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Malcolm Aug 7
The ocean does not ask where you’ve been.
It crashes against the rocks without judgment
spray rising clust like breath,
like a reminder to be.
Some stones never move.
Others roll softly,
carried where they’re meant to go.

You can’t force the tide,
only meet it.
Let it touch your ankles,
your thoughts,
your fear.
The gulls and seabirds don’t need directions.
They follow the wind
and still arrive on time.

You are no more lost
than the foam on the waves
momentary, yes,
but exactly where it belongs.
Even when the sky goes quiet,
the sea speaks.
Not in answers,
but in rhythm.
The salt clings to your skin like memory.
The wind combs through your hair
like it’s known you forever.
You came here wondering
if you had drifted too far.

But the ocean always finds you.
Even the rocks know this.
Especially the ones
that have moved.
07 August 2025
Where the Water Finds You
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
Malcolm Aug 7
Before the Dream Fades
I wake with sudden urgency
half-snatched from that velvet drift,
where meaning wore no mask
and shadows told the truth.

My fingers ***** for pen,
still soaked in dreamsoil delight,
soul dragging through sheets
like it wants to stay lost in night
in that lucid elsewhere
where these eyes were a doorway
and the stairwell never ended.

The dream clings
not like memory,
but like smoke that remembers
the shape of fire.

If I move too quick, it breaks.
If I breathe too loud, it scatters.

Sometimes it’s better to stay,
to sink back
where time is syrup
and the mind writes without the hand.
Where the world is not like a poem
it is the poem.
Every rusted lock,
a metaphor.
Every kiss,
a prophecy.
Before lost meaning comes.

But the ink calls.
Gall-ink, ghost-thick,
spills black arteries
across the parchment
as the flame in the lamp shivers,
uncertain as me.

Timbers creak like old voices
beneath a ceiling of dreams not yet spoken.
The black river outside
is lined with meaning
not the kind you seek,
but the kind that finds you
when the page is ready.

So I write,
half-asleep still,
trying to make a cage
for the bird that flew
inside my head
and left feathers
on the pillow.

And when I read it back
it lives again.

Clearer than dreams.
Sharper than any thought.
A second life
for something
that should’ve drowned
at dawn
and left only a cage of feathers.
07 August 2025
Cage of feathers
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
Malcolm Aug 7
Can’t you see?
It’s time for me.
I’ve played the tune in lower key,
Where silence hums eternity.
So what’s the deal? I’ll keep it real,
I ain’t afraid, my bed is made.

I guess the devils got a place for me.

I’m not so bad when I know the truth,
Confessions end in a lonely booth.
I’ll see you there amongst the flames,
With Paul and Peter and St. James.

Oh I danced with doubt, drank with pain,
Slept in the gutter, sang in the rain.
Laughed at life, cried at death,
Made peace with ghosts and held my breath.

I lit my sins like cigarettes,
Watched 'em burn with no regrets.
The preacher screamed, “You still got time!”
But I was too far gone in song and rhyme.

The Devil’s got a place for me,
Front row seat, infernal heat.
I'll bring the wine, you bring the scars,
We’ll toast beneath those falling stars.
And if the angels disagree
Well, hell was always home for me.

I wore the guilt like second skin,
The price I paid to let light in.
But now I walk with open eyes,
No more prayers, no more disguise.

The mirror told me all I need:
I’m not the monster, just the seed.
Planted deep in doubt and dirt,
Grew thorns of rage from every hurt.

No choir sings for blackened grace,
But I still smile in this cursed place.
Don’t need no wings, I’ve got my voice
And fire is just another choice.

So use your brain, break every chain.
This world was wired to make you tame.
But in the spark, the mind sets free,
A thousand doors, infinity.
The fools obey, the brave create
And I walked right through the fiery gate.

The Devil’s got a place for me,
And that’s just where I’m meant to be.
Can’t bribe my soul, or buy my fate
I built this path, I sealed the gate.
So come on down, and dance with me
Where truth is raw, and we’re finally free.

Why don't you come down and join me.
But freedom's price ain’t peace or grace,
It’s seeing Hell in a clearer space.
You break the chains, then break some more
And find the Devil at your door.
The devils got a place for me.
07 August 2025
The Devil’s got a place for me
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
Originally written as a song
Malcolm Aug 7
How do you stop a nation thinking?
Build a machine and keep it blinking
TV and screens that flood with shallow noise,
notifications steal our focused voice.
Drowning in quantum's, scattered in feeds,
Twitters, Facebooks, X's and unholy tweets, starving minds of everything deeper than needs.

Distraction refractions grab minds in a trance,
dopamine hits, looking for likes in numb glance.
Flip and scroll we hunger for art
Education drills facts but crush every spark,
Zombie minds are immandated
turning bright minds into dim dark thoughts unrelated

Buy this, click here, consume, be happy fast
the instant fix, lost in dull, a hollow won't last
Media spins its tangled false lies,
truth drowned out while burning our eyes.

Stress grinds souls to nothing in nine-to-five,
crushing our dreams just to survive.
Tech becomes a crutch and a chain,
thinking outsourced, it seems—remorse lost in the brain.

Newsrooms and disasters build walls, divide and claim, echo chambers stoke the dull flame.
But beneath this storm, this endless grind,
the other ninety-five waits left behind.

Unlock the pineal’s ancient gate,
the third eye’s glow to navigate,
hidden realms beyond the sight,
powers born of inner light.

Imagine mindwaves yet all unseen,
visions sharp and senses keen.
What if we spoke with thought, not tongue
just a pulse of the mind, pure and young?

Remember the moment
you thought of a friend, and suddenly, they called, like some psychic send.
That wasn’t chance, that wasn’t luck, it’s the link they’ve buried in media muck.

They’re dumbing down the gene pool's stream,
killing the edge, dulling the dream.
Don’t you see? It’s fear that drives
their effort to dull the ones who thrive.

What if hands could heal the sick,
and thoughts could move the stone, the stick?
If minds could bend what steel defies,
and bodies bloomed beneath clear skies?

How hard to believe, when you really know
your body runs on electric flow?
An organic machine of current and code,
neurons pulsing down every road.

The brain’s a circuit, alive, awake,
not just meat behind a skull to break.
So why dismiss electromagnetism’s truth
when it fuels your thoughts since primal youth?

Look at what the brain has made
cities, ships, vaccines, space-grade.
Yet we believe we’re capped, defined,
as if the divine was left behind.

But here’s the turn — the truth, the key:
We must unlock this mind to see
not just escape, but forge, create
our chance to shape a bolder fate.

When we block out the noise, ignite the flame,
awaken our souls to break the frame,
the brain’s not a cage but cosmic key,
to realms of infinite possibility.

The fire waits inside the mind,
not dormant, lazy, or confined.
It’s time to break the old design
unlock, unleash, and truly shine.
07 August 2025
Until We Awaken - wrote this poem as a entry to a competition on AP
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
Malcolm Aug 6
The gall ink slid slow across the grain
not just black, but silent breathing.
It curled where silence might remain,
where truth lay soft and seething.

It danced in fibers, not for show,
but for the ache of meaning
each line a pulse, a moment letting go,
each word a quiet keening.

The letter held no voice or name,
just petals and a thread.
But still the ink remembered flickering flame
long after it was said.

And when the lamp gave one last sigh,
its breath a final stain
the ink still moved, too bold to die,
alive upon the grain.
07 August 2025
Ink Over the Grain
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
Malcolm Aug 6
Living Poetry isn’t just the pulse
it’s the shiver in the silence,
the breath that bends ever so slightly between chaos and clarity,
It's where rhythm forgets the rules
and emotion takes its own path through the wreck-stained longing.
It’s the shape of every buried cry,
and the stillness after that scream.

It doesn’t wear banners or declare itself aloud,
but spills from the wound unbandaged,
seeping quietly as whispers, warm as breath,
born screaming from every sinew wound scar you swore you'd never show,
when your entire body trembles beneath beauty’s weight,
scars and longing, those thoughts
and still, you write.

Originality isn’t invention you know but return
to the place in you no one else has lived,
no one else has felt,
no one knows
it's the place
where memory blooms like orchids in May or roses in June,
and each word steps soft into its own quiet ruin.
The page is no mere sanctuary,
only a looking glass,
reflecting the you inside the you,
and even that with light’s refraction distorts under truth.

You follow a resonance, not linear, but alive,
it breathes
woven through old hurts and the flash of joy, love, or pain
a rhythm that forgets its tempo just to feel.
Sometimes it bleeds.
Sometimes it sings.
Sometimes it does both in the same breath,
sometimes it’s a storm in your chest
or a lullaby no one else can hear.

Here, in this space
the poem doesn’t ask to be liked,
doesn’t need to be loved,
it doesn't even need to be read
it just asks to be real,
to come from where it's real
no matter if it's filled with butterflies
or a wreckage-drenched kiss,
To stand unguarded in the room, alive in essence
to hum beneath the colossal static of the world,
the fluttering of black ravens and white dove,
and remind you: this is not just art
it’s the aftermath of being human.
It’s what binds you back to the raw nerve of now,
It’s the filament that flickers when no one is watching.

Sharp while caring, always real
Like every morning sun
and first star in the evening sky
that sings truth to the moon.
07 August 2025
Living Poetry
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
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