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Malcolm 18h
I did not know it then
how much of my life I spent
in pursuit of people
who stood behind curtains,
who spoke in half-gestures,
who never saw me at all.
And I
I mistook their silence for grace,
their distance for depth,
wasted hours praising shadows,
thinking they were saints.

Age crept in like a quiet thief
while I argued with the wind,
burning every bridge behind me
not for revenge,
but for honesty
because I couldn’t keep pretending
the path was paved with purpose
when all I saw were stones
and no clear road ahead.

I wandered through philosophies
like a drunk through alleys,
looking for the one window
still lit at 3 a.m.
some voice to say:
you were right to doubt,
you were right to bleed.
But every answer I found
sounded too rehearsed,
too clean,
like the kind of lie
taught in churches and schools
by those who never questioned
the god they worshipped.

I used to think there was something
waiting on the other side of pain
a reward, a reckoning,
a soft hand or a white gate
but the more I lived,
the more I saw how many men
broke themselves
waiting for something
that never came.

What if this is it?
What if all we ever had
was the breath between two silences,
the taste of wine on a Sunday night,
the brief flicker of touch
before sleep swallows us whole?

The world has always belonged
to those who claimed certainty.
They built empires on our questions,
wrote sacred texts from our fear,
used our doubt
as currency
to buy power,
to sell guilt.

And we—we folded our hands,
pretended to be holy,
afraid to ask:
what if no one is watching?
what if no one ever was?

Still, I don't mind now.
Whether the end is fire,
or dust,
or just a deep forgetting,
I find peace in knowing
that my suffering
was not for applause,
that no angel tallied my failures,
no devil stoked the furnace
for my crimes.

I live now
not because I believe,
but because I breathe.
I wake not with purpose,
but with hunger
to feel, to see, to ruin, to rise.

Let the priests whisper,
let the mystics dream.
I will walk this road barefoot,
****** if I must,
toward the same silence
that swallows kings and beggars alike.

Because in the end,
there is only one truth worth knowing
that none of us knows
and that this
is the only freedom
we were ever given.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
Malcolm 19h
Oh, how I did not see
the errors of my ways
how I spent time and favor
on shadows standing far behind,
silent figures in my past.

I aged faster
than I learned the lessons
life was whispering into my bones.
Each bridge I burned
out of need,
out of truth,
out of something raw or real.

I’ve sat
outside of thought,
inside doubt,
on top of dreams,
beneath the weight of wondering:
why?
where?
and to what end?

Floods of questions
drown the noise inside me
as I try to make peace
with all I’ve endured,
and yet
still feel broken
by this strange, winding road
that, in the end,
I believe,
leads to nothing.

But maybe
in the nothing,
there is peace.

I wonder
how many fools will gather
at the final hour,
those who lived restrained,
humble, waiting
for the next
the next life,
the next world,
the next promise
a promise
that never existed
outside the cradle of hope
we stitched into our minds.

They knew.
They knew
we did not know
and they took this ignorance
like a gift to be stolen,
turned it into gain—
into wealth,
into leashes for the mind,
chains for the soul.

But if we knew,
if we truly knew
there was nothing after death—
no heaven,
no judgment,
no eternal eye
what then?
Would we still walk straight
and slow
and silent?
Would we still call sin
a burden?

Or would we grab each day
like fire in our hands,
burning time with purpose,
making meaning
of this one life
instead of sacrificing it
to a dream
that might be
only silence?

I do not care anymore
what’s right or wrong.
Whether something waits
or nothing looms
both are only echoes
of thought,
shaped by fear
and passed down
like lullabies
to scared children
grown old.

No one has gone
to that Netherworld
and returned
with more than riddles.

Visions, yes
but dreams are part
of the nothing, too.
Just soft stories
spun from the dark.
Dreaming
our way
into the void.

Oh, what we might have done
if we’d known the truth.
All the chances lost,
all the years stolen
by belief
by upbringing
built on fantasy,
stitched together by trembling minds
too afraid to live
today.

Afraid of the watcher.
Afraid of the sky.

But I find comfort
in this final whisper:
One day,
I will dissolve
into the nothing.
And when that happens,
the weight I carry,
these wounds,
this sorrow
will no longer
be mine to bear.

In the nothing,
I will find
my peace.
And so,
I live now
fully,
madly,
brightly
because no one,
not one soul,
knows what comes next.

And belief…
is just
another name
for the unknown.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
July 2025
Peace in the Nothing
Malcolm 2d
Tears don’t always fall.
They drift in the mind
like satellites
loosed from orbit,
slow-motion signals
across the blackroom of time.
Not grief,
but gravity remembering.

Love isn’t a moment
it’s a constellation
burned into the hands of an oaken clock and every breath,
a frequency that keeps pulsing
long after touch has stilled.

You never forget the day they vanished, the shape they left behind
an imprint in the air and universe
like heat after lightning,
like a silhouette scorched
into the filmstrip of your soul.

Some things pass in a second
But memory?
Memory is spacetime’s rebel.
It lingers longer than a moment itself
It's a glitch in the hourglass,
a clock that refuses
to stop ticking
even when the hands are gone
it still chimes.

They may have drifted
maybe forgotten from time to time ,
maybe just changed shapes
but when you reach inside
you still see their face
in reflections,
hear their voice
in the background static
of late-night silence.

We carry them:
in bloodline-chords,
in laughlines carved from shared jokes,
in arguments we still finish
alone.

Moments become galaxies
in the afterglow
brightbursts we revisit in an instance
when everything else fades.
Time dissolves,
but memory is ours to keep
memory is a stardust archivist.
It is our catalog of love lost and found
in the particles
we breathe without knowing.

And so we orbit one another forever
even when apart,
family and loved ones remain
a constellation-map
etched in soul-skin.

The world moves forward,
but the hands of time on some clocks refuse to reset.
Because we were built to feel
to remember,
to carry love
beyond the math of minutes and moments.

And when the universe forgets
we don’t because love lives in our hearts forever

We gather the remnants,
build temples from echoes,
and stand together
in the gravity
of what once was,
holding it all until the day memory fold us together
again
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
July 2025
Where Memory outlives Time
Malcolm 2d
The old tree speaks
As sickle-saps drip slowly down
the cracked crevice of old bronze-barked bark,
filling age-ridden grooves with sap-time whispers
rings like time-coils and bark-riddles
guide each sliver of golden hymn,
sung from the wooden heart
of the ancient tree
that sits in solitary patience
within the fertile cradle of the earth.

Its roots run deep
ink-veins beneath the soil
buried truths in loam-lined silence,
a story only time remembers.
Golden, olive, copper, and ember-burnished leaves
adorn outstretched branch-arms,
grasping skyward like prayerful fingers
clawing at sunflame and blue-bowl air.

Creatures of fur, feather, and shell
have come to live
within the cathedral-calm
of the tree’s quiet grace,
its leafy hush dancing gently
in the breeze-song of life.

Hollowed branch-chambers cradle squirrels
who scamper across limb-paths,
gathering acorn-bullets and berry-treasures.
Songbirds weave grass-threaded sanctuaries
first the pale-shelled eggs,
then the soft-open beaks,
tiny hunger-mouths calling skyward.
Oh, how great and endless
the passing of time feels here.

Ants in armor-black processions,
leaf bugs like tiny green ships,
march in quick-dart rhythm
to hive-thrones hidden in shadows.
A honey-globe hive swings
from a bough's elbow,
and the bees—amber-striped architects
buzz with pollen-dust urgency,
coming and going,
coming and going,
wingbeats strumming nature’s constant chorus.

Petaled firework-flowers scatter across field- colourful mosaic,
and butterflies—winged lanterns of the meadow
hover in nectar-drunken bliss.
The white bunny, cotton-puff soft,
hops shyly through tall grass-forests,
aware of sharp-toothed silence
lurking in predator-shadow.
So all—claw, beak, hoof, and wing
move with careful grace
in their dawn-and-dusk wanderings.

The weavers and red-billed finch
dip between river-hum and stone-kiss,
while the swallows,
like storm-oracles,
dance in spiral glyphs
to herald rain’s return.
The field—painted in wildflower-confetti
welcomes all.
Bees harvest sun-dust
to craft golden honey
sweet elixir of the meadow’s memory.
And in some nearby den,
a honey-hungry bear dreams
of golden-steal delights.

All life congregates
beneath or beside
this rooted titan.

Oh, great tree
what world-tales dwell in your marrow?
You, the watchtower of ages,
older and wiser
than the ones who seek your shelter,
who take your shade
with unspoken gratitude.

I wonder what dream-shapes
the passing clouds have whispered to you
what wind-stories
have sailed from hill to hill
through your listening boughs.
Bugs and birds,
beasts and beetles
all creatures great and small
find peace beneath your wide-fingered crown.

Who planted you here
in this particular cradle of earth?
Why this soil, this sky?
Where your root-knuckles
have twisted deep
into the rock-ribbed memory of the land,
anchored so that no storm,
no flood,
no clawing hand of time
can tear you loose.
Your strength is whispered
even among mountains.

And look at me now
a sun-dazed wanderer
sitting in your shadow,
on this white-hot day
when the sun scorches
the thin seams between
what we are
and what we aren’t.

From this perch
I see the valley unfurl
green-blanket plains,
honey-lit fields,
and grey-***** mountains
etched in distance.
They too are wise.
They too are old.

But I am human
and in time,
my needing hands
will bring more harm than grace
to you and your kind.

I come searching
for branch-wood to burn,
for the bunny to trap,
for the hive to pillage.
I come to hear the birdsong,
then take
from your silvered bounty.

I am flawed
a creature of constant appetite.
But this is the life I know:
to take,
and take,
and take again.

So tell me, wise tree,
what choice does the grass have
but to grow?
And is this not true for me?
Am I not just the machinery
of my nature
a construct bound
to the illusion of freedom?

How do we coexist
when my hunger outweighs my restraint
and we both know
that someday soon,
only one of us will remain?

Will it be you
ancient oak-heart,
storm-witness,
time-carved pillar
who stood through epochs
but falls
to the blade of man?

Where are your siblings
that I may take them instead,
and leave you
to tower on
long after my bones
turn to ash and echo?

Perhaps—just perhaps
my soul will seep into you
someday,
when I am dirt and shadow,
carried by worm-trail and beetle-march
into your roots.

Perhaps
we will be one
in time.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
July 2025
The Old Tree Speaks
Malcolm 4d
One post, then the next
likes are crumbs in empty rooms.
Echoes clap loudest.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
July 2025
My applause for the obsessed and compulsive
Malcolm 4d
He who fishes in another man’s well
often catches *****
yet still acts surprised when it itches.

Man who asks a question may sound stupid for a minute,
but the quiet one?
He stays stupid forever,
and probably votes.

Without respect,
man is just a loud ape with Wi-Fi,
grunting opinions and sharing memes,
swiping left on self-awareness.

Man with hand in pocket
feels cocky all day
but try shaking hands with that guy.
Confidence smells funny.

Man running in front of car gets tired.
Man behind car gets exhausted.
Doesn’t matter—both end up roadkill
on the highway to nowhere.

Wise man avoids argument.
Smarter man just watches you lose yours
with popcorn and a smug nod.

Man who stands on toilet
is high on ***
a true philosopher,
contemplating the flush.

Man who wants everything
ends up with nothing
and a storage bill full of regrets
he pays in monthly installments.

He who laughs last
didn’t get the joke until later
but don’t worry,
he’ll still explain it.

Man who walks middle of road
gets hit from both sides.
Diplomacy is great until the trucks come.

Life is simple:
ignore advice,
repeat mistakes,
blame the stars
or your horoscope.

Man who points finger
forgets three more point back
unless he’s holding a beer.
Then he points with the bottle
and lectures you on failure.

Wise man says little.
Dumb man says it louder.
And louder.
And still doesn’t know he’s wrong.

Man who chases two rabbits
ends up eating instant noodles
alone, in sweatpants,
wondering where it all went wrong.

Conclusion:

"Take joke seriously,
but not yourself."
Malcolm Gladwin
July 2025
Confucianism
Malcolm 4d
Real knowledge lives where ignorance admits its name,
and when we meet the crooked path,
we turn within—not to condemn,
but to understand what bends in us.

He who learns without thought is a leaf on water,
and he who thinks, yet never learns,
builds castles on sand in a windstorm.
So begin with small stones
even mountains yield to patient hands.

The superior man speaks less than he does,
his courage not in clamor,
but in silent choice:
to do what is right, though comfort pleads otherwise.
He harms no one with desires he would not endure.

He walks slow, but he walks still.

Respect begins within
a flame that lights the eyes of others.
Revenge sharpens two shovels.
Sincerity, faithfulness
these are not ornaments, but foundations,
like stone under a trembling house.

Let the nation rise from the hearth
not from war cries, but from warmth.

Education births confidence.
Confidence lifts hope.
Hope sows peace like a quiet farmer.
And if a man errs, then smiles,
yet does not mend it
he stumbles twice, but calls it dance.

Wisdom comes in threes:
Reflection, which sees with stillness.
Imitation, which echoes.
And Experience
which carves its lessons into the skin.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
July 2025
The Mountain Moves
Malcolm 4d
Haiku 1 - Better Mad than Wet

Anger keeps me dry
golden showers lack respect
then trickle downhill.

Moral of story : better to be ******* than ****** on

Haiku 2 - Light a ******* Match

Breath like rotting pride,
they speak **** and expect thanks.
please light matches next time.

Moral of the story : when someone talks **** , just light a match

Haiku 3 - Morning Regrets

Man sleeps itchy ***,
wakes to find his finger’s stink
morning shame unfolds.

Moral of the story: Scratch wisely — what you don’t see can still smell.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
July 2025
Take it or leave it
Malcolm 4d
Breath like rotting pride,
they speak **** and expect thanks.
please light matches next time.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
July 2025
Haiku for the **** talkers
Malcolm 4d
Anger keeps me dry
golden showers lack respect
then trickle downhill.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
July 2025
It's better to be ******* than ****** on
Malcolm 4d
We walk each day
on cobblestone mornings and dust-road dusk,
navigating roads both winding and narrow,
barefoot on thornpath,
laughing through lungfuls of sunlight,
not knowing the storm waits for us
just beyond the turning.

Sometimes the climb is breathless and weary.
Knees buckle on gravel-wounds.
Hearts stretch across silence-heavy hills
where even the sky forgets to speak.

But then, then
a breeze, a simple song in the air,
a bird-note flickering through fogglass.
Someone’s hand, warm on our shoulderblade.
A word of encouragement.
And joy returns like a hush breaking open.

Don’t take it for granted, dear friend:
the soft-spoken tea,
the way a child says your name,
the sun threading gold through kitchen blinds.
After warmth, the weeping comes.
After the dance, the ache.

This is life’s rhythm
storm-song, stillness, sunfire, ash.
Each season a lesson etched
in wind-script and worn-shoe truths.

Be thankful when the road smiles on you.
Drink from the clear moment fully.
But do not curse the falling rain
it washes, it shapes, it teaches, it renews.
It molds us into river-stone grace.

If you chase only firework-miracles,
you’ll miss the quiet bloom
of the reddest rose in cracked cement.
You’ll overlook the miracle of breath,
the mercy in a stranger’s nod,
the gift of just one more mile.

So walk on.
Stride slow.
The path is honest, even when it’s cruel.
No season, no sorrow, no laughter
ever stays.
All will pass.

And life?
Life is the footsteps we leave quietly in the storm.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
July 2025
Footsteps in the storm
Malcolm 6d
Before first light,
I slip away from the crowded square
and climb the worn steps of forgotten heights.
But the season’s breath is spent,
and I long for shelter again.

The fruitless limbs stand bare,
their burden shed,
and silent weavers of days grow slow beneath fading skies.
These Buds have hardened to shells,
yet delicate wings of night birds still flutter by.

The softened rain halts,
then returns in sudden pulsing waves;
a narrow stream runs straight,
then winds blow all beyond sight.
The winding trail stretches endless but so does the narrow,
and wild blooms of season fill the shallowed grove.

Two birds’ mirrored shapes break the still water;
fresh shoots press upward through softened earth.
The land swells and dips like a restless sigh;
scattered dwellings mark the scattered lives.

From ages past until now,
our paths echo the same quiet truths.
My life is full,
my nights quiet undisturbed
what more could I or my soul seek?

My work is humble,
a small flame flickering,
and yet I fret for the emptiness beneath the surface.
In these distant valleys,
the heavy air weighs on me;
I lie spent, too weary to lift my gaze.

Sickness and want crowd all sides;
These fragile lives drift like the fog at morning
These clouds gather dense and dark;
rolls of thunder shake the distant hills waiting to be struck by lightning.

Water spills in sudden torrents from broken eaves;
crickets and night singers weave their ceaseless duet.
The fiery reign of high summer is driven back
by relentless storms from heavy skies.

The fresh, cool breath of rain revives my spirit,
and I wade through shallows to reach ancient stone walls.
I beckon the wind’s gentle spirit to dance
to swirl her robes in step with forgotten songs.

Raindrops swell my cup,
and countless sips cleanse the weight of sorrow.

Yet still I know this cannot last,
for my hollow home chills like the fading year.
Thoughts rise fierce and sharp within my mind,
and restless feelings thread through worn pages.

The ink runs thin across the aching lines,
while dusk-tide silence folds the room in hush.
What tether holds me in this quiet drift
this half-life written in unfinished breath?

A distant voice stirs beneath the static hush,
haunted by the shape of fading hills.
You sent the first note, fragile and true
together,
we raise our voices in a fading hymn.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
July 2025
Raindrop Psalms
Malcolm 6d
Golden roads
call brave
      from the stillness,
      where no map shows the way
      I felt the breath of something ancient
      stir the morning’s gray.

Mountains blinked
with clouds
      and silence said aloud,
      “This doubt you feel is the gate,
      where all the great must bow.”

Every storm
tastes bitter,
       but only on the tongue;
       for those who keep on walking,
       find their spirit sung.

Watch shadows
become guides,
      when fear begins to preach.
      Let it speak, but don’t obey
      your dreams lie just out of reach.

Burn bridges
behind doubt,
      if it means you’ll finally climb
      to where the world opens wide
      and truth keeps perfect time.

No falsehood
Life holds stars,
      they shine for the brave and bold;
      and all who dare to walk fates path              
      they will feel their purpose unfold.

So leap.
Jump breath held
      Trust falling,
      into the firelight unseen.
      For doubt is but the dragon’s trick
      your path was always keen.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
July 2025
The Road Whispers is a duel poem - the first two lines of each stanza if read together form a new poem within the original poem
6d · 49
Don't be sorry
Malcolm 6d
Don’t be sorry — that’s just noise people make when they want to look decent without changing a thing.

Don’t explain — that’s just smoke people blow when they’re hoping you’ll forget they lit the match.

Don't be sorry be careful.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
July 2025
Food for thought
Malcolm 6d
When the Moon Refused the Sea
I found the night beneath my nails,
black with the silence of undone prayers.
The stars were dull coins in a wishing jar
that no god ever shook.

I planted laughter in the soil
but nothing bloomed
except a vine of sighs
and the soft decay of maybe.

The wind spoke in riddles I once knew,
before language bled from my mouth
like wine from a cracked chalice.
Now even my dreams stutter
in dialects of ash.

A mirror broke inside me
the day the moon refused the sea
left the tide to curl like smoke
and the shore to whisper, “wait.”

Where are the ones who used to sing
with oil lamps lit in their ribs?
Where are the dancers
who knew how to bleed into rhythm
and still rise?

Tonight, I carry a lantern of salt.
It burns only for those
who have loved something
that could not love them back.

And still
I walk toward morning.
Barefoot.
Unbelieving.
But burning all the same.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
July 2025
When the Moon Refused the Sea
Malcolm 6d
they don’t sleep.
they submit.
bodies boxed in concrete coffins,
ten floors high, a hundred deep
paper-thin walls where arguments
bleed through like veins under skin.

fluorescent guilt buzzes louder than breath.
no dreams.
just the dull hum of lightbulbs choking
on what they used to mean.

sky?
that’s just bruise-stained ceiling.
nobody looks up.
we already know
what’s not there.

children speak silence fluently
tongues trained in broken things.
they read eviction notices
before bedtime stories.

mothers rock infants in overdraft arms,
crooning hymns of unpaid light.
fathers vanish
not with thunder, but with rust,
names ash on window corners,
like they never learned how to stay.

the street don’t whisper,
it grinds.
the sidewalk sings in fractured teeth.
there’s gospel in the gutter,
but it’s all static,
all rust and cigarette ends.

you want salvation?
ask the liquor store.
they sell God in plastic bottles
and false hope,
2-for-1.

aisles stacked with plastic joy,
bright things for broken hands.
price tags read like ransom notes—
freedom leased in thirty months.
a sale on silence.
a discount on despair.

the rain comes through the roof again.
they call it rhythm.
we call it giving up slowly.

still, we pray.
to blue screens,
to blinking routers,
to gods that filed for bankruptcy
in '08.

and me?
I came with paper.
with policy.
with polished shoes and smiling ink.
a badge that said “Hope Officer”
but meant
“We’ll study your suffering later.”

they said uplift.
I gave speeches that tasted like chalk.
they said restore faith.
I handed them mirrors.
they shattered.

I tried.
I swear I ******* tried.
but the ceiling kept lowering
and the floor
kept giving out.

now I walk
coat tight,
head down,
the city murmuring suicide
in lightposts and passing trains.

every window a wound.
every bus stop a confessional booth.
every breath
another god that didn’t answer.

this place is a psalm of what’s left
after justice forgets your name.
after the future skips your bloodline.
after the hymns
turn hollow.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
July 2025
HYMN OF THE HOLLOW CITY
6d · 15
The Quiet Grief
Malcolm 6d
I mourned with many,
but alone
I bore the weight no tears had shown.
For they were gone
their spark, their flame,
The one who taught my soul its name.

They came when youth was raw and blind,
And etched their songs into my mind.

And now they’re gone,
but I remain
A voice shaped softly by their flame.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
July 2025
The Quiet Grief
Malcolm 7d
I struck my skin upon the barren thorn,
And life-red rose to surface, warm.
I stared into it—bubble-deep,
As from the wound, my skin did weep.

It traced a path slow to the floor,
Reminding me of days before,
And all the roads I dared to tread
Each drop, a whisper of paths I've fled.

It showed the way I made it down,
From mountain smile to valley frown.
Each fall returned me to my start,
A bleeding map of shattered heart.

The droplets fell with quiet grace,
Coating grey cement’s cold face.
At first, it seemed a wasteful spill,
Like years I'd lost against my will.

But then, with every crimson line,
I saw the tears I’d left behind
Each drop a ghost, a dried-up cry,
That never found the ground to dry.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
July 2025
Baron Thorn
Jul 17 · 78
What the Poets Know
Malcolm Jul 17
Oh wise poet, tell me something that is true...

In life, there are two certainties:
“Death comes for all of us,
and every man pays taxes.”

There is no greater truth than this...
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
July 2025
What the Poets Know
Jul 17 · 42
Lotus of life
Malcolm Jul 17
Sun-born
Dawn-drawn
Petal-flame
Still-name

Root-deep
Mist-sleep
­Grace-bloom
Shadow-room

Sky-touch
Silk-clutch
Soul-bright
Lotus Delight
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
July 2025
Lotus life
Jul 17 · 75
The Face We Show
Malcolm Jul 17
Morning eyes blur
   scroll-feed light
    coffee thoughts stir
      filter feels right

We laugh low
   while pressure climbs
     keep it slow
       and play the lines

We fake divine
   with half a grin
     say “I’m fine”
       but ache within

A meme lands
   but doesn’t stay
     with shaky hands
       we text okay

We wear roles
   in office glare
     with fractured goals
       and perfect hair

Storms run deep
   behind the chill
     we post, we keep
       the look, the will

Speak in trends
   with coded tone
     where silence bends
       we're not alone

Tears get saved
   for late night rain
     the smile we braved
       can’t hold the strain

When lights dim
   and stories end
     truth grows grim
       we can’t pretend

So show your face
   or choose disguise
     we all chase
       some curated lies
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
July 2025
The Face We Show
Malcolm Jul 17
She entered
not walked
entered,
like dusk sipped through lace curtains,
like sandalwood smoke curling into cathedral rafters,
like bergamot on warm wrists,
like the last spoonful of honey
melting on a waiting tongue,
mine.

Cypress glaze glistened in her wake
bitter pine softened by wind-kissed skin.
She carried the scent of
crushed petals and promise,
of rain soaked through linen,
of memory you try not to name.
I watched her breathe
the rise and fall of something ancient,
something sacred,
something mine.

Her eyes closed
and the air thickened
with the perfume of surrender.
My breath slowed,
tasting of iron and figs,
salt from her lips still distant,
yet already staining my mouth.

The shadows bowed.
Yes, even they
those dark voyeurs
lowered their heads
to the holy hush of her presence.

She was the aftertaste of midnight wine,
the echo of silk sheets being pulled tight,
the hush in a chapel
just before vows.

Ocean sound
not waves,
but breath through parted lips,
warm and wet
like secrets exhaled between collarbones.
Her voice tasted like dark cherries and sin,
and my heart?
A cello string,
taut and trembling.

Unbound,
she peeled the weight from my chest
like fruit from rind.
Silken ground met our bodies
with a hush of crushed herbs—
lavender, thyme, rosehips—
the scent of unraveling.
Love wasn’t found.
It settled
like ash on sweat-damp skin.

She sighed
and it was warm butter and firelight,
the sound of a match catching.
Twilight cried in cinnamon tears.
A golden thread
frayed, glowing
spun around her finger
like a spell whispered in the dark.
I followed it,
hand-first,
then soul.

“Rest,” she breathed,
and it tasted like jasmine tea
steeped too long—
bitter, sweet,
inevitable.
But her voice stirred
embers behind my teeth.
She never meant for sleep.
She meant for ruin.

Air thickened
molasses and myrrh.
Her skin gave off warmth like bread
fresh from the oven
I could smell the hours in it.
Her hand
trembling constellation
slipped into mine.
Honeyed lips brushed against mine
tangy with wine,
spiced with need,
soft as a bite never taken.

Fingertips,
citrus-slick and stardust cold,
dragged rivers across my spine.
They sang.
They told me
who I had been before her.

Echo hush
not silence,
but the hum of blood in my ears
as she leaned closer.
Crimson blush bloomed
in places only she could see.
Sensual touch
velvet cut with silk’s bite
wrapped around my ribs
like a vow without words.

Candle breath danced
hot wax on skin,
scent of smoke and citrus rind.
Murmured depth
her tongue behind my ear,
voice caramel-dipped
and decaying every doubt.
Velvet trace
nails dragged slowly down my chest,
painting constellations I would worship.

And in that moment
the incense stilled.
the wind bent.
the stars dimmed.

Because love
true love
moves
like she does:
with teeth,
with silk,
with the taste of forever
in her kiss.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
July 2025
She Moved Like a Prayer
Jul 17 · 82
Whispers
Malcolm Jul 17
And in the hush where jasmine drifts,
your breath slows time, your fingers lift
the velvet trace of all we’ve known
a golden thread through dusk we’ve sewn.

Eyes closed, hearts bound in scented air,
where love is found, and stays, and dares.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
July 2025
Whispers
Jul 17 · 47
I Count My Days
Malcolm Jul 17
I count my days
like petals torn from flowers,
soft and dying,
as cold rain
gathers in the gutters of forgotten hours.

I count them
those numbered breaths,
those sunsets swallowed whole,
mornings folded into mist,
every soft cloud
passing like a whispered ghost.

I count my days
as they slip beyond my grasp,
fading,
like echoes down a hall
where no one waits to listen.

Each moment seen,
each life I might’ve lived
gone.
Words I never spoke
lie heavy in the throat of silence.

I count the days
that passed me by while I slept,
as the world spun on
without me.
I count the days
since I lost my soul,
my reason,
since I gave away who I was
to please those
who never truly saw me.

Time moves forward,
a cruel illusion,
a godless god
a mental construct
more real than the dreams
I once held
like fragile glass.

Oh, the dreams I had...
like smoke now,
vanished,
off and gone
without ceremony.

They say:
“It’s never too late to begin again.”
But oh, if only that were true.

Time does not care.
It wounds, it walks on.

And here I lie
broken, sore,
facing the loss
of what I once held
and now have no more.

If I had known
what life truly was,
before it broke me,
I would have clung tighter
to each second.
Every moment gone
is a grave in the garden.

Every day
is one step closer
to what?
To less.
To silence.
To death.

I feel it in my marrow.
One day, I’ll vanish too.
And who will mourn?

I’ve walked alone
all my life,
an outsider
here,
but never truly part.

Love came,
and love went.
Loss slipped
through my fingertips
again
and again
and again.

My eyes have seen
the strangest things,
but never saw
that it would end like this
at the edge of myself.

The truth is:
you only have yourself.
Even love fades.
Even the closest
will drift,
or die,
and you
you will remain,
or be the one
to leave.

Alone.
Alone.
Yes
this has always
been my road.

Looking in
from the outside,
a silent witness
to a world
I was never truly
a part of.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
July 2025
I Count My Days
Jul 16 · 77
When the Quiet Comes
Malcolm Jul 16
Sunlight kisses
Morning dew
Shadows stretch
Whispers through blue

Raindrops linger
Branches sway
Insects hum
Time slips away

Footsteps echo
Dreams fade
Gravel cracks
Night hugs shade

Hearts wilt
Eyes close
Memory stays
Silence softly flows
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
July 2025
When the Quiet Comes
Jul 16 · 23
Lonely Tears
Malcolm Jul 16
Heart tightens
Soul frightens
Breath shallow
Eyes hollow

Pain grows
Silence knows
Lids close
Tear flows

Salt tracks
Hope cracks
Face numb
Thoughts drum

Skin chills
Time stills
Drop slips
Past grips

Hand near
Wipes tear
Palm warm
Breaks storm

Floor bare
Grief there
Cry done
Dark won
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
July 2025
Lonely Tear
Jul 16
In the Quiet
Malcolm Jul 16
Where Every Kiss Becomes a Place
Let us not speak,
nor think of endings tonight.
Let our movement be silence,
our touch the language
softly,
not the empty sort,
but the sacred kind
that wraps love’s shroud around us
like golden threads of twilight light,
woven through your fingertips
and the hush between my thoughts and sighs.

A limber moon leans low above us,
its silver breath gliding soft
across crimson pale vanilla skies,
the last of the sun melting in distance
into soft violet streaks.
Even the horizon blushes
as you press your hand
against the bend of my arm
a wordless promise.

The scent of wild almond, jasmine trails us,
folding into night
with magnolia's sweetness
We walk the path before us,
unhurried,
barefoot and becoming.
Our footprints pressed in white sands
like an unspoken vow
the sea cannot erase.

Oh, this love
it tastes of amber musk and rosewoods,
a flicker in the shifting air
burning slow
with ambered warmth and playful touch,
like incense rising
to stir the heavens
and sharpen the evening stars
into thoughts,
and the sky
into longing.

Let us build our secret sanctuary
in the curl of the ocean’s sigh,
where every glance becomes a verse of a song for which we have no lyrics,
and every touch
paints love
in pastel strokes.

Your voice, low and deliberate,
threads through me
a silk ribbon tugging my name
from the silk of your voice.
I answer in skin,
in pulse,
in poetry.

There is no need to ask
where Eden lies.
It is here
in this soft constellation
we’ve made of limbs and trust,
where lips rewrite time
and our souls lie down
under the scented breath of dusk.

Hold me as if time forgets to move.
Fold me into the story
you’ve only ever told the moon.
Be the myth
and the moth to my flame .
Let me be the prayer
and the flickering candle.

Let us leave behind
not sorrow, but perfume
the memory of honeysuckle
clinging to air,
of warm skin
gilded by moonlight,
of footsteps leading forward
into forever,
where every kiss
becomes
a place we live.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
July 2025
In the Quiet
Jul 16 · 381
Magical love
Malcolm Jul 16
Soft light
Velvet night
Gentle skin
Drawn in

Moon sigh
Hearts high

Flame bloom
Lips swoon
Fever lace
Timeless space
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
July 2025
Magical love
Malcolm Jul 15
As Love Nears, Winter Answers
I do not greet the day with arms wide
no
I flinch from the light.
Love... is a slow knife in warm skin
and I, already frostbitten,
tuck my longing beneath coats of silence.

There is a chill behind your eyes.
Or is it mine?
Perhaps I’ve worn winter too long,
I don’t know how to thaw without drowning.

You came with a look
like spring pretending not to hurt
but I smelled the snow behind it.
Felt the avalanche between your ribs
and mine.

I wanted to stay.
But want is not warmth.
Want is a wound rehearsing trust
then backing away when breath fogs glass.

I am not made for soft hands.
I am made of doorways and drifts.
Of hearths I never lit.
Of letters I never sent.

So I leave before I feel.
Before the blood dares run hot again.
Before love comes too close
and finds no fire here.

I tell myself
it’s better this way.
To freeze quietly
than to burn
and beg
to be held.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
July 2025
As Love Nears, Winter Answers
Malcolm Jul 15
Begin each day
not with conquest,
but with a quiet intention
to soften the world.

Let kindness be your language
before your mouth even opens
a look, a nod,
a held door,
a breath that makes space
for someone else’s pain.

Remember,
everyone you pass is carrying something.
They may not show the weight,
but it is there.
And still
they move.

Live in a way
that alters a single moment.
Change the hour,
the silence,
the heaviness in another’s chest
by choosing grace.

A coffee left at a counter,
paid for by a stranger
you’ll never meet.
A whistle that fills the void
where someone’s laughter used to live.

Be the pause.
Be the small warmth
on a day that began in shadow.

Empathy
is not an achievement
it is a choice,
a quiet rebellion against apathy.

As Whitman said,
don’t just feel for the wounded
become them.
Understand
without needing to fix.
Hold the ache
without fear of becoming broken.

When you give,
give completely.
Anne Frank knew:
you don’t grow poor by giving.
You grow whole.

And in the giving,
don’t seek to rise.
Let humility shape you.
Not the kind that shrinks,
but the kind that listens,
the kind that walks behind
to see the world through another’s eyes.

There are those that remind us:
the world pushes success,
but love asks for service.
It is not loud.
It is not proud.
It is not in the headlines.
But it is holy.

Be the one who says
good morning
first.
Even when it’s not returned.
Be the one who sits with someone
in the quiet
because their storm doesn’t need
more noise.

You don’t need to change the world.
Change a moment.
A mood.
A mind that’s spiraling.
A heart that’s closing.
That’s enough.
That’s everything.

There is no nobility
in being better than others
only in being better
than you were yesterday.

So become a little softer.
A little less certain.
A little more generous.

You are not here
to shine above
you are here to light the path
at someone’s feet.

Let that be your legacy.
Not your name.
Not your voice.
Just the warmth you leave behind
in the places
where it was cold before you came.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
July 2025
The Quiet Art of Becoming
Jul 15 · 42
Thorns of Your Way
Malcolm Jul 15
You don’t see the harm you do
why would you,
when the mirror only shows you?

It’s always your way or the ruin of all ways.

No compromise, no bending, just command and blaze.

You preach your truths like gospel fire,
demanding love, yet feel no desire
to see the wreckage in your wake
the hearts that break, the hands you take.

Empathy’s a stranger you never knew,
and guilt?
Just weakness in those who do.

Those who love you—oh, how they fall,
on blades you wield, denying them all.

You wear the crown of your own design,
and call it virtue, call it divine.

But your throne is built on shattered bone,and in the end,
you stand—alone.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
July 2025
Thorns of Your Way
Malcolm Jul 14
Love is not a question whispered to the dark,
but a blossom daring the frost to bloom.
It comes not in thunder,
but in the hush between heartbeats
where silence leans in to listen.

It does not ask for witness or applause;
it is the feather drifting from a swan’s wing
as it cuts the mirror still lake of your being.
No blaze, no crescendo,
just a flicker of warmth laid soft on your soul
the feeling that rewrites the geometry of longing in all depths of understanding.

Many will search but you may find it
where whispers of gold dust gather on old windowsills,
in the unpolished spoon resting beside a bowl,
or the way your name feels
when spoken by the curling tongue of someone
who leaves quiet pauses for you to breathe in the moment.

Love wears no crown,
yet it rules the wind and raises oceans
guiding petals to fall where they are missed
and leaves to spin like dancers as they fall slowly
returning home from exile.

There is no map,
only the way the stars rearrange
when you touch the back of someone’s hand
and feel, for the first time,
that the universe answers in quiet.

Even in absence of all things, love sings its song or can be found
in the bent spine of a book shared once,
in the ghost of perfume that lingers on an old scarf,
and in letters written upon fine paper never sent
but folded like prayers
and placed beneath a moonless sky
as if the heavens were meant to understand.

To love is to step barefoot under moonlight in night air
into a cathedral made of warm breath and dusk,
to find within the remnant faint echoes of
a voice that calls you by your truest name.

Let it not be caged by expectation,
nor bent beneath the weight of forever.
Love is the art of being known,
even for a moment,
so entirely
that the world begins again
in the shape of your gaze.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
July 2025
Moonlight in the Cathedral
Malcolm Jul 14
Where Noise Can't Reach
Some believed I was a citadel
stone-walled, serene,
a monument untouched by storm.
Others glimpsed the fissures,
the tremble in my foundation
just before collapse.
But no one dared to knock,
to test if the halls echoed hollow.
They never knew
I didn’t run from people.
I ran from the famine
of being surrounded
yet starved of connection.

The inner silence I chose
was not empty,
but sacred
a chapel carved
from the marrow of self-preservation.
bright coloured mosaics
clouded dull
Because the loudest loneliness
sits beside laughter
that forgets your name.

I watched the world’s masquerade
faces polished like glass,
eyes glinting with absence.
Their words were confetti
bright, falling fast,
never meant to stay
blown by a simple breeze.

So I built my retreat
from quieter things:
dust, breath,
the pulse beneath thought.
I wrapped myself in stillness
stitched from nights that never asked
why I wept without tears,
my loneliness in the dark.

I remember warmth
like sunlight on skin
too long kept from morning.
I remember hands
that felt like promises
before they slipped into memory.
But I also remember
how a touch can vanish
even while it holds you.

Now, I live
in the space between collisions
where no one knocks,
no one shouts,
where the world forgets
and I remember
without bleeding.

Not lonely
just carved into solitude,
a sculpture of what survived.
Not cold
just hidden
where noise can’t reach
and silence finally listens back.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
July 2025
Where Noise Can’t Reach
Jul 14 · 39
If an Angel Loved Me
Malcolm Jul 14
If an Angel Loved Me
If it whispered my name
into the hush between stars,
would i turn
or would the heavens shudder
and pull me deeper into their breath?

Even one glance from you,
one touch drawn from the edge of fire,
might undo me.
I would dissolve
like moonlight poured into a kiss.

For what is beauty
if not the ache of reaching
the sweet peril of standing near the flame
that chooses not to burn?

You terrify me
in the way a rose might
if it suddenly spoke my name.

And yet, beloved shadow,
I call to you.

Not in fear,
but in the wild hope
that you might step down
from that solemn choir
reach out
and touch me,

barefoot,
radiance tucked beneath a traveler’s coat,
your voice no longer thunder,
but rain on sleeping skin,
of the lost.

I would go with you
without map,
without question
if only once,
your wings bent low,
not to rescue,
but to rest
beside me.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
July 2025
If an Angel love Me
Malcolm Jul 14
Whisper, and the Stars Forget You
Who listens now,
when a voice breaks the silence like a wing through frost?
Not the flame-eyed watchers above
they burn too bright to bend.

If one touched me,
even with gentled hand,
I’d vanish
a moth stunned by the pulse of a god's breath.

What we name beautiful
is the mouth of the storm smiling,
just before it swallows the field.

We tremble
not at the scream,
but at the hush that comes
before it chooses not to strike.

Every seraph is a wound in light.
Every halo, a blade.
Still, I call.
Not for mercy,
but recognition.

You, bone-feathered keepers of silence,
what are you now
but echoes wrapped in ancient dust?

Bring me no visions.
Bring me the cloak you wore
when you walked with the blind boy,
feet ***** from the road,
laughter like something nearly human.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
July 2025
Whisper, and the Stars Forget You
Jul 13 · 47
Poetry Streams
Malcolm Jul 13
Your thoughts flood the stream,
minute after minute — something new.
Looking for a like, or a heartbeat,
anything to feel something true.

When words are meaningless,
scrolling in loops of empty delight.
Affection is a thumbs-up,
a random like —  just casting for a bite, like fish in an ocean of poets.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
July 2025
For that special friend that posts poems flooding and burying everyone else's  with empty thoughts hoping someone will heart or like ...
Jul 12 · 30
Moments
Malcolm Jul 12
Moments drift and pass
thoughts engrained in time
dreams nest within our hearts,
eternal forever alive.

Echoes linger still
shadows soft on souls,
whispers of laughter lost,
tears never told.

Time may steal the day,
but cannot steal the spark
love once truly felt,
still burning in the dark.

For every fleeting hour
leaves fingerprints behind,
on memories gently worn,
but never left behind.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
July 2025
Moments
Malcolm Jul 10
Your breath bends the dusk
Aurora kneels to your voice,
planets hush to hear.

Even stars forget
their songs when you pass them by
you eclipse their fire.

The Nile would forsake
its mirrored gold for your gaze,
a flood just to touch.

Temples lose their name
in the hush your fingers leave
divinity hums.

Moonlight wraps your skin,
like silk from Saturn’s wide rings
the cosmos blushing.

You are not of earth
you are the vow Venus made
before time could speak.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
July 2025
She, Who Outshines the Sky
Jul 10 · 43
The Pen Is a Mouth
Malcolm Jul 10
Does ink bleed from the soul
because pain must be visible to heal?
Does the paper thirst for our unsaid grief,
drinking the silence until it learns to scream,
until even truth finds a shape it can wear?

Do thoughts fall like rain
through cathedral bones of the chest,
trickling down spires of breath and shadow?
Are they secret droplets distilled
in the vaulted silence beneath our sternum,
where old prayers and animal cries sleep?

Do naked vowels kiss the endless void
just to feel less alone in the dark?
Is that why words at time stumble and weep?

Is the flesh of thought meant to tear—
to be stitched to stanzas, raw and exposed,
heartbeat after heartbeat breaking in ink?
Are we the page,
or the wound,
or the trembling hand that writes?

— But tell me, then —
if the storm finds its voice in a quiet pen,
and lightning can be made of words,
what gods are we calling
when buried aches take flight?

What burns in the metaphor’s molten wings
when the sky itself must blister with truth?
Do we write to release,
or to be seen
before we vanish?
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
July 2025
The Pen Is a Mouth
Malcolm Jul 10
You summon storms wild
from whispers in the dust.
I forge new fences
from yesterday’s rust.

This life—a river's flow
with no perfect shore,
your tide, my drift
we've fought the oar.

I’ve chased horizons,
near and far
felt my eyes turn blue,
but every compass true
bleeds back to you.

We stand in twilight glow
where seasons we do not know
a softened breath held tight
between what was and were
and night.

And when the fire
asks us to choose,
we burn, we bend
we learn,
but never lose.

For even mazes
made of rue,
have secret doors
that open to the place
I always knew.
Malcolm Gladwin
July 2025
Compass of Ash and Flame
Jul 10 · 55
The Mask We Named
Malcolm Jul 10
We feared the wind when it came unbound,
it tore through rooftops, split the ground.
It spared the cruel, took babes instead,
and flung them to the river’s bed.

So we gave the wind a face, a name
to shield ourselves from nameless shame.
Spirit. Omen. God. A sign.
Not to change it—just define.

For pain with meaning hurts us less
than chaos cloaked in randomness.

When lightning struck a sleeping man,
we blamed it on a god’s dark plan.
A child was born without her sight
we said her mother failed the rite.

When drought devoured ten long years,
we answered skies with blood and spears.
Called the clouds a womb too dry
to drop her sorrow from the sky.

But prayers fell flat, and bulls all bled,
and still the sky looked down, not red.
So we split heaven, drew a line
one god for wrath, and one divine.

One to cradle, one to break,
one to give and one to take.
One for love, and one to blame
for knives that come with passion's name.

We built our myths to rest at night,
to dim the chaos with a light.
To say "there's order in the storm"
not random death, but wrath with form.

We gave evil hands and breath,
and dressed him in a court of death.
Not an accident, but will
a mind that plots, a vow to ****.

We gave him names: the snake, the sin,
the voice that speaks when trials begin.
Adversary. Shadow king.
The whisperer of every thing.

Oh, the play we wrote was grand:
a silver tongue, a fiery hand.
A trickster clothed in law and lies,
with deals that glint in mortal eyes:

"You need not wait for heaven’s gate
I’ll give you now, you skip the wait.
Beauty, power, gold and fame
just sign your breath, just speak my name."

And we said yes, again, again.
Not fooled—just tired, just weak from pain.
We longed for what he promised near,
and needed someone else to steer.

But here's the twist: he doesn’t win.
He knows the fire waits for him.
He gets his spoils, counts his cost
knowing the war is already lost.

We think he hoards our souls like gold,
but maybe he just hates the role.
Maybe he's tired, trapped in script
a villain cast who can't resist.

Yet still he comes, and still he speaks
at dusk, in banks, in tangled sheets.
Still makes the deal, still signs the slip,
still presses fire to the lip.

Because someone must wear the mask.
Someone must answer when we ask
Why mothers die with screams unheard,
and tyrants rot with riches earned.

Why children starve while angels weep,
and prayers dissolve in dreamless sleep.
Why saints go mad, and just men fall
again,
and then again,
and all.

We say it's him. It helps us cope.
We clothe despair in scarlet hope.
We give our dread a face, a flame
a throne, a crown, a hated name.

But maybe Satan’s just a role
a mirror cast within the soul.
A shrug from nature, dark and bare,
or worse—ourselves,
just standing there.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
July 2025
A Myth for Us to Bear

We feared the wind,
because it came without warning.
It tore roofs,
split trees,
and spared the wicked while lifting children
into rivers that did not care.
So we named it.
Called it spirit, god, omen
not because it changed the wind,
but because it changed us.
A named cruelty hurts less
than a meaningless one.

Lightning struck a sleeping man
we said Zeus was angry.
A child was born blind
we said the mother had sinned.
A drought came for ten seasons
we slaughtered bulls,
and called the sky a womb
too ashamed to weep.

And when that didn’t work,
we split heaven in half.

One god to cradle,
one god to crush.
One god to love,
the other to explain
why love sometimes
feels like knives in the gut.

We made myths
so we could sleep.
Because to say “the world is chaos,”
to admit that nothing watches,
nothing cares
that’s a silence most men cannot survive.

So we gave evil a name.
Not an accident,
but a will.
A person.
A personality.
A courtroom villain.

We called him Satan.
Adversary.
The voice that objects
when the soul stands trial,
personal scape-goat.

And oh, what a drama we wrote for him.
A serpent with speech.
A lawyer in hell’s robe.
A trickster with contracts and charms,
whispering to mortals:
You don’t have to wait for heaven.
I can make you rich now.
Beautiful now.
Powerful now.
Loved now.
All I want is
everything you are.

And we said yes
over and over.
Not because we were fooled,
but because we were tired.
Because we already wanted what he offered,
and were looking for someone to blame.

The worst part?
He doesn't win.
Not really.
He collects his spoils
while knowing the end is written:
God wins.
Hell burns.
The final gavel falls,
and the Devil is ash beneath it.

We imagine he wants our souls
like a hoarder wants trinkets,
but maybe he’s just hungry for meaning.
Like us.
Maybe he’s tired of playing the villain
in a play where the script cannot change.

And yet,
he keeps going.
Still makes the offer.
Still shows up
at crossroads,
in candlelight,
in bank offices and bedrooms.
Still grins,
still tempts,
still signs.

Because someone has to wear the mask.
Someone has to explain
why mothers die screaming
and tyrants die old,
rich,
and full.
Why children go hungry
and the pious go mad
and the righteous fall,
and fall,
and fall.

We say it’s him.
It’s easier that way.

But maybe the Devil is just a name we gave
to the part of nature
that looks us in the eye and shrugs.

Or worse
the part of ourselves
that does the same.
Jul 10 · 54
This Moment
Malcolm Jul 10
She’s right here.
Her body’s inches from mine
and it’s still unbelievable.
Not in the dramatic way,
not like in books
just this steady, solid hum in my chest
that won’t go away.

I watch her breathe.
Nothing more.
Her chest rises,
then falls,
then rises again.
And somehow,
each time feels like proof
I haven’t done everything wrong in this life.

The air in the room is warm
the kind of warmth that lives between bodies
that trust each other.
That kind of warmth you don’t talk about
because it disappears the second you name it.

Her arm’s curled under the pillow,
shoulder bare.
There’s a tiny freckle there
I swear I’ve never noticed,
and now it feels like I’ve discovered something
no one else has ever seen.

Her legs are twisted in the blanket
like she’s half-dancing in her sleep.
Her lips are parted just enough to make me wonder
what dream she’s inside of.

I don’t want to wake her.
I don’t want to leave.
I don’t even want to blink too long.

Because this is it.
Not a fantasy, not a memory.
Not a wish, or a poem, or an idea.

She’s here.
I’m here.
And the silence is full.

Not empty.
Not lonely.
Not waiting for something else.
Just full.

I don’t need more.
Not a word, not a kiss.
Just this moment,
this breath,
this woman
sleeping beside me
like peace decided to wear skin
and crawl into bed.
This Moment
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
July 2025
Jul 10 · 46
When Morning finds Us
Malcolm Jul 10
she's asleep
and I’m not.
my arm’s around her waist,
my face buried in the space where her neck curves soft.
it smells like us—like skin, heat, the night that hasn’t fully left.
I don’t want to move.
not because I’m tired
because I’m afraid the moment will slip.

her back breathes against me, slow.
that rhythm I’d follow into the dark if I had to.
there’s light starting to break in through the blinds,
drawing gold across her spine,
the little arch above her hips,
where I kissed her last before we drifted.

her skin—God,
it’s warm like the world never is.
smooth, like it was poured over bone just for me.
her shoulder, her collarbone,
the ***** of her chest against mine.
I know every part of her,
but still I look.
every **** time.

there’s this bruise on her thigh.
a mark I left.
not from hurt—
from want.
from holding her like I was starving.
because sometimes I am.

her lips are parted,
just a little.
like she’s whispering to the room without saying anything.
her hair’s all over the pillow—wild, tangled, beautiful.
I remember how I gripped it.
how she looked back at me like nothing else mattered.
how she took me—no fear, no pause.
that fire in her…
nothing else burns like that.

but now?
now she’s calm.
like a storm that passed but left the warmth behind.
her fingers twitch a little,
then slide over my hand.
she finds me even in sleep.
every time.

I don’t speak.
I don’t need to.
this quiet is louder than anything else.
just me and her.
no one watching.
no masks.
no pretending.

she stirs.
presses herself back into me.
and I pull her closer
like I’ll never get enough.

her body fits mine
like we built each other out of all the broken pieces that finally made sense.

outside, the world is already starting its noise.
but in here?
it’s still us.
just me and her,
and this space we made
out of heat and breath
and something I’ll never find anywhere else.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
July 2025
When Morning finds Us
Jul 9 · 93
Haiku Stream
Malcolm Jul 9
Whispers in the wind,
I posted soul to silence
the thread scrolls onward.

A single soft flame,
snuffed beneath the wildfire breath
of hungry poems.

Click. Another post.
They chase hearts like falling stars
mine fades in the blur.

Desperate fingers
fire thoughts like broken arrows,
no aim, just impact.

My poem, quiet,
drowns beneath their loud hunger
a voice in the mud.

Each line I carved slow
lost to the flood of wanting
what were they needing?

Not read, just noticed.
Not felt, just fed by the feed.
Echoes die, unseen.

I don’t need the likes.
Just a pause. A soul. A breath.
One reader who hears.
Malcolm Gladwin
July 2025
I'm wonder if they catch the hint ?
Jul 9 · 43
This Winding Road
Malcolm Jul 9
This ever winding road, the smell of uncertainty and despair
Thoughts buzz like little insects in my mind, mosquitoes
Days flash like lights or a candle flickering in the wind
Time passing like sand through the hourglass—so are the days of our lives.
Laughter as this thought passes my mind, but true
Screaming at silence I wonder what is it all worth, this life of decline
Moments and people, our relationships build but only to break
These are the thoughts that stick to my skin
That burn without a flame.

The end seems so empty at times
Strange how days and moments last when you're young but pass you by ever more quickly with age.
Life is like a roll of toilet paper, an old man once told me
“What do you mean?” I said.
“Well, the closer to the end you get, the quicker it goes.”
Didn't make sense at first
I thought life would stay like those long days of May
Or the running through summer or spring
Autumn—oh those red skies of shepherd’s delight, those rolling hills of forever more
Those golden sunrises of I miss you more
Left with only grey as days pass away

You only realize you're getting older when you start going to fewer birthdays with cake and candles
and more funerals with sandwiches and tears,
more memories than wishes
Trading tears of joy for those of loss and
“I’m sorry you're feeling this way, but it too will pass.”
The inevitable is—we all end up on the shelf,
scattered to the wind and the ocean or eaten by the worms
as we lay forevermore in the stone garden, a reminder that we were here,
Birds will ****, fly over, and if you're lucky, pass a plopping **** on you
to say you still were part of something, even in absence.

I remember looking to the sea once and thinking I own this life
only to revisit that same space years later asking why.
I asked the ocean,
Why do we grow old too soon and learn so late?
Why do the hands of time keep moving?
The reflection in the mirror no longer recognizes me,
or is it that I don't remember the reflections?
Those that I have loved—all things come to pass,
probably the most cruel reality,
and everything I thought mattered once

well look now that I've walked the path of the unknown,
upon the days and nights of yonder wide,
I've come to realize—well, these things don't matter much anymore.

Oh cruel life, what is this terrible game you play
of moth to flame, knowing it will always end in death?
In life subtly burning its wings off,
you knew all along—little children reach to touch the sky
but instead touch the sun and burn our fingers, one by one.

I know my time comes,
creeping at first it seems, but these days—
it's almost like they run, and I'm trying to catch up.
I know my time is coming, and even if I don't like this concept
it's how it is.
I know that time comes for me, and it will carry me forward in its wings
until the day comes where I no longer can fly with it like a dove.

And that's okay
because I know my words will scatter the earth
and find refuge in new minds, in open hearts,
and the distance of the souls.

As I walk this path, mornings come and days go,
night consumes and flowers bloom,
birds do sing and rain does fall
and this is what happens to us all.
Malcolm Gladwin
July 2025
Copyright
Malcolm Jul 7
I shouted up with trembling fists,
"Tell me, stars, why do I exist!
How do I shine? How do I last?
How do I burn into the past?"

I’m small—too small to make a mark,
a flick of dust beneath your dark.
But still I scream: “How do I rise?
How do I echo through your skies?”

The universe blinked, slow and wide,
and let the silence stretch and slide.
Then clouds rolled in and whispered low,
"Ask the rain what it longs to know."

The rain replied through windowpane,
“I fall, I vanish, then rise again.
Not all are built to carve in stone
some change the world by being unknown.”

I yelled, “But I want crowds and cheers!
I want my name in future years!
I want to matter—more than breath!
I want a voice that fights off death!”

The stars looked down with silver sighs,
"Ask the sky what fills her eyes.
Ask the dusk, the sea, the pine
they’re old, and wiser still than all time."

The wind blew past with tangled grace,
“You’re not remembered for your face.
Not for your name, or shine, or shout
but what you gave when no one found out.”

I slumped beneath a restless moon,
demanding, “Tell me something soon!
How do I matter, small and loud,
beneath your stars, beneath your cloud?”

The universe did not explain.
It wept in dew. It breathed in rain.
And through the hush, the silence spoke:
"To be the fire, you feed the smoke.

To be the name, you live the vow.
To matter then—you matter now.
Not for applause, but what you give
in how you love, and how you live."

So here I stand, still small, still bright,
still yelling questions into night.
And if no answer ever comes
I'll burn like stars whose names are none.

Until the day of mine has come .
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
July 2025
Shouting Small to the Universe
Malcolm Jul 7
I tore silence apart in my mind.
The universe spoke softly, whispering secrets of the unknown.
Unspoken truths fractured my thoughts apart
into tiny shards.
I watched it all crumble.
Meaning slipped quickly through the cracks of my hands,
where all logic folds.
Every drawn map of my mind dissolved
How would I find north
when my compass lies?

My dreams echoed lands unseen.
Waking to think of it made my skin hum.
A wolf moved in and out of my visions,
eyes of glowing green.
It was as if the mirrors warped.
Every door was a new question.
How could it be,
while madness smiles?

The wind blew intuition restlessly.
Everything I once knew trembled.
The trees whispered, Instinct knows.
I wanted to run, but instead
I followed the unknown path.
All fear behind me,
each step as unknown as the path.

My thoughts danced through each moment.
There was no knowledge to watch.
Facts pile.
Truth slips.
Hands empty.
Cathedrals fall.
Mosaic of every colour.

Wisdom now waits
not still, but circling above.
Its eyes are moons that do not blink.
It speaks in ruins,
and I follow where the path cracks wider.

The ground becomes dream—then memory—then nothing.
I walk barefoot across my forgotten years.
Cities built from questions rise and fall.
Rain falls sideways.
Time bends into golden loops.
A crow leads me down a hallway of mirrors.
I speak, and my voice echoes in languages
I never learned, but always knew.

The sky peels back into velvet stars.
Each one pulses like a heartbeat.
I remember the name I had
before language was born.

A stairway made of books ascends the sea.
I climb.
Clouds whisper philosophies too ancient to hold.
Mountains lean in, eavesdropping.
The wind tastes like fire and ink.
I drink water that teaches forgetting.

I meet a version of myself
with eyes made of clocks.
We trade silence.
We argue with no words.
We weep into the same river.

Forests hum with dreams still sleeping.
There are doors inside trees.
Oceans where light has never been.
Stars that teach me how to kneel.
Every creature speaks in riddles.
And all of them are me.

The road vanishes again.
I walk anyway.

Not gone—but woven through shadow.
No answers wait on peaks of glass.
Stillness rings inside the void.
Release doesn’t shout.
It softens everything.

Deeper than thought, beneath sleep,
we breathe the same breath.
We dream from the same source.
Thoughts ripple through unseen waters.
Echoes remain.

I hold nothing.
Fingers trace the edge of myth.
Questions spin.
Meaning slips.
Madness nods.
Silence stays.
Quietly looking into the abyss.

All is question and echo,
a dance between shadow and light.
Wisdom is the stillness beneath noise,
and silence—the place where knowing begins.
We are fragments seeking the whole,
walking maps made only as we move,

held gently by a vast, patient void.
of this great unknown.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
July 2025
The Architect of Unknowing
Jul 6 · 51
City Enigma
Malcolm Jul 6
Palette yellow of yolk,
silver guns—many—hung high on the wall.
A man sips whiskey in a short glass,
thinking three, maybe four.
Black coat pressed to brick,
he wonders:
What is it all for?

People pass—tall ones, short—
their eyes scan the street
like art for sale.
Men in white jackets,
women in skirts
with long legs
that could outrun yesterday.

And what if the guns
on that yolk-yellow wall
were melted into sculpture,
and the sky turned
from grey to night?

Sculptors and sculptures,
artists with red-stained brushes,
writers dropping clichés
like skyscrapers collapsing into verse.
Letters stretch like towers,
spaces bustle like streets.

Salesmen and people preach—
pitching concepts
to crowds like prophets in tailored suits.
The sound spills into the square.

Horns hoot,
cars hiss past,
exhaust coils in the air
like city incense.
People march left, right
ants with nowhere real to go.

A man taps a bucket drum
metal echoes in rhythm.
The cling-clang of falling change
fills his heart with warmth
but not the scarf
that guards him at night.

Coffee steam and scattered chatter
ghost through his thoughts.
Green light: go.
Amber: maybe go faster.
Red: stop, or forget to look back.

A man in a pressed white shirt,
Italian shoes,
watches it all.
Importance—just a trick of the mind.

Windows sparkle in every direction—
selling what we crave,
but never need.
Cliché,
but honest.

And in the center,
beneath neon breath,
a statue—bronze and copper—
shines.

A buffalo.
Mighty.
Fighting off a leopard
as it leaps upon his rear.
What did the artist feel
when tool met form?
What soul spilled
into metal?

Around me
reds, blues, greens, yellows.
Purple sweaters
draped like royalty.
Name-brand blazers,
black shoes polished
like ambition.
A black-and-white scarf
like city stripes.

This place hums
with sound, with scent,
with people and pulse.
Billboards beam
scenes that feel
like a worm becoming butterfly.

This is the city I live.
Alive. With potential.

Yet so many
walk head down,
clutching yesterday’s newspaper
like it still breathes truth.

And then—
I met the flower seller.
A basket of blooms at her hip,
bunches of color
and single red roses
like soft weapons of the heart.

“Buy these for someone special,”
she said with a smile.
And I thought, who could that be?

I paid.
Clutched the roses
as their thorns pricked my hand
love is just like this,
a sharp poke
wrapped in beauty.

She smiled,
a kindness in her eyes
as I walked away
holding six red roses
with no one to give them to.

It’s strange
how women smile
when a man carries flowers
like a banner of romance.
They think: some lucky woman.
But the truth?
I bought them out of pity.
They had no home.

So I gave them away.

To strangers
not for beauty,
but for need.
Left one on a park bench.
Another at the feet of a sleeping person.
One placed gently
on a café table
where a woman sat alone,
a waiter laying down the bill.

She declined.
I left it anyway.
And walked off.

Looking back,
she held it.
Smiling.

The final rose I held close for a moment,
stopping a couple walking hand in hand.
“Excuse me,” I said, “this is for you.”
The gesture caught them off guard.

This is what the world needs more of.
More cling-clang of change
in a busker’s bucket.
More roses
for those who need a reason to smile.
More quiet kindnesses
that ripple outward.

And then I moved
toward the subway,
where people crowd the cars
everyone going somewhere.
Who knows where?

A pregnant woman stepped on,
her hand resting on the small of her back.
Someone stood,
offering their seat
without a word.

I caught their eye,
nodded,
and smiled
a silent thank you
carried in the crowd.

Everyone
going
somewhere.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
City Enigma
July 2025
Malcolm Jul 6
My thoughts are terracotta armies
not for war,
but for remembering.
Buried beneath the sleep-skin of time,
fragile, intentional,
but already forgetting
what they were meant to protect.

Each soldier a hypothesis.
Each silence, a map.
Each crack—a failed attempt
to understand why people leave
even when they say they won’t.

Dreams flow like soldered platinum,
beautiful in the way
only toxic metals shimmer
they promise softness,
but dry into armor
you didn’t ask to wear.

I don’t mind the impact,
the crash,
the unpredictable tide of another’s undoing
because even oceans
must exhale.
Even the storm eventually
forgets your name.

But I remember falling.

Not once.
Not dramatically.
Just…
incrementally.

Falling into love that wasn’t ready.
Falling through logic
patched with performance.
Falling for eyes
that said everything
and meant none of it.

They say time flows
but I saw it bleeding,
dripping sideways
through the spine of a clock
that refused to chime.

We walked beaches
stitched together
from half-spoken apologies.
Moments, beautiful
but so easily rewound
by a sudden lack of reason.

And if I had a crystal ball…
would I use it
to avoid the pain,
or just to better frame it?

Would I steer my ship
to safer harbors,
or miss the waves
that taught me
how to drown gracefully?

My rainbow didn’t arc across joy.
It stained my palette
with residue.
Not color—echo.
Not hope—just remnants
of what was almost true.

Crows gather where clarity fails.
Gulls fight over the leftovers
of intention.
They don’t care what was meant—
only what was left behind.

Tomorrow came dressed
as an accident.
Today,
I misplaced again.
And yesterday
it whispered something
I wasn’t ready to hear.

Perhaps we should’ve arrived
with a manual for contradiction.
A diagram of desire.
An index of ambiguity,
where every should-have
had a page number,
but no resolution.

People say they love the rain.

They don’t.
They love the idea
that rain is forgiveness,
that wetness means freedom.

But step outside
and watch how they flinch.

They talk of dancing in storms
but build roofs out of denial.
They dream of thunder
but fear the lightning
that asks them
to be honest.

I drove through the last storm
and saw no dancers.
Just faces lit by phone screens,
cars speeding toward comfort,
no one tasting the grief
that falls for free.

And maybe,
maybe that’s the point

We’re all trying
to understand each other
through metaphors
no one agrees on.

We speak in rainbows,
but listen in grayscale.
We promise always,
then vanish between yesterdays.

And maybe that’s human.
Or maybe that’s just
what we became
when the gods
forgot to write us
an instruction manual.

Does it really matter in the end when the Rainbow Spilled Sideways
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
July 2025

The Rainbow Spilled Sideways
Jul 1 · 77
She Who Never Stays
Malcolm Jul 1
She walks where night forgets itself
beneath flickering signs,
past alleyways that hold their breath.
Not quite seen,
but the traffic hushes
when her heel touches the curb.

Streetlights spill down her spine
like a chapel of small suns,
and puddles ripple with memory
not rain.

She doesn’t look at you,
but you are already unraveling
Her name no longer fits your mouth,
your past left leaking behind her steps.

Shopfront mannequins turn to watch.
Buskers miss a beat.
Dogs whimper low like sinners in pews.
Something shifts.
Paint peels. Neon falters.

No perfume, no sound
just the scent of once-loved letters,
and a warmth like someone you mourned
standing just behind you,
never speaking.

She walks on.

Her dress, midnight silk
stitched with the hush of every goodbye.
Her face
you remember it wrong
every time you try.
Like smoke, or poetry,
or the space between subway doors.

Coins clatter.
Lights change.
You blink
and she is
gone.

Still,
you swear the sky
tastes different
since she passed.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
May 2025
She Who Never Stays
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