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James Ignotus Mar 30
Tired is the hush that falls on the bones,
a slow collapse behind the eyes—
like dusk unrolling through the halls
of thought, where once bright echoes rise.

Tired in the mind is static hum,
pages blurred and drifting slow,
words that once leapt sharp and sure
now stumble, slurred, and cease to flow.

Tired in the flesh is heavy steps,
shoulders pulled by unseen hands,
the climb of stairs a mountain now,
the bed a far and foreign land.

Tired in the heart is quiet sighs,
smiles held up like broken glass,
the weight of joy too much to lift,
the days too wide, the nights too vast.

Each kind of tired speaks its own,
in ache, in fog, in silence deep—
a different shape of letting go,
a different way of falling sleep.
James Ignotus Mar 22
I peel my skin to find the verse—
each line a nerve, each word a curse.
My fingers crack, the ink runs red—
I bind the poem, stitch the dead.

The page is meat. I carve it clean.
The stanzas pulse. The gaps still scream.
I press my voice through shattered teeth,
then choke it back in paper sheaths.

The world wants sugar, quick and bland—
a feeding trough, not sleight of hand.
It gorges on what’s soft and safe,
then spits me out, still torn and chafed.

They scroll past entrails shaped like truth,
preferring memes to bleeding youth.
I gut myself for depth and grace,
but all they see’s a blank, bruised face.

I nailed my heart to every page—
they laughed and said, “You’re just a phase.”
The words rot slow beneath the glass,
while bots applaud what cannot last.

They drained the soul from every shelf,
left only echoes of the self.
And still I write, while maggots hum
inside the mouth my lines come from.

I cough up metaphors and bile,
They call it “grim” and click “unstyle.”
Yet here I stand, spine sharp with spite,
my hands flayed raw, refusing flight.

This isn’t art that begs to please—
I write in wounds, not symphonies.
Let trend and comfort feed the swine,
my blood is real. These guts are mine.
James Ignotus Mar 22
The cot lies flat beneath my spine,
the air is dry, the color pale.
A red pipe runs a crooked line—
it hisses softly without fail.

My skull is tight, a failing drum.
A piston coughs, not quite in tune.
The light above begins to hum—
the ceiling bows like stretched-out dune.

The walls breathe slow beneath their grime.
My teeth are ticking in my head.
A drip repeats what someone said—
in words that almost taste like time.

A shadow climbs the angled steel.
The pipe above begins to shake.
Its breath is hot enough to feel—
or maybe that’s my own mistake.

I try to count my breaths aloud.
The numbers don’t return to me.
There’s humming in my inner ear—
a song I can’t unsee.

The cot is gone. I float in chrome.
My thoughts are welded to the wall.
A whisper speaks without a mouth.
I’m weightless in the sprawl.
This one I used a different rhyme scheme and structure for each stanza, gradually getting more chaotic and introducing slant rhymes to make it feel unsettling the more you read.
James Ignotus Mar 19
My love for you is vast and wild,
A roaring star in endless deep.
Through cosmic tides, so free, beguiled,
Your gravity—my soul to keep.

A roaring star in endless deep,
You burn within my boundless sky.
Your gravity—my soul to keep,
No force can break, no time deny.

You burn within my boundless sky,
A nebula of light untamed.
No force can break, no time deny,
Nor name the fire that we have claimed.

A nebula of light untamed,
Through cosmic tides, so free, beguiled.
Nor name the fire that we have claimed,
My love for you is vast and wild.
My first pantoum, comparing my love to the endless grace of space.
James Ignotus Mar 19
When half the world turns cold and fades to grey,
The flowers weep, their colors torn apart,
And light surrenders, lost without its ray.

The skies once blazed with gold at break of day,
Now hollow specters whisper in the dark—
When half the world turns cold and fades to grey.

The rivers, once alive in bright array,
Flow silent now, as if they’ve lost their heart,
And light surrenders, lost without its ray.

The echoes of a sun too weak to stay
Stretch long across the fields that fall apart—
When half the world turns cold and fades to grey.

No songbird dares to lift a tune in play,
Their voices muted, broken from the start,
And light surrenders, lost without its ray.

Yet still, I hope the hues will find their way,
That color will return where shadows start,
When half the world turns cold and fades to grey,
And light surrenders, lost without its ray.
My first villanelle!
James Ignotus Mar 19
The stars stretch wide, a silver-painted grave,
A man alone, adrift without a name.
His breath grows thin; the warning lights burn red,
The suit he wears a coffin wrapped in glass.
The tether snapped, the ship a fading spark,
And all he has are echoes of the past.

He drifts through void, remembering the past,
The choices made, the risks, the lives he gave.
The dying ship still flickers as a spark,
A beacon lost, too distant now to name.
He wonders if they see him through the glass,
A silhouette in flashing hues of red.

His visor blurs in fading streaks of red,
A silent film that plays upon the past.
His wife once traced her fingers on this glass,
A smile soft, before the call was grave.
They said his name—his name—he had a name,
But now it dims like embers in the spark.

His oxygen is fading, like the spark
Of engines gasping warnings lit in red.
He calls out once, a whisper of his name,
But silence only answers from the past.
The stars are cold, indifferent in their grave,
Reflected in the curvature of glass.

He lifts a trembling hand against the glass,
The frost like veins of fire losing spark.
The universe is wide, but still a grave,
A place where death does not arrive in red
But drifts along the corridors of past,
Unraveling the meaning of a name.

And what remains of him without a name?
A flicker pressed to light-years thick in glass,
A memory dissolving into past,
A signal lost, a beacon without spark.
The Earth will never know his warning, red—
His final breath dissolves into the grave.

No name, no spark, just frozen hands on glass.
The stars burn red; the past has sealed its grave.
My first attempt at a Sestina. Let me know what you think!
James Ignotus Mar 19
You are the gleam that rides the midnight tide,
A molten thread through twilight’s woven seam.
Like fire opals set in dark abide,
You glow between what’s real and what’s a dream.

Your voice unbinds the air with gilded grace,
A lilt that bends the weight of time askew.
Within your light, the dullest forms embrace,
Their edges bathed in sudden, vivid hue.

Should you depart, the world would break apart,
Its colors drained, its echoes lost in black.
The sky would hold no sun within its heart,
Nor would the stars find strength to glimmer back.

Yet if the dark should steal your light away,
Your fire would burn within my soul to stay.
My first attempt at a sonnet.
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