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Malcolm Mar 12
There’s a hate in my heart,
buried deep, under liqueur’s burn
and the chill of colombian snow,
strewn across train tracks,
long and wide,
stretching into nowhere.

My family doesn’t see it—
too busy with their own lies.
The preacher, with his sanctified tongue,
wouldn’t dare touch it,
and my friends?
They only skim the surface,
pretending they know me.

Hate hums like a low engine,
alive but dormant,
its rhythm keeping time with my pulse.
I drown it,
I chain it,
but it always stirs,
a shadow in the corner of my mind,
laughing softly at my attempts
to suffocate it.

It wants to devour,
to rise,
to scream its name across the empty tracks.
But I hold it down,
not because I’m strong,
but because I’m tired.

Hate doesn’t die;
it learns to wait.
It lives in truce with silence,
biding its time,
until the snow melts,
the tracks rust,
and it no longer needs
my permission.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
October 2024
The Quiet Engine
Malcolm Mar 12
I can't recall what’s real, or if I dream,
A scream resounds within, though silence seems
To choke my voice, to halt my every plea,
This hollow stillness smothers what’s left of me.

Love has left me battered, torn, and blind,
Awaking to a world I cannot find,
A shattered self with nothing left to hold,
Pain’s cruel embrace is all that’s uncontrolled.

I hold my breath and wish for endless sleep,
Oh, God, deliver me, my soul to keep.

Back in the dark, I feel too much to bear,
A pulse, a life, but none to grant me care,
The future’s gone, the present’s just a haze,
I wait for peace in the quiet, lost days.

Fed by memories, my body now a shell,
A love-grown relic in this living hell,
Bound to the wires, with no way to flee,
I long to sever this from what remains of me.

I hold my breath and wish for sweet release,
Oh, God, bring me a moment’s peace.

The world is gone; it’s just a distant hum,
And I, alone, wish for the day to come,
I hold my breath and pray for mercy’s touch,
Oh, God, I’ve suffered far too much.

Darkness closes in, I’m trapped inside,
My eyes have failed, my voice has died,
My mind is broken, a fractured plea,
No life, no death, just this eternity.

Love has stolen my sight, my voice, my sound,
It took my heart, my soul, and left me bound—
A hollow man, in hell without a name,
A prisoner of this never-ending pain.
Malcolm Mar 12
Come one, come all, the carnival's here!
Bring your soul; there’s no need to fear.
Step right up to the Devil’s stand,
He’ll trade your essence for a sleight of hand.

The Dark One grins, his pitch refined,
“A bargain struck will free your mind!
Forget those rules of guilt and pain,
Just sign this slip and break your chain.”

“But what’s the catch?” you skeptics cry,
“What’s hidden deep within the lie?”
The Devil laughs, his voice a drawl,
“Oh, nothing much… just your mortal thrall.”

Religion gasps, the pews erupt,
“Without a devil, our sales corrupt!
Who’d buy salvation, grace, or prayers,
If not for Hell and its fiery lairs?”

So here we are, with goats and flames,
And theologians penning Hellish names.
They warn of demons with deeds grotesque,
But their churchly coffers grow quite burlesque.

The carnal sins they do condemn,
Were once old Pan’s own diadem.
Fertility, joy—now sins of lust,
Wrapped in fear and holy dust.

So strike that deal, make it brash,
Why burn in Hell when you can stash
The blame and guilt, the heavy yoke,
And laugh along at the pious joke?

For those who preach the Dark One’s lore
Should thank him daily, and implore:
“Stay wicked, vile, and ever cruel—
Without you, we’d be out of fuel!”
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
October 2024
Devilish Deal
Malcolm Mar 12
In the halls of guilt, where coins
sing like crickets in the dark,
their psalms rise, a lattice of smoke
curling from a dying flame.
fear not the sins of others,
rather the sins of their own,
more than the sins of devil,
It's the sins of the Father after all.

The altar gleams, not with divinity,
but with the cold sheen of rivers
choked by gold. Their voices echo,
hollow gourds beaten by the wind,
each note a shard of glass
pressed against the throat of belief.

Abaddon watches like a stormcloud
over fields of withered grain.
Fenriz prowls, the wolf of shadows,
gnawing on the roots of broken truths.
Lilith lingers softly, silent as moonlight
spilling through cracks in cathedral walls.

They speak of paradise,
but their heaven is a spider’s web
each thread spun from fear, damnation
each catch a soul entombed in amber.
Their god sharpens his teeth
on the brittle bones of their charity,
his laughter a hymn
their hearts refuse to name.

In each of their prayers, I hear
the rustle of dry leaves,
the empty rattle of seedless pods.
Proserpine weeps for the earth
they have scorched,
her spring now a withered hand
grasping at ash.

Their god is a clockwork beast,
wound tight by trembling hands.
They chant, hoping to drown
the clatter of its gears,
but silence escapes them,
a snake sliding through the reeds.

The equinox tides waves rise,
drowning the stones of their empire.
Sekhmet’s roar is the crack
of a long-dry riverbed,
her fury older than their creeds.
Even their God, devourer of innocents is amused,
He turns his gaze from the spectacle,
disgusted by their hollow words.

They build temples of shadows,
caverns where the echo of truth
has been smothered
by velvet robes and incense.
Pay now an sin later, their collection bowls
overflow with fallen grace.
Yet the gods of old they look on,
a quiet council of stars
watching the slow collapse.

No fire awaits them but the one
they ignite and kindled themselves
a furnace of words,
a pyre of promises.
Their sermons crumble,
a tower of sand in the tide,
and the gods laugh,
not in malice, but in pity,
a path leading to self righteousness,
yet all return to the fertile soil,
all know this as truth, even if they say not.
buy a place in the eternal Nothing!
There preachers stand preaching,
follow me and get lost, eternity for a price
and his flock follow blindly,
Sheep being lead to a slaughter.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
October 2024
The Choirs of Lies
Malcolm Mar 12
Fire's breath on canvas,
Illusive, cruel to adeath,
Whispers pierce the night.

Loom threads lies unseen,
Velvet dusk with molten glow,
Earth hums tales below.

Dark symphony calls,
Void swallows, leaving its mark,
Shadows in the field.

Winds howl through the wild,
Vigil kept beneath the sky,
Heart dares to take flight.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
October 2024
Thoughts of the Untamed Haiku
Malcolm Mar 12
A story book their ingenious invention,  
written with dishonest intention,  
Penned by scribes with trembling quills,  
To carve out myths and codify wills,  
A patchwork text of borrowed, made up lore,  
Bound to man an enthrall, to preach, implore.  
  
Not a single voice divine, nor a holy pen,  
But the schemes of greed, ******* by power-hungry men.  
Written by the minority they cleverly invent,  
for the majority their ambitious intent,  
Chosen by those who claim divine favor,  
A gift to the few, the masses enslaver.  
  
A God who needs commandments penned?  
A deity whose truths must transcend?  
To laws of war, to their tribal gain,  
A heavenly writ with mortal stain.  
  
Two animals, or was it fourteen?  
Forty days, or was it fifteen?  
Contradictions ripple, yet they declare,  
"The word of God!"—their iron lair,  
For it's their word and their holy plea,  
but a claim of man their divine decree.  
  
Centuries passed; the scrolls were stitched,  
By priests and kings, their ambitions enriched.  
To conquer lands, minds, to quell dissent,  
On faith's frail wings, empires were bent.  
  
The Gospels, ghostwritten
then passed through hands,  
Not disciples' truth, but shifting sands.  
700 years later...
Paul's letters forged to fit the mold,  
A tale retold, for power sold.  
  
Oh, sacred book, still the world’s best-seller,  
A golden cage for man, a truth-jailer.  
A labyrinth of fear, of sin, of shame,  
Man’s grand invention in God's name.  
  
So hail the Bible, a text of man,  
A masterstroke, a cunning plan.  
Not divine, but deeply flawed  
A monument to man ambitions,  
not God.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
October 2024
The book of man
Malcolm Mar 12
Change is the constant; the rhythm of time never ceases its cycle.
Longing for peace, yet preparing for war in the shadows of fear.
Walls that we build to protect us will also confine us in silence.
Happiness drifts as we chase it, elusive and fading from view.

Richest in gold, yet the poorest in spirit, the heart remains hollow.
Independence demands that we lean on the strength of another.
Leaders are strong when their hearts lay exposed to the winds of destruction.
Trying to blend, we are lost in the masses; ourselves disappear.

Knowledge expands, but the deeper we delve, the less we can fathom.
Certainty falters, for truth is a vapor that slips through the grasp.
Logic deceives as it folds on itself, bringing chaos from order.
Closer to answers, we find that the questions grow darker with time.

Gaining the world means the courage to risk all you cherish to lose it.
Time heals the wounds that it carves with its passage, relentless and cruel.
Simpler the life we create, yet complexity lies in its heartstrings.
Greatest of truths may be born from the lies that we whisper in fear.

Love holds us fast, yet it loosens the chains of our deepest desires.
Harming the ones we adore, we reveal both the frailty and fire.
Fearing their loss, we may push them away, though our hearts cry for holding.
Memory fades when forgiveness demands, yet it burns through the void.

Freedom is sought, but the order of rules is the comfort we cherish.
Change is our terror, yet life cannot grow without constant upheaval.
Ambition rises to build and destroy, as the wheel keeps on turning.
Striving for perfect, we stumble through shadows that laugh at our dreams.

Now is the present, a fleeting illusion, the past in the making.
Shaping the world as it shapes us in kind, we are locked in its rhythm.
Infinite time cannot bend to our will, though we chase it through whispers.
Death is a shadow that gives life its weight, though we run from its grasp.

Life is a paradox, woven from threads of the meaningless fabric.
Small in the cosmos, yet gods in the hearts that we carry within us.
Goodness and evil are one in the dance that defines every action.
Truth in its glory resides in the space where our doubts learn to sing.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
October 2024
A Life of Contradictions
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