating the weight
Of the Lord’s empyrean.
A surrender to altruism,
The wrath of amorous horizons.

~
Gilded – covered in or glowing like gold
Aureate – richly golden, ornate, or heavenly
Amorphous – without defined shape or form; formless
Abdicating – giving up a throne, position, or burden
Empyrean – the highest heaven; the pure light-filled realm of the divine
Altruism – selfless love or sacrifice for others
Amorous – filled with love or desire

(P.S. Does it appear in italic to y'all?)
i remember in the good old days when i was just a lad
all the different cars different ones i had
triumph herald. ford anglia and the mini to
morris 1000 standard 10 they was just a few

cars that you could fix with  a toolbox in boot
fix it by the roadside get back on your route
now things have changed there run by ecu
if you breakdown now nothing you can do

now you need a garage that has computor to
so they can fix the problem retune the ecu
not like the good old days with toolbox in the boot
fix it by the road side get back on your route

HOW MANY REMEMBER THEM DAYS
 Jun 17 Zeno
Thomas W Case
On our way into
Santa Anita one day,
an old man had tipped
over in his wheelchair.
There was a pool of blood
beneath his smooth head.
I was with my Dad.
He was around the same
age as the poor injured man.
I was 12.

Seeing that man, and watching
the blank stares of the apathetic
crowd gathering around the
man, and the blood, and the
fallen wheelchair, I knew that
nobody would win, and the
horses that ran were the luckiest
of us all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tpMDoNXg_U
Here is a link to my YouTube channel where I read from my recently published books.  They are on Amazon.com
Sleep Always Calls, Seedy Town Blues Collected Poems and It's Just a Hop, Skip, and a Jump to the Madhouse.
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