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Malcolm 7m
We love to hate, and hate to love
ah but what is this weightless, vapor-thin love we throw like coins,
sprinkled like dust, dissolving in air,
we keep the prize tucked for the deserving,
spilling naught for fools, oh, is this how it should be?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There’s no grace without truth
no salvation without the burning both:
light and darkness, love and hate.
This is the measure. This is the scale.
So hold both, feel both,
and you will know what it is to love.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
August 2024
The Balance between Love & Hate
Malcolm 18m
Fields blur, rivers drown beneath a murmur
slow tides, flowing, cracking soft like glass.
I seek no fame, nor glory’s fractured furor,
just roots that dig, where time is lost to pass.

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

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

I find no peace, except in stillness there,
in rivers’ hum, their endless, boundless air.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
November 2024
My Thoughts of Tranquility (Sonnet)
Malcolm 23m
To watch the clear night skies, with what words and with which poem or brush can I at last shine a light on the mind of the searcher,  
  
With what can I explicitly explain the divinity and sacredness of the stars of which cannot be seen, knowing with a depth of certainty they are there without changing the meaning,  
  
How do I express myself when magnificence is just something wrapped in mediocrity in fair comparison, when searching to expose the truth and beauty of nature in the things that I cannot explain,  
  
To try and explain a clear night sky, is to trace unseen paths, with words that last less than a minute in time or a shadow cast by the silhouettes of stars upon stars,  
  
Sewn in threads so faint, they evade the light  
and yet brilliant, unbending, and alive.  
  
With what can you completely explore the hidden things one can not see, What words, then, can unravel this weave of the universe?  
  
What poem might pour out the shimmering sparkle that in a glance would be more words brushed carefully across the empty canvas, whose gaze rides the waves of darkness, endlessly longing for a gleam beneath the calm?  
  
And in that patient dark, we find with no voice to map it, no line to confine it, the hidden things, gliding just beyond our reach,  
whispering what cannot be spoken, all nestled within an untouched piece of paper,  
  
O to draw out the truths of beauty and nature,
that escape us in daylight, that defy our senses when only ink and the quiet hand remain on wordless scroll.  
  
Always searching to expose the truth and beauty and nature of things that we try explain with words.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
November 2024
To watch the Clear Night Sky
Malcolm 29m
Death is not the opposite of life, but part of it, like rain drops run to a stream, an flowers wilt,
It's releasing us from suffering, everything new grows old and bodies fade away.      
      
Do not fear death my friend, it's comes for you and me, It is as much a part of life as living,
The destination we will see.      
      
Those who have truly lived deeply, bare no fear of the end, for this might be the beginning where spirits now transcend.        
      
We live on until the ripples of our existence fades and our cause in the world dies away,    
Until the light we brought in us ceases and stops shining eternal we will stay.      
      
Our souls rise, moving to the next stage,        
this is what really matters you see,      
Our existence isn't ending just moving momentarily.      
      
Scattered by the storm, as fleeting clouds flee,
with our last gasped breath, spirit flows out, blown like strong gusts lifting the dust from mountain tops.      
      
Time devours all bodies slowly, we cant destroy a soul, maybe life the rehearsal all part of final goal.    
      
We lives on in every heart we touch and every life we change, live life with meaning is more important than a existence lead in vain.      
      
Memories don’t grow old, they are true treasures don't you see, held close reminding us that as all must go, this is the inevitable unfortunately.      
      
Nothing can replace what is lost ,but nothing can take what is remembered        
Today we feel the sorrow,
comforting for memories tomorrow.      
      
Remember these small truths, we were born alone and we shall die alone,        
Everything begged borrowed and stolen will stay behind as we arrived empty-handed      
and will leave barefooted.      
      
Our comings and goings, they are just different parts of one life entangled in the spring flowers , summer sun, winter’s white snow, and the clear wind moving white clouds and autumn leaf.      
      
We were born into this world and will leave at our deaths for what is life really, but a test.      
      
The moon reflected in puddle of water,        
A flower floating in the deep blue sky,        
Is life just a river in which we will all drown and die .      
      
Do not cry for death, but celebrate life.      
Pain is the price we pay for love and death the mirror in which life’s meaning reflects.      
      
We can hold onto love and don't need to let it go, but like the rose all beauty shall eventually fall , hold onto to those you love until you hear the call.      
      
For nothing in life is guaranteed, not even tomorrow, take the moments and make it count for remember after joy comes sorrow.      
The warm touch of life lingers far longer      
than death’s sting and with new seasons, happiness brings.      
      
But everyone we know , eventually has to go ....
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
November 2024
Reflections on Parting
33m · 16
Letters To Heaven
Malcolm 33m
I wrote you a letter, I’m wondering why,
why am I left with no answer, no simple reply,
No voice from heaven—no voice from the sky.
Surely—did you leave, O God? Did you die?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Down on my knees—just asking you why
Are you there, God? Or just another lie?
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
August 2024
Letters to Heaven
Malcolm 39m
I.
your gaze slithers through the twisted veins of dead poets,
a thief in blackened lace, tearing the soft fabric of breath
that once fluttered with the sacred pulse of truth—
now hollowed, mimicking, shapeshifting
through stolen syllables,
godless echoes turning raw passion into nothing
but an empty mouthful of lies.
you feast on them,
no debt paid, no soul bled dry.
just shadows,
cut from the same thread as a thousand hollow promises.

II.
these poetic vampires,
charlatans in the midnight glow,
they hang in the dust of forgotten words,
cloaked in borrowed fire,
spinning webs of mimicry,
pieces of something they’ll never grasp
but only burn their hands trying to touch.
no vision, no spark—
only hollow ruins of what was once real,
a labyrinth of crumbling phrases
that mean nothing when not your own.

III.
do you hear it?
the softest whisper beneath your skin—
the screech of every stolen thought,
every idea wrung dry by the leeching lips
of the mindless vulture?
these vamps don’t bleed for their art,
they carve it from the veins of others,
siphoning life from the fragile pulse
of a poet’s heart.
they turn creation to imitation,
craft to crime.
they wear it like a crown,
yet stumble on the ruins they refuse to acknowledge,
mimics of the gods,
drunk on borrowed blood,
cursed by the very lack they breed in their veins.

IV.
you think we don’t see you?
slipping through cracks in the world,
hunting for the spark you’ll never own—
we see you,
lurking with eyes full of false praise
and hearts too dead to ignite
the words you’ve stolen
from the graveyards of true creators.
see how you wear their masks draped on blank face,
but cannot touch their fire or grasp the flame ,
for the Muse does not visit those
who steal her name, or claim something that is not.

V.
your words are as hollow as your soul—
nothing more than phantom limbs,
reaching for what was never yours,
casting shadows on the bones of the real.
you try to reassemble fractured dreams,
but all you touch becomes dust
and even the dust burns.

VI.
and so,
like vampires, you wander,
slipping into others' poems like thieves,
feeding on the blood of words
you never had the grace to earn.
you are parasites,
cloaked in false inspiration,
******* the marrow from the bones of the truly dedicated
and you don’t even know how deep you’ve gone.

Do you hear it?
the hollow sound of your empty voice,
repeating what others bled for
but never felt?
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
October 2024
NOT ALL VAMPIRES **** BLOOD
45m · 11
Beyond Vision
Malcolm 45m
To glimpse the universe in passion's scorched pulse
and find paradise in both sand and fire,
we burn. We burn.
Where wildflowers bloom, *but never *enough.
we wait in fields
empty,
but never empty enough.

We cradle Infinity in our arms—
chaotic arms,
mangled, jagged
we capture Eternity in the chaos
of breathless calms,
flailing,
grasping,
tasting fire with bleeding tongues.

We see only what we can stand to see
what our blind eyes allow
gripped by the weight
of our routine,
our chains.

Wisdom at the door
but the door won’t open
just shadows play,
laughter echoes
too loud
too distant
beneath caverns wide and cracked,
and gray.
We seek, but…
We. Never. Find.

What if it’s all a lie?
What if we are the lie?
This thing we search for
the truth
hidden, buried,
locked inside
our worth.
Entitlement stabs through the skin,
deep,
deep
and we bleed,
but we still think we are entitled.

Then comes the call
from the heavens
but it’s just noise
like wind
we cannot hear it,
can we hear it?
It cuts through the sky,
exposing our scars,
our wounds,
our endless love,
never enough.

Love
it scratches through the bones,
whispers lies in soft lines
through vows,
through sighs,
through laughs that sting,
through silence that screams.
And we look.
Gaze
longing
eyes wide open,
but blind.

At dawn, the sun shatters
breaking in pieces
shivers down the spine
wolves howl,
seers cry,
we— we tremble.

Countless souls scatter,
unbound
free
but fear?
fear is still there
clutching,
clinging,
ripping at hearts
that turn from the night.

The darkness calls.
It’s never far.
Those who flee?
They’ll find nothing.
No love. No comfort. No hope.
Nothing but their own hollow breath.

Hands stretch
but the space is endless.
Journeys continue
but the end is farther than we know.
Steadfast hearts?
They break too.
Skies turn gray,
but still
still
Love’s guiding light,
never—never—fails.

Love
it knows no time,
no end,
no borders.
It bites.
It burns.
It leaves its mark.
Through all that fades,
through all that burns,
Love. Is. There.

Judgment?
It looms.
It looms like a shadow,
thick and choking
for those who arm themselves
with fear
they falter
they fall
before envy’s breath
a dirge,
a song
of death.

In robes of gold,
or rags of decay
truth is shattered,
broken,
a lie dressed in intent
good enough to sell
but never to heal.

The divine spins in the dark
scars and trials burn deep
turning the wheel
beneath the stars
unforgiving.

Teardrops?
They fall
but wings rise
eternal,
seeking grace
seeking answers
that don’t come.

Waves crash
on the shores of fate,
heavy,
crushing
yet the breath of heaven
is weightless.

Summer’s light
it burns
it outshines
the cold of winter’s breath.

The old man?
Reason confined
but blind.
Blind to the truth
to the lies.

Inquiry?
It flickers
like dying light
thoughts fade
we fade
memories burn bright
then dim
like stars that die before we see them.

And art?
It survives
in peace
in silence
envy falls.
Philosophy smiles
but its teeth are sharp.

The cosmos whispers
ancient, eternal, forgotten
and the questions?
They linger
unanswered,
forevermore.

What is truth?
What is time?
In every heartbeat
a rhythm.
A pulse.
A fracture.

Silence deep,
shadows mix,
blur—
and existence?
It never ends.
It never—ever—ends.

Thoughts like rivers
they flow
but do they lead anywhere?
Do we follow them?
Eternally.

Sun and Moon
opposites
but they bow to each other,
embracing their fire,
their light.

To dwell in Passion
to join hand and heart
is to seize
the void
to understand
the nothing.

It’s in the waiting,
the pain
the quiet truth,
that will never speak its name.

A sacred flame,
but no name
just the dance
just the endless turning.

For love is woven,
thread by thread,
by dreams that break
through our minds,
falling like autumn leaves
they fall.

Even when the world
grows cold
Love remains.
Love
it remains.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
October 2024
Beyond Vision
59m · 24
Porcelain Dreams
Malcolm 59m
Empty days drift in a world made of smoke and disguise,  
Made-up lies, a life of despise while she hides.  
A castle of echoes, a throne built on fantasy,  
Her lack of reality—this is her majesty.  

A queen in her kingdom of neon-lit haze,  
Words set relationships ablaze,  
Pretending to raise while seeking pity then praise.  
Where nothing is real, yet she basks in the sunlight, acts brave.  

She dances with thoughts of grand junction, whispers her name—total dysfunction.  
Plays puppets with fate in her self-written game.  
Muppets won’t hide herself-pity and shame, just blames that always remain all the same.  
The mirror reflects, but she twists what she sees,  
Always you, never she—in judgment, this be the plea.  
A mask over sorrow, a false masterpiece,  
So-called naps her peace, or a ***** release.  

She climbs to the sky with a pill in her palm,  
Living a life of self-made harm.  
Falling through clouds that are never too calm,  
Deception from rejection—a subtle balm.  
Each high is a kingdom where no one can stay,  
Wakes up with nothing planned for the day.  
Here, she rules it alone 'til it fades into grey,  
A princess used to just getting her way.  

Fingers trace scars in the shape of regret,  
Asks for forgiveness yet never forgets.  
Yet every wrong turn is a debt but never regrets,  
Loves the game, making blind bets.  
Blames fate, blames love, blames the air that she breathes,  
Blames life for the moment and strife.  
But never the hand that tugs at the seams,  
Never the reason for the clouds with no dreams.  

Jealousy coils like a snake in her chest,  
Wants investment but keeps losing the test.  
Clinging to ghosts, never laying to rest.  
A doll made of glass, fragile, untrue,  
Cracks in the surface let everything through.  

She plays at being something—a star, a delight—  
But eager to always stir and fight.  
Yet sinks with the sunrise and fades with the night,  
Porcelain dreams crumble fast and never last,  
Leaving her lost in the wreckage that won’t pass.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
February 2025
PORCELAIN DREAMS
Malcolm 1h
They chatter and bicker, they shriek and they wail,
preach heaven through headlines, through panic for sale.
They conjure up villains, then rewrite the plot,
twist facts into fiction, then swear it’s not.
They march for their causes with signs in their hands,
then torch every city to make their demands.
They scream for their freedoms while begging for chains,
then ask why their suffering circles the drain.
They live in delusion, in comfort they choke,
addicted to outrage, enslaved to the joke.

They click and they swipe, they consume and obey,
then wonder why meaning keeps slipping away.
They trust in the cameras, the filters, the screens,
then wonder why nothing is quite what it seems.
They follow like cattle, they kneel and they cheer,
then cry when their shepherds just feed them to fear.
They buy all the answers, they swallow the lies,
then claim to be woke with their unopened eyes.
They live in a bubble where nothing is real,
where truth is decided by trending appeal.

They gamble their futures on luck and a prayer,
believing in fairness that isn't quite there.
They wait for a savior, a trick, a new pill,
a way to succeed without climbing the hill.
They trust in the system while spitting it back,
then whine when their fortune erodes into lack.
They swear they are rebels while marching in line,
then curse all dissenters for stepping outside.
They live for convenience, for ease, for the show,
but wonder why purpose is something unknown.

Look up from the noise, let the static collapse.
The world isn’t waiting to hand you a map.
No answers are hiding in scrolls or in screens,
just fire in your hands—or the dust in between.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
March 2025
The World Has Gone Mad
These are part of poems that are from DU
Malcolm 1h
Bone-silted river bleeds backward,
tide-swallowed and unspooled,
coffin-seamed decades slouch against a cindered skyline—
time, a lichen-laced beast, starved-thin and echo-lost,
chewing the wax-dripped minutes that slip like marrow through dusk.

Iron-tasting hours blister against frost-scabbed bones,
flesh-stitched days unravel, splinter-throated and root-bound,
where clock-hands wilt, tendon-thin and grave-damp,
melting into brine-brittle pools beneath sun-scoured echoes.

Fog-clot visions smear across the moth-blurred dawn,
where hours, once ember-warmed, now lurch husk-heavy,
drift-staggered through hollow-gnawed winter’s crooked teeth,
grinding time into dust, whispering hearth-ruined lullabies.

Mildewed seconds slouch in the tomb-hushed lull,
glass-limbed and unspooled, a slow-rotting memory,
half-woken, slipping between the cracks of lichen-laced skin—
and here I remain,
splintering beneath time’s indifferent weight.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
February 2025
Wax-Dripped Memory

This was written to embody the surreal, fragmented decay of time, warping and collapsing in on itself like Dali’s melting clocks. It's meant to twist and turn making memory feel both infinite and eroding at once.

If you don't know the painting I'm referring to you need to perhaps google it to understand this poem
Malcolm 1h
Dreaming under clouds,
moonlight shines upon the fields,
truth is foretold now.

Beast upon the moor,
softly speaks the song of wind,
dream is given gift.

Healing in thy dream,
stone-laid path is long and hard,
light embraces thee.

Fate is under night,
dream-traveling mind is glad,
bright rest in gold shines.

Thou hast named the dream,
wind-blown was my spoken word,
moon now seeks for thee.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
March 2025
Seeking Dreams under moonlight

Written in haiku flow
Malcolm 1h
Fingertip reaches—rose glass-fractured sky,
but the world keeps turning, indifferent, blind.
We watch, we wait, we sift through the fallen ashes—
searching for warmth in a fire long gone.

Ghosts of wanting drift through the ebb,
feet sinking in time’s marrow-thick river.
Clawing at the hilltop, slipping, gasping—
but do we climb or just fall slower?

Love hums then shatters,
echoes down corridors we dare not tread.
The oaken river swallows its dead,
birds fall southward, wings brittle with regret.

Winter comes for all—darkness too.
Light flickers, just out of reach,
a mirage for the desperate, the reckless,
those who still run, still chase, still bleed.

But what if the answers unravel the mind?
What if understanding breaks us instead?
What if we lose ourselves,
seeking someone else to make us whole?

Is life’s significance just a joke told in passing,
laughter drowned in the howl of the void?
If misery loves company,
why do so many stand alone?
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
March 2025
Wanderers on the Edge
Malcolm 1h
Oh the Innocence  
That laugh, that wild howling in the throat of the child,  
Unseen fingers scramble for the last thread of light  
Here, the angels are naked,  
no wings to catch their fall.  
The river splits,  
splashes,  
and chaos is born  
from the lips of the unholy, the pure.  

There be our Divinity  
slips beneath the skin like rust on gold
a fractured god,  
broken in pieces,  
spilled across the morning,  
the moon forgets its name.  
Prophecies?  
Laughing in the dust,  
twisted and torn,  
a thousand whispers claw at the sky  
but none reach.  

Imagination is the distant echo—  
a door slammed shut by a thousand hands,  
and what vision is left?  
A trembling shadow.  
What light?  
What reflection?  
It’s nothing but a crack in the glass,  
and through it, you see everything and nothing  
all at once.  

Oh but thou Morality  
it’s a rotten fruit in the mouth of the blind,  
an oath spat on the ground  
before it crumbles to dust.  
What holds us here?  
Nothing but the gnashing teeth of the broken,  
screaming freedom that never comes,  
but always dances on the edge of our minds  
like a mad bird  
torn from the sky,  
its wings flapping in the void.  

Oppression is the song they sing,  
but we?  
We are the ghosts who scream in the dark,  
rising,  
rising,  
again and again.  
Flesh torn and reborn.  
A shout in the streets—  
but where is the end of the road?  
No path but the storm’s eye,  
no sky but the bleeding horizon.  

Shall he call it Mysticism?  
A thousand tongues, a thousand eyes—  
but no one looks.  
The trees scream their roots into the soil,  
but who hears?  
Who listens?  
A leaf flutters in the wind,  
and the world spins—  
twisted—  
a thousand faces in a mirror that is shattered  
but still reflects
what?  
What?  
What do you see with blinded eyes !  

Where doth Nature find its whole,  
A scream of fire in the rain.  
Flesh in the dirt,  
bones wrapped in moss.  
Everything turns,  
and everything falls.  
Chaos is the language,  
and we are the words scattered  
across a broken page.  
No order, no truth,  
only the flood of thoughts  
rushing to drown themselves
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
March 2025
Shattered Visions
1h · 16
Oh Love
Malcolm 1h
Oh Love, thou art a storm! A black-winged angel descending, a fire in the belly of the night
Did not the stars shudder when first they beheld thee? Did not the seas rise in wild revolt?  
The hand that reaches, the hand that strikes both are thine, both bear the mark of thy cruel ecstasy.  

I saw thee in the lover’s eye, burning like a sun that knows no mercy,  
I saw thee in the trembling hands of those who long but dare not touch,  
And lo! Their fingers, turned to dust before their eyes could meet,  
Their lips, swollen with words unsaid, aching, aching, aching in forever !  

Oh Love, thou art the serpent and the lamb,  
Enticing while thee cover in poison comfort,  
The wound and the healing, the flood and the thirst!  
As rain falls upon dry fields,  
Wouldst thou grant peace? Nay, thou wouldst unravel the soul,  
Pulling the edges to circular  
Corners of the foreverness,  
Unweave it like the golden threads of the morning light,  
Scatter it like the ashes of the Phoenix before it rises again!  

I beheld thee in the clasp of lovers who whispered in the dark,  
And did not their voices tremble? Did not their bodies weep?  
Oh the hunger, the devouring, the tender wound!  
Love is no gentle hand—love is the forge where all things burn!  

And yet—do we not run to thee, arms flung wide?  
Eyes wired shut  
Do we not crave thy terror, thy ruin, thy resurrection?  
What is man if not a moth to thy flame,  
A pilgrim to thy tempest,  
A dreamer forever waking in thy arms?
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
March 2025
Oh Love
Written as if from the imagination of William Blake and Charles Baudelaire
Malcolm 1h
Here comes the end of the age of decodance
Echoes in the Ruins
Wild Puppets pivot in twilight past halls, their strings pulled taut by unseen hands of broken time,
Greedy profit parasites plundering pockets as stock markets socketed, mad
rockets launched while prophets pocketed coins stamped with empires' faces, unholy graces.
Glutted glitz blinds the masses, tongues twisted in gilded speech,
systems listed, teetering, twisted wristwatches ticking in sync
with synaptic sickness, digits drift, dividends split,
creditors cryptic as cynics scripted, their lies dressed in logic,
synesthetic statistics swirling in pastiche politics,
post-truth polemics lacing the air like poisoned incense.

Pious polluters preach penitence, pockets pregnant with prosperity printed,
premonitions predicted in numbers and smoke,
parasitic pyramids plotted, their apex casting shadows on placated crowds.
Automation aggrandized, algorithms agonized, their ghosts humming
through banks baptized in blood, through blockchain baptized,
through barcodes branded on hands of the willing.
Black budgets bandied, corrupt clerics convulsing on camera,
echo chambers echoed, econometrics eclipsed,
technocrats tethered to theological terrors, to visions of progress rotting in its womb.

Terror tethered to territorial temperaments, territories torched,
treaties torn in backrooms where titans are tolerated.
Tabloids titillated, surveillance sanctioned, sanctuaries seized,
syndicates strengthened as stratospheres strangled,
markets metastasized, materiality maximized,
manufactured malice, mandated madness—
and history’s ulcer bursts, bleeding bronze and silicon.

Machiavellian ministers monitor mindscapes,
scaffolded screens scream, sanctioned streams scheme,
psychosomatic psychoanalysis packaged, sterilized,
synthetic saints rise and static surges,
stimuli strangling senses, societies spaghettified,
atrophied archetypes advertised aggressively—
manicured messiahs monopolized, meaning mechanized,
megacities metastasizing, paradise plagiarized,
systems sutured, civilization severing.

Resonance rescinded, residents resigned,
vigilance vaporized, virtue venerated vacantly,
sanctions smothering sovereignty, servitude sanctioned,
sanctified slaves sleep soundlessly, dreaming in debt.
Revolutions recycled, rebels recruited, insurgencies initiated,
empires evaporating, evolution emasculated,
economics engineered, fear fetishized, faith falsified.
Discontent documented, dynasties drowning,
democracies defrauded, elections extinguished,
emperors enthroned on thrones of static and silver.

A wheel turned, rusted, crushed under its own weight.

War woven into whispers, weapons wandering,
bullets baptized in iron hymns, blood banks burgeoning.
History hemorrhaging, heroes hijacked,
propaganda proliferating in pretexts and principles perverted,
pacifism punished, plutocrats paraded, prisoners politicized.
Armistices amputated, antagonists animated,
allies assassinated, annihilation anticipated—
annexations acknowledged as activists anesthetized.
Airstrikes applauded, anarchy advocated,
conquests crystallized, constitutions collapsed,
conglomerates consuming all that was once free.

This was written before, carved in clay, burned in papyrus,
passed from the tongues of ghosts to our ears, ignored.

Power perpetuates, puppeteers perform,
pawns positioned, playbooks practiced,
plans pivoted, parables plagiarized,
prayers punctured, prophets pacified,
policy petrified, purpose perished.
Prospects poisoned, posterity pillaged,
plagues politicized, past plundered,
future forfeited, fates fragmented,
fissures festering, frameworks failing.
Fraud familiarized, fortifications fracturing,
freedom fictionalized, force formalized,
franchises fabricated, fables fossilized.

Functionaries fuming, fantasies franchised,
fraternal fractures festering in silence,
facades fortified, follies festered,
futures famished, faith forfeited, factions fighting.
Fission festering, fire final
until nothing remains.

What is left? Only echoes in the ruins.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
March 2025
Eschaton’s Banquet

**This is a poem you need to read carefully to really understand the meaning**  it's an elephant 🐘 and you need to eat it slowly
Malcolm 1h
Love sits on the windowsill, watching, / watching, / watching
not close enough to touch, yet its breath melts the frost,  
soft as a dying ember, cruel as the wind that snuffs it.  

Oh, I have seen love / gnawing the bones of the moon,  
worshipped it in the fever of hands that mistake  
devotion for the slick pulse of need
tell me, tell me, where does love end, and lust begin?  
When do lips become razors, and kisses become graves?  

I have kissed a ghost in the shape of a lover,  
felt their breath stitched into my ribs,  
and called it devotion. Called it fate.  
But love does not come home, it lingers,  
it haunts, it perches between throat and hunger.  

Lust wears the same perfume as longing  
a scent that lingers on sheets,  
that stains the skin with feverish scripture.  
And yet, love, / love, / love
it is a wound that hums lullabies,  
a flood that never reaches the roots.  

Let me love you the way ruin loves the cathedral
so sacred, so brutal, so inevitable.  

Tell me
is it heaven, is it hell,  
or is it just the way the heart breaks beautifully?
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
March 2025
DEVOUR ME, O DISTANT LOVE
1h · 16
STARING SIN
Malcolm 1h
It seems like a raw hallucination,  
a slow-burning betrayal,  
a collision of unspoken hunger,    
Here we are,  
The room shakes,  
a flicker of voices,  
but they blur, distant, static, pale shadows against the raw pulse of your eyes locking with mine.

Across the room, she burns like a flare
A flicker,
a spark,
a collision waiting to happen,
her body wrapped in midnight blue, tight as the space between us,
every inch of her, a story begging to be read,
and my eyes are the ink,
drenching her in fire
with every stolen glance.

Her eyes
green fire,
a flash,
a flicker.
She knows.
She knows what she’s doing
that slow curl of her lips,
that cheeky smile like a dare
just for me,
just for me to walk through hell and burn
under the weight of her gaze,
the weight of what she won’t say.
The room
all of it is fading,
shrinking,
too small for the things she makes me want,
the ache that rises between us like a wave
turbulent,
wild,
unstoppable.

The way her body moves,
a fluid curve of heat that sets fire to my bones.
She’s the reason I can’t breathe,
the reason every thought is broken into fragments,
each one more desperate than the last—
her skin, soft as stolen breath,
her throat,
her thighs,
every inch of her an invitation I’m not sure I can resist.
And I want
oh god, I want,
her skin under my fingertips,
her breath caught on my lips,
her name
no, not her name,
but the way her mouth would scream it
when I make her mine.

She smiles again
that **** smile,
too innocent,
too knowing,
and I feel the pull,
the desire curling like a fist around my chest,
like I’m drowning in her.
I’m already lost,
lost in the places where I haven’t even touched,
but I can feel it
can taste it
can hear her pulse like thunder under my skin.

My hands ache,
my body aches,
everything
the ache is unbearable,
but she’s so far away.
She’s playing a game,
a game I’ll play,
but she’s winning,
god, she’s winning.

Her eyes flicker down
a promise,
a tease
and everything in me shifts.
I’m not the man I was
before that look,
before she shattered me with just a smile.
Her lips,
her thighs,
the heat of her
it’s all consuming,
the air between us thick with the taste of it,
the hunger I won’t deny.

She knows.
She knows this game is hers to win.
But I’m already lost,
already burning,
already thinking of what we’ll do
when the space between us is nothing but ashes.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
March 2025
STARING SIN
Malcolm 1h
I seem to have loved you in the distant galaxies where your name is a star,  
A flash,  
A comet’s tail  
Curled in the velvet sky,  
Burning,  
Fleeting,  
Untouchable, yet I reach for you  
A body I cannot hold,  
Yet I burn, I burn, I burn, I burn,  
In the shadows of your absence,  
I burn,  
A flame too bright for this world.  

In every space between our breaths, the distance of forever,  
I see you  
Not here, not here,  
No not here,  
But everywhere, in everything thing.  
A constellated dream,  
Chasing me across darkened skies,  
Every pulse a planet,  
Every ache a nebula blooming  
Every thought a cosmos that implodes and shudders,  
Only to collapse into nothingness.  
You  
Unreachable,  
Beautiful in your silence,  
And yet I burn,  
I burn.  
Forever,  
my infinity,  
I burn.  

Love me, but you cannot  
Not in this flesh,  
Not in this cycle of light and dark  
Even though your love burns me—  
Still, my hands reach through the galaxies,  
Touching you with longing fingers  
That tremble on the edge of creation,  
On the curve of an unseen planet,  
This is where you will find me,  
You exist in my veins,  
In every pulse,  
In every breath  
That threatens to tear me apart  
From the inside.  
I burn.  

Your beauty is celestial,  
A flame I cannot hold, even if I try with both hands open,  
Falling, Falling, falling  
But still, I yearn,  
Still, I crave with utter certainty,  
To be consumed by you  
In your radiant coldness,  
To dissolve into the moon’s pale skin,  
To crawl into the wound of your absence,  
And die there  
Over and over again.  

But I love you like this,  
A cosmic tragedy, our cosmic story,  
Oh so beautiful and so cruel,  
Written in the constellations,  
In the voids between stars,  
the bright sky eyes look upon and  
across the lonely abyss,  
A love that cannot return,  
A touch that will never be given.  
Still, I am endless,  
Still, I reach,  
My heart scattered  
Across eons of time,  
Loving you in every form,  
Every life,  
In every death,  
That has become me.  

You are the black hole,  
******* me in,  
But I do not resist,  
I drown in you—  
Gasping while forgetting to breath,  
Every piece of me  
Torn and Pulled apart and consumed  
And yet,  
I am full.  
Full of you.  

I seek your skin in the fabric of the cosmos,  
across space and time,  
You,  
A trembling galaxy,  
A falling star that shoots across universe's  
Spinning tumbling and unraveling,  
A flame that touches me,  
But only burns in the distance.  
Still, I reach  
My hands torn by stars,  
My soul shaded in the darkened light that is You,  
your moon moves softly as it eclipses,  
My body worn by your absence,  
But I burn,  
Oh, I burn for you.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
March 2025
I BURN FOR YOU - Burning Through the Cosmo
1h · 20
SCULPTOR'S FIRE
Malcolm 1h
The air is thick, thick like flesh that knows no touch,
burning in secret moments beneath the skin,
breath—hot, shaking, wet against the pulse of desire.
It clings to us like sweat, like fire, like longing.
Scent of skin, of hunger, of desperate need,
something ancient, an instinct older than breath.
The world itself quakes—rational thought splinters,
fractures into stardust beneath our hands.
Logic is a wisp, a dream long forgotten.
What exists now, what is, is only the moment.
The primal call. The burning, yes, yes, yes.

I pull her into me like the tide pulling the moon, raising the oceans
an irresistible force that trembles in the marrow.
She is like an untamed fire, raw and pure, passionate and pulsing with a heat, a solar flare from the sun
that only I can ignite, only I can answer. Ready to burn and glow
She falls into me, into the abyss of my hunger, my depths, my eyes, my touch.
A body, a soul, a willing vessel made to burn, ready to be transformed, aching oh desires ache,
No words, no hesitation. Only the body.
Only the heat. Only the rhythm of me inside her and out, hands that explore uncharted lands,
touch is a command, a gospel written in sweat.
Her body bends beneath me, a canvas trembling.
Her breath a melody—a song of submission,
and she feels it, feels the worship that consumes her.
A sculptor’s vision, hands tracing perfection,
hands caressing, bending, breaking the earth into her.
Each stroke, each movement, a violent caress of art.

And there’s no mistake in creation.
No imperfection in the work of lust.
She is the clay. I am the master,
moving her, bending her, folding her
like silk under the weight of my breath.
She arches, trembling with an ache she knows will
soon be answered by my molten hands.
Her legs, taut with yearning, quiver as my mouth
paints her skin, brushes against her pulse,
marking the divine territory of my desire.
A dance, no, a war—each movement a battle,
each ******, a weapon forged in fire.
The air trembles with the storm we create,
a storm that cannot be tamed, only ridden.
Her body cries out—a symphony of sound,
a pure anthem that carries us both
to heights only gods understand.

I shape her, mold her into new forms—
into something so ancient, so untouchable
that the heavens would weep to witness it.
Her chest rises, desperate, a temple of heat
aching to be touched by my divine hands.
Each curve, each fold of flesh, speaks to me—
a map to follow, a map that leads nowhere
but into the throes of desire, raw and wild.
The sculptor knows what to do with it,
knows where her body aches for more,
where it burns with need for my relentless hands.
I force the air from her lungs,
force the rhythm of my pulse into her,
until nothing exists but our bodies,
trembling, shaking, begging for the world to collapse.
I am the beast. She is the muse.
Together, we break the laws of nature.
Together, we are a war between flesh and fire,
a war neither can win, only surrender to.

Hands dragging, claws marking,
lips tasting the wild language of hunger,
the world is a blur outside our fevered minds.
The earth could crack, the stars could fall—
nothing matters. Not now. Not when we are this close,
this alive. My mouth on her, her skin beneath my hands,
sweat dripping from the tips of our fingers,
our bodies painted with the fragrance of lust.
It’s pure, a violent purity,
an honesty too real for anyone to touch.
We move together, as one, as creatures of instinct,
each ******, each pull, a revelation,
each touch a divine act of creation.
She is lost. I am lost.
Together, we are found.

And the rhythm shifts—
my body becomes the drum,
her body the beat.
We become an ancient dance
from the corners of forgotten time,
a dance no one has seen,
a dance that leaves the heavens screaming.
Every motion, every sound, a note in the song,
a song so primal, so pure,
it’s the beginning of the world
and the end of it all in the same breath.

Her body trembles with the call of my touch.
My fingers trace paths on her skin,
like an artist mapping out the future,
and she is my canvas—soft, open, trembling,
waiting for the stroke that will change everything.
Her body melts under mine,
a wave crashing over her will,
shaping her, forming her,
until nothing is left but the masterpiece
we create together.
She answers, she responds,
her body moving in wild harmony
with my ferocity.
We are symphony. We are storm.
We are destruction and rebirth,
burning through the universe in a single,
shattering moment of pure passion.
The touch of my hands is an apocalypse,
and the earth cracks wide open beneath us,
swallowed whole by the fire of our union.
The oceans rise, roaring, tidal waves crashing,
swallowing mountains whole,
washing away the pain, the distance, the barriers.
The heavens crack open, as if torn asunder,
as rivers rage and flood,
as volcanoes erupt,
spewing molten passion that ignites the stars.

In the wild silence that follows,
she is breathless, undone,
but alive, more alive than she has ever been.
I watch her, and she sees me—
not as a man, but as a force of nature,
a creator, a destroyer, a lover,
a god who has pulled her from the depths of herself
and made her something new.
A creation.
A goddess in the hands of a sculptor.
In the hands of a beast.
In the hands of a man.

The winds howl, like the cries of the world itself,
and the rivers, like serpents, twist and coil
around our bodies, urging us further.
Her breath is the storm,
my heartbeat the thunder.
The mountains bow to us,
our bodies crashing like jagged cliffs,
shattering, reshaping, remaking the earth beneath us.
The oceans stretch to meet the sky,
swelling with desire, with passion,
as every drop of water becomes fire.
There is no distinction between us,
between the sculptor and the muse,
only the raw, endless hunger
that makes the universe burn with us.
Every breath, every moment,
every movement, an eruption—
a force greater than any volcano,
greater than any flood,
greater than the universe itself.

The world is different now.
We are different now.
Together, we are the fire
that consumes all else.
We are the storm that changes the sky.
And I—the sculptor—my hands still,
my breath slow,
watch as the earth reshapes itself in her,
in us.
And as we lay there, tangled,
the world begins again.
The silence is thick, suffocating—
but it is the silence of something reborn,
the silence of two people who have
become more than they ever were.
The world shakes itself awake,
and I, the sculptor, and my muse,
are the beginning of it all.
And it will never end.
Not in this lifetime.
Not in this moment.

Lust was never the sin.
Lust was the art of being alive.
We rise. Again.
And it begins anew.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
March 2025
SCULPTOR'S FIRE
Malcolm 1h
Who am I?
Not formed of parts,
but a fracture,
splintered by the weight of forgotten names,
the weight of nothing.

An assembly of fragments
swallowed by echoes,
sunk into the hollow of things never spoken.

TIME, split by fire, veins dripping with prophecy,
shivering in the hollow,
a forgotten scream,
shouting at empty rooms
(what have we become? WHAT?)

THE BODY, bent under the weight of hunger,
muscles wrapped in rust,
aching for truth
that is never here.

DESIRE, liquid and restless,
eating away the flesh of tomorrow,
always reaching, always breaking
(Is this life? Is this all?)

HANDS, cracked and bleeding,
trying to hold what was never meant to be held,
they tremble,
they grasp,
they tear
(why does it never stay?)

THE VOID, speaking in whispers,
it swallows everything—
truths, lies, your name, my name,
they are gone, reduced to ash,
all of us slipping through its fingers.

FATHER, who is a shadow,
MOTHER, who is a wound,
SISTER, who is silence,
BROTHER, who is a scream

THE SCARRED WOMAN, draped in nothingness,
her skin a memory,
her breath a cold wind,
blowing through the cracks,
and she—disappears.

I,
nothing but a witness to my own unraveling
staring into the chaos,
grasping at pieces
I will never understand.

And still, I stand.
Broken.
Unfinished.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
March 2025
SHATTERED & UNNAMED
Malcolm 1h
The Riptides of Desire
The sea
violent, endless
rips through us,
tearing our skin open,
salt & sweat,
bone,
breath
I am her storm,
she, my fire.
Waves crash
no,
we crash
our bodies,
splitting apart,
pulled apart by hunger,
fury,
desire—
my hands,
no longer mine
they are the tide,
carving through her flesh,
carving
pulling,
twisting,
dragging her under,
deeper
her skin
no, it’s not skin anymore,
it’s ocean,
waves crashing against us
against me
against her
our bodies locked,
twisted in the churn,
wet,
raw
Can you feel it?
She breathes me in,
she loves it,
the chaos,
the salt,
the burn
and the boat,
it’s nothing now,
a splinter in our wake,
floating, forgotten,
we are the ocean now,
together,
each ******,
each movement,
a wave crashing,
drowning in each other,
rising again,
faster, deeper,
until there's no air,
no thought,
only this
only us,
lost,
in the fury
the boat?
No,
it has forgotten,
it is the ocean,
and we are its fury.
Roar
like claws tearing bone,
skin is the world,
and I rip it open,
tasting heat,
tasting salt,
a vow,
my mouth like fire
every inch,
a storm pulling her,
dragging her body
into wreckage.
Her breath,
a wet snap,
gasping
skin splitting,
she loves it,
tearing apart,
not enough,
never enough.
We drown
together
in the swell
every motion,
a rip of sound,
bodies scream,
louder than the waves
the boat’s gone,
forgotten,
we are the ocean.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
March 2025
Riptide of Desire
1h · 15
IRONIC ISNT IT
Malcolm 1h
Sometimes Irony and Murphy’s Law
lend to each other.

The blind man leads the deaf man,
they debate honest politics
one can’t see, the other can’t hear,
while they are nicely seated
at the corners of the round table,
which has no corners but still divides.
The preacher damns the sinners
between paid confessions and rented beds,
his sermon reeks of whiskey and perfume.
He calls it redemption; she calls it a Tuesday.

The poet bleeds words,
the painter stains canvas,
the ***** does both, but she’s still a *****.
If she starved, she’d be a muse.
If she overdosed, she’d be a legend.
But she lived,
just another body in the gallery of wasted virtue.

The doctor dies in the waiting room.
The fire truck burns before reaching the fire.
The cop gets robbed at gunpoint.
The beggar wins the lottery,
gets hit by a bus cashing the check.
A man buys a gun for protection,
the burglar uses it against him.
The city floods after a decade-long drought,
the farmer's crops drown before the harvest.

We wage war in search of peace.
We bomb cities to set them free.
The soldier fights for his country,
dies nameless in foreign soil.
The treaty is signed,
and the killing begins again.

You save your whole life to retire,
then die before the check clears.
You pray for strength,
but your bones grow brittle.
You wait for love,
but when it comes, your hands forget how to hold.
You ask for honesty,
and they call you cruel,
when the only truth you find
is in between all the stale, day-old lies.

And when the show ends,
they’ll bury you in a suit you never chose,
in a box you paid for but never wanted,
under dirt you’ll never see
and they’ll say you’re at peace.

Isn’t that ironic?
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
March 2025
IRONIC isn't it
Malcolm 1h
What does the body do with a wound it cannot close?
A memory that just won't fade , a dream that replays a thousand times that you can't run from!
Thoughts that drown and swallow you from the inside out.

The wind shreds its own breath, bleeding rust between its teeth. Oh the taste of Iron ! All too familiar, all too real.
A mouth unhinges. Not to scream, not to pray—just to split, broken thoughts, empty.
Something shatters under the skin—bone, voice, meaning— lost , no where to hide.
a hymn reduced to marrow, an altar eaten from the inside out.
A stone convulses. A rib cracks sideways. A name chews through its own vowels.
The night is nothing but a muscle torn at the root, a cycle of endlessness wishing to wake,
Someone calls it silence. Someone else calls it a door, Someone else calls it just another day.

The sky folds its hands around your throat—gentle, terrible but real.
A shadow smears itself across the butcher’s glass, lipless, waiting.
It does not tremble. It does not bow. It does not ask for absolution.
There is no language left but sharpness
a blade taught to speak, a wound taught to listen.
The body clenches. The temple locks its ribs from the inside.
No light. No threshold. No key.

Bite down. The feast was never hunger—only teeth.
Only the **** where something holy used to be.
Only a body unraveling at the seams, ribs pried apart,
an opening that does not beg for entry, only release.
How much must be swallowed before the wind stops choking?
How much must be unfastened before a name becomes silence?

Something is laughing in the dark, carving its grin into the walls.
It does not starve. It does not sleep. It only breaks its own reflection.
The table is vertebrae stacked until they no longer stand.
Knives press their edges together, breathing their final, wicked breath.
The world shrinks. The marrow runs dry. The tongue dissolves into salt.
A prayer curls in on itself and turns to bone.
Something drags the night forward by its hair,
tearing the sky into something less than sky.

A door is opening, but not for you.
A mountain swallows a name and does not return it.
The wind waits, throat hollow, unrepentant.
What does a body do with a wound it cannot close?
What does a mouth do with a blade it cannot swallow?

How many doors must be devoured before the wolf walks through? Ready to chew upon the broken bones of the weak and innocent.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
March 2025
Mouthful of knives

— The End —