Malcolm

Malcolm Mar 19

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poetry used to be a map, a hymn, a burning
we wrote like our tongues bled, like time
ached for translation. words cracked open the sky,
made men dream, made women rise,
made silence sit and listen.
but now,
now, if I whisper of rivers, of dust-lit dawns,
of the wind curling like a mother’s hand
the echoes fall hollow.

but let me write skin, sweat, moan, bite
watch them come running.
write me naked, paint me burning,
say lust, say ****, say writhing hunger
and the crowd swells, tongues heavy with thirst.
it’s not wrong—no, never wrong—
but it is telling.

it is a hunger that does not end.
not for beauty, not for meaning,
not for the poetry that unfurls the world
just for the quick hit, the lit fuse,
the take me there, take me now, make me feel something
for five minutes and leave me numb again.

if I say the word tree, I get ten eyes.
if I say thighs, I get ten thousand.
and that’s where we are.
not where we were.
not where poetry was once carved into the bones of history,
but where it flickers like neon in motel rooms,
glows for a night, fades by morning.

I do not blame them.
I do not shame them.
but I will not forget
what poetry used to do
when words were more than
just a pleasure-driven plate.

Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
March 2025

Malcolm Mar 19

Be Free

A fusion of free verse, prose poetry, and lyrical refrain
By Malcolm Gladwin ( the video is what we did as kids to be free )

Be free—like a bird caught in the updraft,
like a fish slipping silver through the currents,
like a balloon let go from a child’s hand,
floating, floating, floating into the blue yonder.
Be free like a song sung with no fear of echoes,
like wild grass bending only to the wind.

Life is one life.
One breath, one moment, one golden chance
to walk barefoot where the waves kiss the shore,
where the sea salt burns your nose,
where the wind does not ask before it touches your skin.
Run. Jump. Throw your arms into the sky
let the sun catch you midair.

Have you ever watched how the butterfly dances,
how the bee lands, drinks, moves on
how the river spills itself over smooth stones,
never asking where it must go?
Sit beneath the weeping willow,
watch the shadows shift, toes in the passing current
the water never waits, yet it is never lost.

Be free. Jump. Clothes on, feet muddy,
off the edge, off the bank, off the cliff
five, four, three, two—SPLASH.
Let the river take your weight,
let it wash away your hardship,
let the wild raspberries stain your lips,
let the lemon grass hold you as you watch the clouds drift
turning into faces, into beasts, into whispers.

And when the city calls, remember:
freedom is not found in glass towers,
not in the weight of gold, not in the rush of clocks.
It is in the air we forget to breathe,
the quiet moments we do not hold long enough,
the waiting at the bus stop when we look up really look
and see life moving, unchained.

But my freedom
my freedom lies in the ocean’s roar,
in the summer rain that does not ask permission
before it kisses my skin.

Here, I am alive.
Here, I am free.

Watch the video below - it's a place we went to when we were hot and felt like blowing off some steam , being free in the middle of nature.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?si=nTE89XbZfGmA54W9&v=BDi38mUM0xY&feature=youtu.be

Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
March 2025
Be free

Malcolm Mar 18

Who am I

Who am i really?
I wear the masks they whisper about,
Words spoken in the hush of broken corridors,
Light bringers or public enemy number one,
black for the night, white for the oath,
red when the wires scream.
I walk unseen through the veins of the world,
The shape shifter that walks amongst the wolves and sheep,
a pulse, a fracture, a glitch in the circuit.
I am the ghost that never stays dead,
Messiah that rises time and time again,
They call me a keyboard cowboy,
I know the dark because I had to.
You don’t track a predator by standing in the sun,
wolves don't just knock on the door,
Don't you know,
They lurk,
I hunt,
Crosshairs,
Fire
Dead!

I have stood with the blue team
steel-*****, firewalled, watching the abyss watch back,
Jedi.
While worms nawwd at the core, trying to eat through the system.
I have moved with the red team
silent hands, slipstream body,
a wraith in the blind spots of giants.
Drilling our way through the earth to come out on the other side,
to see what's unseen,
to hear the unspoken,
to find the hairline cracks in the impenetrable,
I have drowned in the purple dusk
where order and rebellion
collapse into static and bones,
Where community communication finds comfort.

Tell me—who owns the truth?
Tell me—who decides the crime?
Tell me—how do you catch what doesn't exist?

They call me villain.
Ghost. Phantom. A shadow that never asks permission.
Digits flash—unauthorized.
Vaults unsealed—malicious intent.
Secrets peeled raw—classified breach.
Knowledge is what I seek—raw unfiltered.
I rupture the systems of those worthy,
a howl in the wires,
a storm that does not obey.
And yet—
they never ask why the lock was picked,
What was behind the door.

They call me guardian.
Sentinel. A shield made of wreckage.
They call me protector
when I patch the cracks before the flood.
But no one asks how I learned to swim in the dark,
Even when you lose your soul to save others.

They call me enigma, breaker, builder, ruiner, redeemer,
a paradox in a world made of glass, fibres that stretch the boundaries of the earth,
I see the fractures
the vulnerabilities, the rusted locks,
the way everything is breakable
if you know where to press,
Some call it crime.
Some call it sight.
Some call it inevitable.

I am silence in a world that never stops screaming.
I am lightning crashing through the wall.
I am the unseen weight tipping the scale.
Sneaking in and gone before you know it.
Footprints on the floor?
Fingerprints?
I doubt it.

And still, I ask myself
Who the **** am I?
Just a shadow?
Or truth

Copyright Malcolm
March 2025
Who am I

Malcolm Mar 17

Rite of Return

The sun bows slowly, mourning the lost son,
a candle flickers—one last breath,
whispered through a temple of fallen dust,
where the wind kneels—where silence feels like comfort,
cut from the cloth of the wordless sky. Here we stand.

A hand traces the names on ancient stone,
a name once worn, now barely warn.
The years have left their weight, as there they wait,
each carefully carved letter like a jagged might,
though the body’s gone, the soul’s still sight.

She told him once: "Sow your steps where light still sews,
pare your grief where rivers flows
let no weight of loss take more than air
never will you find me, neither here nor there."
She smiled then—bare in truth, yet strong as bear,
roaring loudly at eternity,
spinning the cosmos into a mother’s care,
a fallen sigh, her golden hair.

The clock hands turn slow, but time still stares,
each tick a tremor, a time we remember—each tock a tare.
He stands at the edge of then and there,
where memories bend like a bending bare,
where fate unwinds with a tangled wear.

A voice hums soft in the scented breeze:
"Your soul is stitched into the stars with ease,
your love is more than what the world still maars or sees.
When I was here, you held me dear,
but know this now—I was never mere."

The sea replies in endless waves,
pulling the past through endless days,
unfolding time in fleeting new ways,
where loss is love that never waives.
Where death is just the name of change,
where love is light in shifting veins.

He turns, he walks, his shadow sores,
each step an echo, yet never sore.
The world moves on—his grief takes form,
but she’s still born, through breath, through storm.

Through ink on pages, through words that write,
through every wrong that turns to right.
She lingers not in earth nor stone
but in the rite of all unknown.

Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
March 2025
Rite of Return

Malcolm Mar 16

The Debt Always Comes Due

The Debt Always Comes Due
Always the victim, never the cause,
twisting the past into thorns in your crown,
spitting out names like they branded you first,
but no, you lit the match.

Nothing was real—just a game, just a spark,
a flicker in winter, a flame in my hands,
burning because you willed it to,
then blaming the fire for touching your skin.

Never was love, never was truth,
just a hollow echo you painted in gold,
a script rehearsed, a play well-staged,
but the audience left, and the curtains fell.

Every excuse, every shattered mirror,
you threw them like knives at the ones who cared,
but glass cuts back, and now you bleed,
alone in the wreckage you swore wasn’t yours.

Karma doesn’t knock—it breaks the door,
it creeps in quiet, it settles the debt,
no need for vengeance, no need for rage,
I’m healed, I’m whole, and you’re still lost.

And now? A shadow chasing its own ghost,
running, running, never home,
but the past always knows where you sleep.

Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
March 2025
The Debt Always Comes Due
This poem is written for someone that one day wished would get over herself but I suppose sometimes it just better to sweep the broken glass away than keep cutting your fingers trying to pick it up glue it back together - let karma deal with them

Malcolm Mar 16

Public Display of Dismay

There once was a man quite outrageous,
Who’d pull out his ****, quite voracious.
At a wedding, a store,
He’d show it once more,
And the cops found it truly audacious!

At the courthouse, he made his big stand,
With his **** in his hand, quite unplanned.
But the judge said, “Oh please,
This is just a disease,”
And they banned him from all public land!

Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
March 2025
A silly Limerick

Malcolm Mar 16

Dreaming to find love

I close my eyes— sleep, awake, threshold, rupture, flight
a door unhinges inside my mind,
splitting wide to the infinite howl of the cosmos.
The dark swallows me whole,
Yet I walk silent through the nothing, a shadow without weight,
stardust in my mouth, my veins glass rivers humming with echoes,
feet bleeding across the abyss,
through infinity, past the breath of collapsing stars.

"Love!" I call, voice shattered into echoes.
"Love, where are you?"
"Do you not know my voice?"
"Do you not recognize my face?"
"Come to me—consume me—fill me whole"
"Save me from myself!"
"Fill me that I may feel again!"

The silence trembles—quivers—writhes.
A pause deep enough to drown in.
The stars blink but do not speak.
I stand waiting.
Breathless. Ageless.
Quietly searching for something real.

I turn to the trees, the aching roots,
falling leaves spiraling like forgotten names,
the blossom of spring,
petals folding inward, whispering secrets only the wind understands.
I look to the distance
the mountains, cracked open with time, bleeding slow rivers of silver.

With great haste I ask,
"Do you know love?" I beg you.
"Tell me where?"
"Show me the path so I may stumble and fall but find my way!"

Nature smiles—a slow, knowing smile, carved in stone
but does not answer.

Desperate to feel again,
I wade into the sea, let the salt carve into me.
My heart drifts upon the waves,
a fragile thing, a paper boat with torn sails.
With a thunderous call to the horizon, I shout:
"Waves, bring love to my door!" I beg you.

But the waves only come and go, come and go, come and go
dragging time in their hands, whispering riddles that dissolve before I can grasp them.
Bearing sound
but no word that falls upon my grace,
leaving nothing but emptiness in the sand.

The echoes of silence fall upon me once more.

Night after night, I untether from my skin,
leaving my body like an abandoned house,
walking the plains of the universe,
searching, calling, begging for something real.
A ghost slipping between dimensions.
A traveler in far-off lands.
A lonely wanderer beneath the unblinking eye of eternity.

I run through comets, wade through nebulae,
stars burst behind my ribs,
galaxies unravel beneath my fingertips.
I stare into the cosmos,
my hands cupped like a beggar’s bowl,
aching, pleading
empty,
lost.

Until one night—the universe listens.
It hears my calls, my somber songs, my whispered prayers.
It splits its sky-wide mouth and speaks,
the words I've so longed to hear:
"You seek love?"

I look up at the heavens, at the endless sky.
"I wish for nothing more!" I cry.
"I want to be whole again!"

And in an instant, I am home.
Bare feet on the floor.
Shaking hands on the **** of my bedroom door.
Knowing where I am
but not knowing why.

"Open it," the voice says.

I do.
I run through, heart caving in, a million thoughts burning,
only to find myself.
Standing there.
Alone.
Staring back.

"Is this a cruel joke?" I scream at the stars.
"I'm right back where I started!"

The universe laughs.
Soft. Knowing. Unyielding. Endless.

"Did you not ask to find love so you could feel whole once more?" it says.
I reply in haste,
"Indeed—but it's only me here! I search for love to complete me!"

The universe laughs again—louder now, like rolling thunder.
"If you wish to be whole," it whispers,
"love yourself first."
"No one will make you complete but you."
"Love begins with one."
"With 'I'—not with another."

I wake, drenched in sweat, heart raw and open, confused,
the universe’s voice still clawing my memories, drowning my thoughts.
Enlightenment.
A truth.
A lesson.
A revelation.

Wisdom
"Love yourself."
"Be whole."
"Then love will come."

And I
I sit in the quiet of my room,
Alone.
But not empty.

Breathing in the lesson,
like it is the first air I have ever known.
The truth.
The answer.
The key.

#love #dreaming