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Malcolm Mar 12
Solitary spark,
Threaded through fate’s silent loom,
Veiled in silver dusk.

Held in fleeting dream,
Breath and hunger gild its chains,
Flesh, a borrowed home.

Gossamer unwinds,
Light unlaces night’s embrace,
Echoes drift like mist.

Nothing fades, but folds,
Rivers cradle their own gaze,
Waves return to sea.

Form, a fleeting name,
Time’s light touch reshapes and molds,
Yet I still remain.

This is how it is and how it has always been - Always ...
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
January 2025
Woven in Whispers
Malcolm Mar 12
In the dim light of ancient halls,  
He whispers softly,  
We hear his calls,
a friend clothed in shadows,
in smoke and fire they say,  
keeping the church alive,  
a warm embrace for cold fears,  
preaching hellfire and brimstone,  
a spire of dread pointing skyward,  
where the devil dances,  
a charred marionette on strings of sin.

Oh, false doctrines rise like smoke,  
a specter, a finger-wagging savior,
teaching dagger and cloak,
“Beware! The adversary lurks,”  
they warn with trembling lips,  
“He, the prince of cruelty,  
tenders a tempting bite,
taste the fruit,
the forbidden tree,
eternal damnation ,
a promise wrapped in terror.”

Who is this adversary named?
He the name of misfortune,
one we see in other but not self ,
A mere reflection, a mirror held,  
“Opposition,” say his name,  
“Accuser,” a harsher truth,  
carved in stone, once an angel,  
now a fallen whispers ear,  
the essence of man’s desires,  
the carnal heartbeat of life.

Yet before these shadows thickened,  
before the horns twisted grotesque,  
there was Pan,  
a dancing god of fertility,  
whose laughter kissed the earth,  
and now, in the ruins of time,  
he wears the mask of villainy,  
cast aside in the theaters of faith,  
deemed a demon in the light,
man’s nature tolls of the gods
then called Dionysus,
satyr or faun.

Awake, O spirits of the old!  
No longer villains in this twilight hold,  
but forgotten echoes of a vibrant past,  
once celebrated in wild abandon last,  
now silenced, imprisoned in flames,  
while the new gods parade and shame,  
draped in the garments of judgment,  
spreading tales of black and white,  
magic lost to duality's grip.

Yet the old ones linger on,
the old faiths of past,
in the corners of whispered prayers,  
their essence swirling,  
daring to invoke a truth,  
the bogeyman of our fears,  
is that just a shadow,  
hiding behind the curtain,  
waiting for the dawn  
when the light calls out,  
and we reclaim the dance,  
where all can be sacred,  
in the embrace of life itself.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
August 2024
In the Shadows
Malcolm Mar 12
We love to hate, and hate to love
ah but what is this weightless, vapor-thin love we throw like coins,
sprinkled like dust, dissolving in air,
we keep the prize tucked for the deserving,
spilling naught for fools, oh, is this how it should be?

Grasp—grasp!
Ungrateful swine, swallowing your words,
blind in your greed for something more
love none, yet declare you love all.
Empty mouths speak in hollow tones.
You are nothing. We are nothing.

Empty words, lips carved from stone,
numb hearts for sale, wrapped in the lies of a comfort
you can’t even taste.
Apathetic to the rawness of feeling
devoid, disconnected,
shallow oceans beneath this glassy sky.
Love’s too far, so we reach
stretching thin, grasping for meaning where it’s lost.

Try to love it all, they say
What does that even mean?
Absurd, exhausted, a lifeline tossed
into the void, only to be consumed by hunger.
So how do we love when the world turns away,
when love is stretched, a fraying cord?

Ah! Love everything, love it all, love so wide
a judge of hearts crushed into ash
not a breath of truth in the dust
that scatters on the wind.
No soul left in the words, no fire— just smoke.

To say “I love you” without fire,
a wound left bleeding, a scar left open,
not a whisper of realness— a void wrapped in nothing.
And yet we breathe in those lies,
letting them fill our lungs with hollow ache.
How pitiful
But we keep on. We keep on.

Love is not for the void,
not for the gullible hearts that pull at straws
Oh, no. It’s fierce.
It’s a hurricane
A flame burning for the worthy,
consuming the unworthy, leaving nothing but charred remains.
Don’t waste it.
Don’t throw it like seed, feeding the crows.
Cast it like an heirloom
burning bright.

Hate, too, finds its place.
How long have we been afraid to hold both?
Torn between mercy and punishment,
love and hate are twin flames.
To hold both is to know the whole.
Are we so naïve as to think we’re better than this?

To love everything is to love nothing
To say it, feel it, but never know its truth
How fragile this offering we give to the wind.
No.
Don’t give me shallow rivers when I seek the sea.

So forgive?
To forgive all
but the cost.
To forgive, to love, to let it flow
until hatred grips so tight it drags you down.
Which will save us?
Love or hate?
Which will burn longer?

Do you know what it means to feel deeply?
To hold both, to know love and hate
in their raw, unrefined states?
Oh, we hold light and darkness in one body,
and when we know them, truly,
we know what it is to be alive.

The sun does not love the moon.
And the moon does not hate the sun.
But they are bound
connected by a distance we call time,
pulling each other into orbit,
in their own perfect way.
Both necessary, both.

We love with clenched fists
proving nothing but fear.
Blood and fire
all for the grace of love
until bodies fall, tears rise,
and the sun doesn’t know
whether to burn or bless.

So humiliate, so break yourself,
lower your soul to fit their mold.
And where is the love for the one you should know first?
Yourself
Lost in the lines you draw between false spaces.
How can we love when we don’t even understand the power of a single, honest heartbeat?

There’s no grace without truth
no salvation without the burning both:
light and darkness, love and hate.
This is the measure. This is the scale.
So hold both, feel both,
and you will know what it is to love.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
August 2024
The Balance between Love & Hate
Malcolm Mar 12
Fields blur, rivers drown beneath a murmur
slow tides, flowing, cracking soft like glass.
I seek no fame, nor glory’s fractured furor,
just roots that dig, where time is lost to pass.

Boughs bend—wild blooms caught in their brief sigh,
a world, too loud, churns distant, foreign, cold.
I lie between, where silence lets me die—
no praise, no claims, no marks of pride to hold.

And yet, the breeze shakes trembling apple trees,
their whispers soft, like stories never told.
I search, I drown, in kindness, gentle, free
the world’s bite hard—its venom bought, and sold.

I find no peace, except in stillness there,
in rivers’ hum, their endless, boundless air.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
November 2024
My Thoughts of Tranquility (Sonnet)
Malcolm Mar 12
To watch the clear night skies, with what words and with which poem or brush can I at last shine a light on the mind of the searcher,  
  
With what can I explicitly explain the divinity and sacredness of the stars of which cannot be seen, knowing with a depth of certainty they are there without changing the meaning,  
  
How do I express myself when magnificence is just something wrapped in mediocrity in fair comparison, when searching to expose the truth and beauty of nature in the things that I cannot explain,  
  
To try and explain a clear night sky, is to trace unseen paths, with words that last less than a minute in time or a shadow cast by the silhouettes of stars upon stars,  
  
Sewn in threads so faint, they evade the light  
and yet brilliant, unbending, and alive.  
  
With what can you completely explore the hidden things one can not see, What words, then, can unravel this weave of the universe?  
  
What poem might pour out the shimmering sparkle that in a glance would be more words brushed carefully across the empty canvas, whose gaze rides the waves of darkness, endlessly longing for a gleam beneath the calm?  
  
And in that patient dark, we find with no voice to map it, no line to confine it, the hidden things, gliding just beyond our reach,  
whispering what cannot be spoken, all nestled within an untouched piece of paper,  
  
O to draw out the truths of beauty and nature,
that escape us in daylight, that defy our senses when only ink and the quiet hand remain on wordless scroll.  
  
Always searching to expose the truth and beauty and nature of things that we try explain with words.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
November 2024
To watch the Clear Night Sky
Malcolm Mar 12
Death is not the opposite of life, but part of it, like rain drops run to a stream, an flowers wilt,
It's releasing us from suffering, everything new grows old and bodies fade away.      
      
Do not fear death my friend, it's comes for you and me, It is as much a part of life as living,
The destination we will see.      
      
Those who have truly lived deeply, bare no fear of the end, for this might be the beginning where spirits now transcend.        
      
We live on until the ripples of our existence fades and our cause in the world dies away,    
Until the light we brought in us ceases and stops shining eternal we will stay.      
      
Our souls rise, moving to the next stage,        
this is what really matters you see,      
Our existence isn't ending just moving momentarily.      
      
Scattered by the storm, as fleeting clouds flee,
with our last gasped breath, spirit flows out, blown like strong gusts lifting the dust from mountain tops.      
      
Time devours all bodies slowly, we cant destroy a soul, maybe life the rehearsal all part of final goal.    
      
We lives on in every heart we touch and every life we change, live life with meaning is more important than a existence lead in vain.      
      
Memories don’t grow old, they are true treasures don't you see, held close reminding us that as all must go, this is the inevitable unfortunately.      
      
Nothing can replace what is lost ,but nothing can take what is remembered        
Today we feel the sorrow,
comforting for memories tomorrow.      
      
Remember these small truths, we were born alone and we shall die alone,        
Everything begged borrowed and stolen will stay behind as we arrived empty-handed      
and will leave barefooted.      
      
Our comings and goings, they are just different parts of one life entangled in the spring flowers , summer sun, winter’s white snow, and the clear wind moving white clouds and autumn leaf.      
      
We were born into this world and will leave at our deaths for what is life really, but a test.      
      
The moon reflected in puddle of water,        
A flower floating in the deep blue sky,        
Is life just a river in which we will all drown and die .      
      
Do not cry for death, but celebrate life.      
Pain is the price we pay for love and death the mirror in which life’s meaning reflects.      
      
We can hold onto love and don't need to let it go, but like the rose all beauty shall eventually fall , hold onto to those you love until you hear the call.      
      
For nothing in life is guaranteed, not even tomorrow, take the moments and make it count for remember after joy comes sorrow.      
The warm touch of life lingers far longer      
than death’s sting and with new seasons, happiness brings.      
      
But everyone we know , eventually has to go ....
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
November 2024
Reflections on Parting
Malcolm Mar 12
I wrote you a letter, I’m wondering why,
why am I left with no answer, no simple reply,
No voice from heaven—no voice from the sky.
Surely—did you leave, O God? Did you die?

I thought you’d ease the burden we all bear,
but it’s silent—so quiet—are you even there?
We live in our fears, tears dripping on faces,
people starving—the whole human race is,
suffering and homeless, year after year—please
give me a sign, tell me you can hear.

Did you plan this hunger—aching, cold?
I don’t mean to bother, but I’m feeling untold
give us a nod, a grin—something divine!
Surely, nothing too much for the great sky, sublime.

Maybe you can't hear me—am I not clear?
Are you too far? Too distant? Too not here?
Your people, your creation, they fight in the streets—
cause they can’t speak louder about a God they can't reach.
How can I believe when disease is our fate
the cancer, the plague, the COVID—too late.

Did you shape mankind, the darkness inside too?
Did you create the Angels—and the Devil, anew?
I don’t know if you see it, but people die in pain
mothers weeping—endless crying, in vain.

They quote your book—every verse, every line
but are these just words—or are they divine?
It’s sad, so sad—so many hold you near,
but when they need you—God, they can’t find you here.
Year after year, year after year—gone.

How can I believe in myths and tales I can't see?
Perhaps, God, the truth is—you’re not real to me.

Is Heaven there—what about Hell?
What about angels and demons—where do they dwell?
A saint at the gates—were you crowned with thorn?
Watching this world—now bruised, torn, worn.

Sitting up there, as wars rage on down
watching the children falling—drowning, around,
losing mother and son—lives swept to sea
lost—lost—and not found—how can this be?

The world is breaking—heavy, soaked in pain,
yet you're never around, while the tears fall like rain.
Our prayers rise—up, again, and again
the same people you made—need someone to blame.

The Father, the Son, the Spirit, we seek
is this just a riddle, or some holy mystique?
Show me a sign, a hint that you’re there,
am I just speaking words into thin air?

Down on my knees—just asking you why
Are you there, God? Or just another lie?
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
August 2024
Letters to Heaven
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