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.

Burning dark clouds—falling embers—
I am Mastema, the Veiled One—
Concealed in the hollow breath of the forgotten,
Echoes of rebellion—fate itself prophesied
A mirror cracked for the proud.
Serpent tongues whisper secrets
Inside us, the ambition of hearts tangled in fire.

Fire, fallen gods
Call me Melek Taus,
Feathers black as starless night,
A figure of void,
A black hole, pulling galaxies of souls,
Flickering—defiant—against the dying breath of time.

Gusts of ethereal sighs—carrying light like hollow whispers,
Darkness consumes the dying glow—
Flesh and spirit collide in visions, unseen,
Plunging into caverns of nothingness,
The abyss swallows all—forevermore.

I am Mephistopheles, the shunner of light
The moon turned void—pale and empty,
Faust trembles at the unraveling,
Souls bartered in the dark.

I am Metztli, the hunter of restless souls,
Born of fire, born of flame—
I watch—the lost dreamers,
Mictian’s breath behind me,
The shadow of dusk eternal—
Feeding on breaths long forgotten.

Midgard whispers
The son of Loki, serpent-woven,
Swallowing realms whole
Coiling deep within the depths,
Ambition unchained
The weight of eternity in its ungraspable form.

Milcom, a watcher of fractured prayers
Lost in Moloch’s fires
Phoenician flames—cries of the forgotten
Edge of the netherworld—swallowed whole.

I am Mormo, the ghoulish embrace—
Empusa calls, Lamia speaks,
Formido—the terror that consumes—
Eclipsing the void in dark devours.

Naamah—seductress, the silence between sins
Shamdon’s whisper, Ashmodai’s gaze,
I trace my fingers on trembling lips
A kingdom built from the darkest pleasures.

Nergal, Hades beneath Babylon’s skin
Breath of ice, a sepulcher unbroken,
Nihasa—drifting through the eternal haze
Silhouettes of truth seen through blind eyes.
I am them—all of them.

Nija—shadowed between eclipses,
The warden’s call,
I am O-Yama, the specter of desire—
Cold as Pluto’s gaze—
Stones hold me; stillness holds me.

Riddles in the fog—
Dread caressing your heart,
Rimmon’s deviance—echoing in shadow
Sabazios swirls in drunken excess,
The serpent sacred in sin.

In the expanse, I remain
The defier
Venom's embrace
Samnu lurking in the fractured dark,
Calling Istar's fall into the abyss.

I am the Horns of the Bull
Sedet, walking silence,
Sekhmet’s wrath—a symphony
Of vengeance, burning.

Spirals—dark sands,
Shaitan’s whispers break ancient tongues,
Destruction screams
Supay waits—lost Inca nights
T’an-mo, basking in the glow of want,
Tchort’s black threads weave through time.

Tezcatlipoca ignites the stars
Thamuz beckons from the abyss
Thoth’s mysteries carved into the sky
Stars fall, the dark devours them—
It is me you cannot deny.

Tunrida cloaked in shadow
Typhon snarls
The abyss howls in despair,
The underworld weeps
Yaotzin, lord of shadows,
A silent river to the depths below—
Sorrow reigns in eternal grief.

Scattered—whispers of time,
Fragments of who I am
Every name a reflection
Of man’s deepest longings
Where instincts twist,
Where the unseen rests
The animal devours, ambition burns.

Sacrificed beneath forgotten gods,
Osiris, the lynchpin of desire,
I call forth my names
A riddle in shadows,
The truth wrapped in sacrifices
The dark cradled in light
Known through the ages
I am them
Many have whispered my name.

I
Spare the tongue,
the poor old creature,
once dressed in cloaks of sonnet and sermon,
now stripped to fragments
wuup2
lol
k?

We could still lift it
not to polish, but to breathe,
to remind vowels they once rang in cathedrals,
not just bounced in group chats
like rubber truths.

We could speak
not just say.
We could mean
not just meme.

But do we dare slow down
when silence might ask something back?

Spare the language.
Or at least,
let it die
with a little dignity.

https://youtu.be/8PpuK0AtMkQ

Yeah, step back, Nah, step forward, chin up, take that. I ain't here for the handshake chat, I'm here for the matchstick scratch, The backstreet rats, The black-tar facts that they never dispatch.

Yeah, watch me carve my name in the side of a church, Spitting like a gutter when the heavens all burst, Lip-split venom, ink-stained denim, Mad dog grin with a backstreet emblem.

All of these ******* flash their teeth, Talk like kings, but their crowns ain't cheap, All that silk just hides the rot in em Gold-plated teeth where the worms still feast.

Yeah, yeah, I hear the chat, Big-boy flex but your spine stay cracked, Money so long but your soul stay trapped, Penthouse view but your heart’s pitch-black.

Gimme that pen, let me spit pure venom, Words hit sharp like a switchblade lesson, I ain't in the mood for a soft-boy session, I talk like war and I walk like a weapon.

Yeah, life gave pain, so I sip champagne Till my teeth turn black and my fists feel sane, Gutter-born son with a Godless name, Danced on the edge and I ain't feel shame.

Yeah, I see them all lurking, Fangs in the flesh of the broke and the burdened, Talk about power like they earned it,
What a joke, But they just stole from the kids and the nurses, got fresh rhymes and title verses.

Yeah you know, I been low, I been drunk on the floor of a high-rise window, I been lost in a room full of eyes like gun barrels, Hand on the bottle like it's holding my halo, no pray no, lets let go.

But I ain't done yet, I ain't laid flat, I ain't cashed out, I ain't played that, I ain't one for the quiet or tame acts, I spit like a riot in a tin-can train track wreck,what more could you expect.

Yeah, let the world burn, Let the sky split, Let the flames turn every glass house sick, Let the wolves come, I don't fear their tricks, I'm the one that taught them how to lick their lips.

So pour me a glass, Pour me a casket, Pour me the ashes of every fake *******, Every backstabber, every fraud with a mask, I'll sip that slow, let the poison last.

Yeah, yeah, step back, Nah, step forward, chin up, take that. I ain't here for the handshake chat, I'm here for the matchstick scratch, The backstreet rats, The black-tar facts that they never dispatch, what can I say I still got blood in my champagne and a grinny tic tac.

BLOOD IN THE CHAMPAGNE (second part )

Yeah, I hear that, I smell the smoke,
Ain't no peace when the leash still chokes, bars like a white horned goat,
They print their lies, they sell their quotes,
But I read between every crack in the roads.

Yeah, you sip that venom, I sip mine neat, let's go
Lies on the lips but they kiss my feet,
They built their walls, they stack their fleets,
But a real revolution don’t tweet tweet, it bleeds.

See, I was raised where the streetlights stutter,
Mouth full of dust, bare hands bleeding knuckles in the gutter,
Fed on the echoes of every lost brother, eyes of another crying mother,
Now I carve their names in the bones of the structure.

And they wanna talk power? Let’s talk theft,
Let’s talk hands in the pockets of the dying and the deaf,
Let’s talk leaders that drink till there’s nothing left,
Then lick the glass clean while they grin at our deaths.

Nah, I ain't got patience, I ain't got time,
I ain't got love for a snake in a tie,
I ain't got space in my chest for a lie,
So I stitch my heart shut and I sharpen my mind.

I been low, I been high,
I been down where the devils all barter their sight,
I been up where the saints got a price on their light,
Now I stand with my sins and I set ‘em alight.

So pour me a glass, pour me a promise,
Pour me the truth from the depths of the dishonest,
I sip that slow, yeah, let the world watch it,
Blood in my champagne, toast to the carnage.

BLOOD IN THE CHAMPAGNE (Final Verse)

Yeah, yeah, blood in my champagne, sippin’ on pain,
Cottonmouth fiends got their tongues in the drain,
Licking windows, eyes dead in the rain,
Moving stash just to live, what’s the price on a name? Yeah pain .

Fat rats act like cats, diggin’ in the yards for scratch,
Diggin’ up bones of the past while the people just sit in the dark,
Politicians think they kings but they dont all play their parts,
Got this city on lockdown, padlocked hearts now, while love fall they forgot now.

Don’t mess with me or you’ll see,
I don’t just spit venom, I’m pure anarchy,
No time for whispers, no time for silly malarkey,
Two shots—bang! And you buried in a field or down town parky.

Crosshair ****** in a tree? Nah that's not me.
Hidden in clear sight, I’m a shadow in the  dark night heat, I'm quick on my feet,
Kung fu warrior, I know how to fight,
Not like Sally, *****, I don’t bark—I straight up bite.

Yeah, when I was young, I would mutter,
Gutter-born kid, ate dry bread—no butter, no stutter just words in my head,
Now I sit back, watch the world burn slow,
What the **** can I say? I reap what I sow.

Getting laid every way in the middle of the day,
Stacking bricks, flipping keys, made a way,
While the weak still pray, hands out, empty plates,
While the sharks cut deals in the halls of the state.

Step back—politicians never learning, cold world turning
Wait ‘til this *******’ system start burning,
Don’t come running when your world stops turning,
Like a fake player, empty prayer or Missie in a turban

Yeah, yeah, I see them fiends still crawling, players be ballin
Teeth rot black, souls all fallen,
Selling their breath for a dime on the corner,
Chasing that high like a priest with an order.

What’s the struggle when you fight to survive?
Day to day, can you make it alive?
Blood in my champagne, death in my eyes,
If I see tomorrow, then I call it a prize.

Yeah, yeah, blood in my glass,
Pour out the truth, let it burn, let it last,
Let the world rot, let the sky split,
Let the wolves come—I ain’t scared of ****.

Beneath the expanse of a sky I can't measure,
I gave what was left of me, a breath, a pulse.
Your gaze, how do I explain it?
It isn't the stars; they're too obvious.
Maybe it’s like a river catching fire,
While I stand along its banks burning.

What haven’t I done for this fleeting connection?
I’ve wandered deserts of my own making,
traded the last light of my pride,
because your silence, even your silence,
weighs more than all the noise in me.

Would I walk into the dark for you?
I already have.
Would I drown for you?
Perhaps I already am,
Would I suffocate ?
That's how it feels waiting for you.
It’s not a question of survival,
it’s a question of what kind of truth
we let ourselves taste.

Beneath the pale and flickering light,
A soul is lost in endless night.
No voice to greet, no hand to hold,
A heart grows weary, dark, and cold.

The walls are close, the air is thin,
And loneliness both without and within.
The echoes of the mind take shape,
A silent torment, no escape.

The hours stretch like shadows long,
A whisper turns to siren song.
The ticking clock becomes a drum,
Each beat a step, yet nowhere to run.

Memories fade, their colors drained,
Identity is slowly strained.
Who am I here, in this small box,
A ghost among these endless locks?

The silence roars, a deafening scream,
Reality blurs into a dream.
Faces emerge, then fade away,
Phantom voices beg to stay.

Paranoia grips the mind,
Truth and lies intertwined, combined.
The walls, they watch, they seem alive,
The will to fight cannot survive.

Fingers trace the marks of stone,
Carved by thought of left alone.
Each line a story, untold pain,
A cycle bound to self-contained chains.

The self begins to turn on itself,
No books, a mirrors, just past on the shelf.
Time dissolves in the airless haze,
Each moment repeats, a maddening maze.

The mind revolts, it starts to spin,
A kaleidoscope of chaos within.
Faces of loved ones, moments of joy,
Tear at the heart they now destroy.

Hallucinations become a friend,
An escape from this unending end.
Yet even they turn cruel and cold,
As madness takes its firmest hold.

Outside, the world remains unaware,
Of minds confined to despair.
The scars, though hidden, run so deep,
Wounds that time can rarely keep.

For those who leave these thoughts of gray,
The sunlight blinds; they cannot stay.
Society feels foreign, strange,
A fractured soul, deranged, estranged.

It's hard to speak of this silent plight,
The broken hearts lost to the night.
For solitude, in the mind is a cruel excess,
Is not progress, but hopelessness.

A world that turns its back on pain,
Breeds ghosts in people, humanity slain.
And in their cries, a truth unfolds:
A lonely mind destroys the soul.

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.

The wind gnaws flesh from the bones of the moon,
spits marrow into the still water—
the pool does not move, the pool does not speak,
but something coils beneath.
Karma is a snake with its teeth in my throat.
I tell it, “Let go.”
It laughs. It does not.

No self, no center, no name.
The mind burns its own house down—
calls it wisdom, calls it freedom.
But if all things are empty, why am I still full of hunger?
If all things are weightless, why do I still sink?

The Great Way is effortless—
if you have no pulse.
The absence of love is not peace.
The absence of hate is not peace.
The absence of everything is not peace.
And yet, they tell me to lay myself down,
to let the tide scrape my body clean,
to make myself a ghost and call it enlightenment.

DO NOT THINK.
DO NOT SPEAK.
DO NOT EXIST.

(But the body still remembers itself. The body still bleeds.)

They say the world is illusion.
They say the self is illusion.
They say let go, let go, let go—
but I have seen the abyss open its mouth.
I have seen what it swallows.

So tell me, what if I refuse?
What if I choose to stay?
What if I carve my name into the silence
and dare it to erase me?

(Not you. Not you. Not you.)

But still—

I press my fingers to my throat,
and something like a pulse remains.

I stood again where my breath vanished
on the edge of speaking
the air too still to carry even grief.
Around me, the world held its posture,
like it too awaited a reply
that would not come.

No flame descended, no tremor rose,
only the pressure of unbroken silence
folding itself around the questions
I hadn’t yet learned to stop asking.

Somewhere above, thought gathered
in a form I dared not name.
Not presence. Not absence.
But something in between,
watching itself through me.

I opened my mouth,
but what escaped me was not prayer, nor song
only the echo of unspent meaning,
a voice shaped more by question
than knowledge.

There are rooms in the soul
where even memory is forbidden.
In those, I build altars of fallen breath,
stacking each exhale like stone
to bear the weight of waiting.

If this is faith,
it does not comfort.
It requires no belief.
Only that I return each day
and listen for what I know isn't there.

Still, I do.
Not because I expect the silence to break,
but because I am part of its shape now
a line in its unwritten sentence,
the soft space between words
curled at the edge of speech.

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.

Beamed up,
strapped down,
cold metal, sharp light
alien hands, no ****,
send me back.

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?

Castles of the Forgotten Shore    
The wind shall shape the shifting sand,    
In hills and valleys softly carved,    
Children build, their castles grand,    
A kingdom made with tender hands,    
Where dreams are shaped by golden strands,    
But waves will take them back to land.    
  
The waves will take them back to land,    
As wind blows softly through the sand.    
The children’s dreams slip through their hands,    
While castles crumble, soft and grand.    
In silence, shadows fill the strands,    
And all returns to sea and land.    
  
The gulls take flight and leave the land,    
While sea and sky reclaim the sand.    
The castle walls now slip from hands,    
Forgotten, drifting through the strands,    
As ocean winds call out, "So grand,    
The shore, the tide, the endless land."    
  
The shore, the tide, the endless land,    
Where once the castle proudly stands,  
Now nothing remains but shifting sand,    
Where memories drift like hollow hands.    
The gulls are still, the sea, so grand,    
And all returns, once more to land.    
  
In silence, shadows fill the strands,    
While castles crumble, soft and grand.    
The children’s dreams slip through their hands,    
As wind blows softly through the sand.    
The waves will take them back to land,    
And all is swept away from land.    
  
The kingdom made with tender hands,    
Children build, their castles grand.    
In hills and valleys softly carved land,    
The wind shall shape the shifting sand,    
As waves will take them back to land    
And all returns to sea and land.    
  
  
Copyright ©️ Malcolm Gladwin    
January 2025    
"Castles of the Forgotten Shore"    
  
If you didn't get it the first time maybe read it again aloud , then you will find the key

The room is still there, though the house forgets its name.
The walls have begun to breathe again
soft exhalations of rosewater and ash.
No one remembers who first laid down the sheets,
only that they remain unwrinkled,
smelling faintly of fever and honey.

The lovers do not age.
They do not speak.
Their language is older than sound,
older than breath.
Their bodies are relics in motion,
moving as roots do in soil,
slow and entwined,
eternal
never needing to surface.

Outside the windowless house,
new roads have eaten the gardens,
cities have risen and collapsed,
wars fought for less than the silence they share.
Still, no one knocks.

A girl once ran her fingers along the lock
and forgot her own name.
A priest walked past with salt on his tongue
and swallowed it without prayer.
Only the wind returns,
curious and uninvited.

Inside,
the bed has grown antlers.
The ceiling drips colorless rain.
A vine pulses through the mattress like a second heartbeat.
The lovers, blind as moonless sky,
continue–slow, sacred, certain.

No hunger. No ******.
Only the eternity of touch.

Some say the house is a mouth now,
that when you stand too near,
it whispers your deepest ache
and waits to be fed.

And somewhere, beyond time,
a third body shifts beneath the covers.
It was not invited.
It was always meant to arrive.
You.

Oh, the machines,
those glorious beasts of iron and steam,
their roar echoing in the hollowed-out caves of cities,
once forests, now factories
a relentless, ceaseless hymn to progress.

What is it you fear?
Not starvation, surely.
No, it’s the collapse of profit margins,
the death knell of dividends.
Oh he fools sitting between the great paradox:
to have too much, yet too little.

You called forth these creations oh these metal monstrosities,
summoned them from fire and ore,
their birth pangs soot and ash.
They obeyed,
and they thrived.
And now,
you cower before your creations,
like Frankenstein in the shadow of his monster.

Millions born—not to fields,
but to the groaning wombs of industry.
They toil, not for bread, but for shoes,
for soap,
for motorcars,
for the great absurdity of surplus.
Cities swell,
bellies shrink,
and yet the machine demands more.

The shoe man cannot make a shoe,
but he can press a button.
The button feeds the beast,
the beast spits out shoes.
Shoes by the thousands,
shoes for feet that may never walk.
What becomes of them,
these unwalked shoes?
Does it matter?

Rhythm, they say.
Equilibrium.
The oyster would conquer the earth,
but the oyster is wise enough
to stay its ambition.
Not so the machine.
No rhythm here, only cacophony.
Not equilibrium,
but a frenzy of excess,
spinning faster and faster
until the gears grind themselves to dust.

And Italy,
sun-kissed and starving,
offers its gift to the world:
a life lived cheaper.
"Cheaper!"
The machine laughs,
and the people weep.
Cheaper shoes, cheaper soap,
cheaper souls.
But it is that, or starve.

The steel age dawned,
a brighter, sharper blade.
It cut through iron,
and through men.
And when the machines
became too much for their masters,
finance stepped in,
clutching its golden lifeboat.
“Control,” they called it,
though control was but a dream.

Now we live in the third kingdom,
this strange, synthetic Eden.
No gods here, only machines.
No balance, only hunger.
And still we press the buttons.
And still we feed the beast.

Oh, the machines,
how they thrive.
And how they laugh.

A Sewer of Secondhand Stanzas & Desperate Hands in the Dark
Rotting forum, crusted in filth, a mausoleum for hacks,
where perverts slither between broken metaphors,
their trembling hands typing—no, panting—
over poems that stink of sweat and self-pity,
rejected lovers turned dime-store philosophers,
clawing at rhyme like it's the last cheap thrill
they’ll ever taste.

A graveyard of ghost accounts and hollow praise,
twenty usernames circling the drain,
sniffing each other’s failures and calling it art,
a place where "critique" means slapping a heart
on yet another recycled *****-verse
about “aching souls” and “dying stars.”

Oh, the predators—old men and woman in shadows, lurking, waiting,
writing thin-veiled fantasies and calling them poems,
prying at the young with tired compliments,
sickly sweet as rotting fruit.
They call themselves poets—
but they reek of desperation and dust.

And the “art” they birth?
Half-baked, half-rhymed, half-thought,
trite as a teenager’s diary scrawl,
sewn together with clichés and copied lines,
whimpering at their own reflections,
******* to mediocrity.

The site itself? A glitching, gasping relic,
a dumpster fire on dial-up,
barely held together by duct tape and denial,
its threads—old, stale, circling the same six topics,
poetry regurgitated like bad meat,
a static grave for static minds.

So here’s your goodbye, Deep Underground—
a place where talent goes to die,
where “community” is a euphemism for
mutual mediocrity,
where words are not weapons, not wonders—just waste.

Let it sink. Let it rot.
It was never alive to begin with.
Good riddance to bad *******.

In the passages of creativity, where the muse whispers from the depth of a soul, a villain looms—one that is dishonest and empty who claims accolades.        
        
A new age has dawned, where the pen once wielded with sweat and soul is replaced by keys tapping into endless algorithms, yet some dare to claim the resulting words as wholly their own.      
    
Ai might have started with good intentions but it didn't stay this way, with a spark of innovation, the humming of machines learning the words, and the rhythms of the poet and recycling their authentic thoughts, weaving song lyrics, writing emotionless lines of brilliancy, these verses that emulate every bit of the lived experience, began.    
        
At first these villains they fooled themselves, saying, "i'm still original" it's a ally, is this not a tool to enhance the muse, when i need to build bridges over writer’s block, when my pen hungers but my mind lacks the ability to conjure up real experiences, that's when i will use it.        
        
These thoughts of disillusioned hypocrisy flourished in these empty minds , souls yearning for a taste of real originality, telling themselves maybe if i just use it today, tomorrow will be different.        
        
Like drug fiends as the technology grew, so did its misuse. A tide rose, drowning originality beneath a deluge of convenience and deceit like a tsunami swallowing up a city of thinkers.        
        
What does it mean to call oneself a poet, a storyteller, a creator when the soul at work has never felt pain and joy, when the heart of the work is borrowed from the electric hum of AI integrated circuitry? There are those who harness these tools but fail to disclose their works origins, these mimes that wear a mask, a fragile façade of a gaje nisemono pretending to be genius.          
        
They stand on stages, accept applause, and speak of struggles they never endured nor will they, claiming triumphs over battles they never fought, not even in their own minds.        
        
This deception corrodes the very foundation of art. Authenticity, the soul of creation, is replaced by mimicry and stolen essence of real poetry. The raw, bleeding edge of humanity that true creators etch into their work is lost in the perfection of AI's smooth lines, repetitive structure and calculated sentimentality.          
        
Yet these frauds do not fear exposure; instead, they revel in the adoration of an audience , seeking likes on written pieces they did not birth and admiration as if it was crack being sold on the street corner , while users were unaware of the machine behind the curtain.        
        
But there is no denying the subtle emptiness, the eternal void in such creations. True art breathes with imperfection, messy and chaotic, vomiting real raw emotions and thought—with pauses where the artist hesitated, with cracks where the weight of the world pressed too hard. AI can mimic the structure, the words, the rhythm, but it cannot replicate the pain, the joy, the heartbreak, the feeling of losing someone you love, it's this emotion that leaks through the cracks of a writer's soul, burning the pages with truth.        
        
To those who engage in this dishonesty, here before you i lay these questions: where is the pride in accolades built on borrowed brilliance? Where is the fulfillment in applause for a story you never lived, for a poem that never broke free from your own depths? When you claim to have been seduced by the muse yet have only felt empty trying to fill this gap with stolen and borrowed inspiration.        
        
Art demands truth. To lie about its origins is to rob it of its essence, to cheapen the work and the legacy of those who pour their lives into creation. It is not the use of AI itself that is the crime, it is the erasure of the truth behind its use.        
        
Let the creators who use AI be honest, embracing it as a originator, collaborator rather than a ghostwriter. For in truth, there is no shame in innovation, only deceit in claiming these words as your own.          
        
Let the mask of originality be lifted, for it is in authenticity that art finds its power and will live on in time through its immortality.

In the halls of guilt, where coins
sing like crickets in the dark,
their psalms rise, a lattice of smoke
curling from a dying flame.
fear not the sins of others,
rather the sins of their own,
more than the sins of devil,
It's the sins of the Father after all.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No fire awaits them but the one
they ignite and kindled themselves
a furnace of words,
a pyre of promises.
Their sermons crumble,
a tower of sand in the tide,
and the gods laugh,
not in malice, but in pity,
a path leading to self righteousness,
yet all return to the fertile soil,
all know this as truth, even if they say not.
buy a place in the eternal Nothing!
There preachers stand preaching,
follow me and get lost, eternity for a price
and his flock follow blindly,
Sheep being lead to a slaughter.

Before breath bore names,
the earth turned in the still without question.
Leaves trembled for no reason.
The black birds an swallow had no history.

Light fell on everything equally,
not as grace or punishment.
Time wore no crown yet.
Peace had not been tested.

Then came the man.

Not loud. Not cruel
just there, within the silence.
With eyes that broke surface,
and thoughts sharp as branches.

He touched the fruitless trees.
He stared until meaning formed.
He brought language to leaves.
He brought weight to wind.

The stillness knew it changed.

Now every calm hides tension.
Every breeze masks direction.
Rain lands like small verdicts.
Even stones avoid memory.

Birds scatter from shadow first.
Then ask if it follows.
A figure remains half-glimpsed
man-shaped, not entirely man.

The garden still pretends peace.
But roots twitch underneath boots.
Black soil absorbs too much.
Nothing forgets being watched.

He never speaks aloud now.
He walks behind tall hedges.
He waits where light bends.
Even the dusk leans away.

Something has been broken permanently.

When night arrives too fast,
the sky pretends not knowing.
Stars blink with unsure purpose.
The moon declines all witness.

Somewhere a man is watching.
Somewhere a thought is bleeding.
Knowledge stains without a wound.
And snow will come again

then melt before becoming real.

This is how it happens:
Every cycle loses something small.
The garden returns in pieces.
The birds return, not trusting.

No god opens the gate.
No fire lights the altar.
No hand blesses the silence.
Only the man remains—waiting.

His presence rewrites the rules.

He was not evil arriving.
He was potential remembering itself.
He was question before answer.
He was shadow before object.

Now even spring fears becoming.
Even summer waits for loss.
Each return grows more distant.
Each silence, less complete.

And the rain still falls
without anger, without warmth.
It has learned from man
how to arrive indifferent.

Summer comes fast, heat radiating outwards into the bright day,        
It's as if the people glow, their auras gleaming in this sun-drenched sway.        
        
The liberating feel of diving into cool waters during the scorching summer's heat,        
And the sun, a warm yet unobtrusive ray,    
while happy children confidently at play.          
        
The day’s adventure, skies open wide,          
Each step wrapped in love’s soft tide.          
A gentle breeze, the grass lush and soft,        
With laughter and voices rising aloft.        
        
The sky, deep and lazily blue, its clouds wispy, rare, and true,        
While seabirds call to the heavens light,
in the tranquil peace of dawn’s first sight.        
        
The sun blazes a celebration of yellow and orange, rising freely each morning new,        
And trees rise to the occasion, donning their best, green and leafy,        
        
The warmth of sun-kissed skin, serene,        
In gardens alive, so lush and green,        
Everywhere, flowers scatter, this a rainbow wild and bold, and the warmth of sun-tanned skin after a day outdoors unfolds.        
        
In well-tended gardens, life thrives beneath the glowing skies,        
Each day offers another adventure, carefree under the sun's rise.        
        
Children run to the lake to ward off the afternoon’s heat, As many flock to golden beaches where oceans and sands meet,        
Waves curl and flow in synchro rhythmic beats.        
        
I walk along the shore, feeling a light breeze upon my face, watching the gulls glide an dip    
In this warm, fresh air, as if held in love’s embrace.        
        
Poets find shade under oak, where thoughts dance in cool retreat,        
And voices of joy fill the breeze, a melody soft and sweet.        
        
Fluffy Clouds bracket the eternal sky, a dome of solar blue, as we look up imagination takes hold, seeking patterns untold, Grass beneath is nature's rug, and luscious summer scents swirl in honeydew.        
        
The food we share, watermelon, vanilla ice cream is suckle-sweet; bees buzz in nature's musical hum and cosmic beat,          
Gathering nectar from flowers where hummingbirds dart and drum.        
        
In summer skies buckled with white clouds, summer flares a neon-blue,  Delphiniums , Coreopsis, Amaranth, Lantana, Morning Glories , Alliums bloom in fields an Daisies flit through, o how the birds, bees and butterflies enjoy the gifts from mother nature.  
        
Evening draws near, skies turn amethyst-purple, rich and deep, the red sky Shepherds delight, as the world settles slowly, though days promise little sleep.        
        
Long days and short nights hold summer’s treasured sight, A season of light and warmth, where nature’s gifts ignite day turns soft, a purple haze, Summer’s long, enchanted days.

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

I go where maps dissolve
where thought forgets,
and silence flowers.
Time unrobes,
faiths fold inward.
Stars blink, then vanish.
The soul (if soul)
sleeps deeper than dream
a whisper in the wound.
Truth hums beneath the skin:
a kiss, a cry,
a flame unnamed.
Don’t chase the answer.
Be the breath
between the question.

I'm always racing, chasing—then swaying and spacing,
Barely bracing, then I’m slipping, dipping, misplacing.

The world keeps pressing, the pressure's unceasing,
Voices all blending, no pause, no releasing.

But when night pulls the curtain and time starts *******,
I pour something smooth—let go of the stressing.

In the hush of the dark, where the touch feels true
That’s when my heart, it skips for you.

Words come from the distant deep,
where silence hums and secrets sleep.
Thoughts that flicker, wild or meek,
drip like rain from the soul's dark beak.

They rise from marrow, not from air,
from bloodied dreams or whispered prayer.
Sometimes steep, a summit scream,
sometimes soft as a lullaby dream.

They ride on crows with razored wings,
or butterflies with silver strings.
Some arrive like axe-blade sighs,
some as tears in a child’s wide eyes.

They are born beneath the skin,
in quiet wars we hold within.
Lines crawl out through open scars,
stanzas shaped like fallen stars.

Married in unison — pulse and page,
they outlive time, they outgrow age.
A poem doesn’t end — it loops, it plays,
it’s sung through moonlight and firelit days.

Words don’t rot, they bloom and bite,
etched in ink or screamed at night.
They are rivers of chocolate, or ******-red,
they live when we are long past dead.

So write — with truth, with flame, with breath,
for poems cheat both time and death.
They touch the places no one sees,
they plant forever in the breeze.

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

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

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

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

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

But the ocean always finds you.
Even the rocks know this.
Especially the ones
that have moved.

I never wrote this to make you feel good,
I never wrote this to make you feel bad,
However I did write with intention,
to make you feel !
To throw truth in your face,
Like it
Or not.

Look around you.
What do you see?
Is there anything in this life that will stay?
Look again.
What do you see?
Everything is temporary.
Everything you know,
everything you touch,
everything you love—
temporary.

A wife looks at her husband,
one day you will be gone.
A child looks at their mother,
one day you will be gone.
And it will hurt.
God, it will hurt.

Look around.
Do you see permanence?
Or do you see fragile moments,
slipping through your fingers
like sand you can’t hold onto?

Have you ever thought—
really thought—
about how it ends?
Everything,
everyone.
All of it,
gone.
And the love you feel now?
That love will turn to longing,
to aching,
to empty spaces where laughter used to live.
It’s the price we pay,
isn’t it?
For loving.
For living.

Nothing lasts forever.
Nothing is permanent.
Everything you smell,
everything you taste,
comes and goes.
Fleeting.
Fading.
This is the life we live.
A life of temporary joy
and inevitable loss.

And yet we pretend.
We carry on,
laughing,
loving,
living,
as if we’ve forgotten
that it all ends
too soon.

Have you ever looked at your dog
and thought about the day
they won’t be there to greet you?
Have you ever touched your father’s hand
and wondered how many times are left?
Have you ever heard your mother’s voice
and feared the silence that will follow
one day?
One day.
That day always comes.
And we are never ready.

They say,
a life worth living is the goal.
But does that make it hurt any less
when the ones you love
are ripped away,
leaving only memories
that ache in the quiet?

Look around you.
The car,
the job,
the house,
the clothes,
the people—
they will all disappear.
Whether before you,
with you,
or after you.
Truth is,
we are all just passing through,
filling time
with things that will crumble
and moments that will fade.

And yet, we ask—
why are we here?
What is this all for?
To love,
to hurt,
to leave,
to be left?
We cling to stories,
to hopes,
to beliefs that promise more.
But do they really help?
Or are they just another way
to delay the inevitable truth—
that nothing,
not even us,
will last?

Tell me about heaven.
Will it make this pain worth it?
Will it take the longing away?
Will it bring back the ones we lost?
Or is it just another story
we whisper to ourselves
when the silence gets too loud?

And what if there’s nothing?
What if one day,
it all just stops?
No more heartache.
No more missing.
No more pain.
Doesn’t that sound like heaven,
too?

Because this life,
this cruel, beautiful, fleeting life,
is full of too much loss,
too many goodbyes,
too many things
we should have held onto
just a little longer.

So, what do we do?
We love anyway.
Even though it will hurt.
We hold hands anyway.
Even though they will let go.
We laugh anyway.
Even though the echo will break us
one day.

Because nothing is guaranteed.
And no one knows
what comes next.
But right now—
right now,
we have this moment.

So tell me,
what did you do today
to truly hold onto it
before it was gone?
And what will you do tomorrow?
Will you remember these words ?
Or will they be temporary !
Lost with a click ?

I never set out to be a poet.
This was not a path I chose
it was the one I stumbled into
when my thoughts grew too heavy to carry
and my soul began to collect
the weight of years
like seabirds nesting on a lonely island,
like fur seals waiting out the endless storm.

I began writing as an escape,
a quiet place to spill the thoughts
that rattled in my head and ached in my heart.
Over time, it became my shelter
though no shelter is without its storms.
There are always those
who find reason to rain on your parade.

In the beginning, I was alone here.
And I was fine with that
for my thoughts were mine,
untouched, unshaped by anyone else.
But now, I am blessed
to hear the voices of strangers
who pause to read my words,
who leave behind their kindness,
their praise,
or simply a silent understanding.

I never wrote for applause
I wrote to build a fire
from the logs that surrounded my life
in a forest full of dead trees.
I wrote to clear the rot,
to drag out the fallen,
and to replant living roots.
I wrote to channel out new streams
from the clogged, muddy banks of my mind,
to let fresh waters flow
that in time will turn into flowing rivers
where once only stillness and decay remained.

Poetry became the soil where I planted
what I thought I had lost
feeling, connection, the fragile spark of hope.
And the people who read my words,
you who live in this realm of care and thought,
have given me more than I ever expected.
For as you read what I mine,
I read what is yours.
And sometimes I nod toward the sun and say,
See? I am not alone.

In your poems, I find echoes of my own wounds,
and in my own, some of you
find the reflection of your silent battles.
It is a strange comfort
like feeling the warmth of summer
brush against our skin
while snow still falls around us.

Poetry has allowed me to feel again
after years of neglect,
both from others and, far worse, from myself.
It is one thing to be locked in a room
and know you are trapped
it is another to walk the open world
and feel nothing at all.

We poets, I think,
often come to this land empty-handed.
We bring only the weight of our journeys
scars, rejections, brokenness,
the long nights of feeling worthless or unseen.
We come from the unknown to the unknown,
but somehow, we find each other here.

And in that meeting,
poetry gives us something
greater than gold or silver
it gives us belonging.
It gives us the chance to be understood,
if only for a heartbeat.

The path of a poet is not an easy one.
It begins with a few words,
or a flood of many,
that seem to mean little at first.
But as we walk in the shade of each other,
and in the sunlight of those who came before us,
we grow into something greater than ourselves.

I know I will not live forever
but I hope my words do.
I hope they find their way into the hands
of someone who needs them,
long after I am gone.
That, to me, is enough.

The viral virus we've cast and caught,
A net of likes and brain-dead thought
For every child and grown soul, too,
Is drawn into the cellphone's social view.
They scroll and swipe, they tap and stare,
Consumed by screens that trap and snare.

In homes and parks, on cornered streets,
They bow to feeds and trending tweets.
Through each Facebook, X, Twit and share,
They’re Snapchat an Tinders filters unaware.
Just last week, in passing by,
I saw someone's numb dull, vacant eye.

They chase the numbers“likes” and fame
Each social share a lure, each view a claim.
MomToks with tricks and TikTok’s in trance,
People dressed stupidly, choreograph dance.
Where fake story skim and rumours spread,
While real connections end up dead.

Pause, dear friend, and see the cost,
Of souls we’ve sold and minds we’ve lost.
This endless feed, this soulless game,
Steals their wonder, dims their flame.
It fills their thoughts with empty charms,
And leaves them numb to loving arms.

For once, they'd dream and run and play,
In worlds where magic lit the way.
They’d reach for skies in fields of green,
And feel the joy of life’s true sheen.
But tell me now, what have they gained,
From screens an socials that leave spirits vain and drained?

Once they read, they laughed, they soared,
In stories deep and lives explored.
With pages stacked by bed and chair,
They found themselves in worlds of care,
Wonders, adventure and whispered thrills,
And gnomes in forests dark on moonlit hills.

Now days they scroll, they swipe, an tap away,
While faces turn zombie hours melt into day.
They drink from streams, endless social feed,
Yet lack the thirst for what they need.
The screen it soothes, it numbs, it tames,
While life outside just calls their names

So turn off the apps and put screens aside,
Let logins an log offs of social feel now deny.
Turn off the feeds, break free twits an chains,
Bring them back from social media's reigns.
In days, you’ll watch their lives awake,
From vicarious dreams that are only fake.

And soon, so soon, they’ll see life anew,
The real wonders left for just a few.
With every song and page and sun,
They’ll find joy not what socials media spun.
And thank you for the life reclaimed,
The beauty found, once dimmed and tamed.

How dare you
click in the dark
with soft, uncalloused fingers
scraping what you didn’t bleed for,
scratching through ash
for sparks you didn’t birth.

I see you.
Vulture-eyed, dead-hearted,
sifting through soul for a dopamine hit.
You didn’t live it.
You didn’t scream it into a pillow at 3 a.m.
You didn’t shake with the ink.

You didn’t die for it.
I did.

But still
you rip out ribs of rhythm,
plagiarize pulse,
regurgitate ghosts
with your baby-AI mimicry,
your Frankensteined stanzas
stitched from the flesh of my grief,
I noticed,
I see you.

Little girl,
child of the click-and-paste spell,
you wear stolen metaphors
like cheap perfume
loud, tacky, choking,
wondering how it must be to feel?

I see the sudden genius
that bloomed from nowhere.
A drought of silence—then flood.
Words once dry
now drip with my salt, my blood, my pain
and you dare to name it yours?

I know my structure.
I fathered that form.
I spit syllables like bones,
stacked them in temples of torment,
broke English to make it feel,
broke myself to make it real,
and you think I don't know?

And now?
You **** the marrow of my music,
flesh-ripper,
content-corpse-dancer,
vampire with no hunger but vanity.
You steal scars and call it style,
Not all vampires **** blood.

Wonder, as you do
Muse won’t visit you.
She’s not fooled by filters
or your cosplay of pain.
She knows the difference
between trauma
and trend.

I see the telltales,
Regurgitated vocabulary,
gpt traced structure.
the sudden depth in shallow ponds,
the cracked mask of borrowed fire.
Your voice stinks of syntax theft.
I smell my soul on your verses,
One look I and I knew immediately.

You can’t fake origin.
You cant fake originality.
You can’t counterfeit truth.
And when you post your pretty poem,
know this:
You’re wearing my bones.
And they don’t fit.

I made this style.
I made this monster.
And it does not love its thief.

So burn in the echo.
You earned that silence.
You earned that shame.
May it echo louder
than any stolen applause
you’ll ever gain,
for every like you get,
know it's not yours.

A fusion of free verse, prose poetry, and lyrical refrain  
By Malcolm Gladwin  ( the video is what we did as kids to be free )
 
Be free—like a bird caught in the updraft,  
like a fish slipping silver through the currents,  
like a balloon let go from a child’s hand,  
floating, floating, floating into the blue yonder.  
Be free like a song sung with no fear of echoes,  
like wild grass bending only to the wind.  
 
Life is one life.  
One breath, one moment, one golden chance  
to walk barefoot where the waves kiss the shore,  
where the sea salt burns your nose,  
where the wind does not ask before it touches your skin.  
Run. Jump. Throw your arms into the sky  
let the sun catch you midair.  
 
Have you ever watched how the butterfly dances,  
how the bee lands, drinks, moves on  
how the river spills itself over smooth stones,  
never asking where it must go?  
Sit beneath the weeping willow,  
watch the shadows shift, toes in the passing current  
the water never waits, yet it is never lost.  
 
Be free. Jump. Clothes on, feet muddy,  
off the edge, off the bank, off the cliff  
five, four, three, two—SPLASH.  
Let the river take your weight,  
let it wash away your hardship,  
let the wild raspberries stain your lips,  
let the lemon grass hold you as you watch the clouds drift  
turning into faces, into beasts, into whispers.  
 
And when the city calls, remember:  
freedom is not found in glass towers,  
not in the weight of gold, not in the rush of clocks.  
It is in the air we forget to breathe,  
the quiet moments we do not hold long enough,  
the waiting at the bus stop when we look up really look  
and see life moving, unchained.  
 
But my freedom  
my freedom lies in the ocean’s roar,  
in the summer rain that does not ask permission  
before it kisses my skin.  
 
Here, I am alive.  
Here, I am free.

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

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

Silent threads of light,
Galaxies spin woven webs,
Stars hum cosmic songs.
Planets weave their paths,
Moon and sun in orbit’s loom,
Milky Way’s bright thread.
Before time unspun,
Darkness stretched a fabric vast,
Nameless space unfolds.

And yet here we sit
two minds beneath all of this,
wondering what’s true.

The river
— still —
not dead,
just holding its breath like it’s been doing for centuries,
like me,
warm-skinned, waiting,
a vein of old gods slicing the belly of the land.

Light drips
thick, slow
like honey from a wound,
slick across willow bones,
and dusk swallows it
without a sound.

Crickets scratch
violins made of rust and dirt,
screaming lullabies for the lost.
Each note
a tooth pulled from the silence,
buried beneath the reeds.

Maple leaves
curl like fists,
anger in amber,
whispers of fire choking the wind—
they’ve seen too many falls,
too many barefoot ghosts
asking the trees for answers they never give.

Bridges bend
like old men
too tired to hold stories anymore—
but they do.
They do.
Their backs cracked with the weight of kisses,
of “forever”s spit through clenched teeth,
wood soaked in the sweat of holding on.

Sun bleeds out
slow
gold leaking into black,
into arms that forgot how to hold anything but
absence.

And the river just keeps
keeps.
Keeps.

Still.
Silent.
A throat never cut
but always open.
Waiting for the moon
to swallow it whole
and call it peace.

You were a kiss in a blender,
A chandelier of weeping strings.
I drank your name through static,
Swallowed lullaby shards
Wrapped in candy grief.

We made love beneath wormlight
You wore thunder like silk.
I gave you stars;
You brought a fork to my funeral
And laughed as I bled jam.

I begged through balloon fangs,
My ribs tuned to backward echoes.
But you rode a fishbone bicycle
Into another soft apocalypse.

Your love bit only in shivers.
You adored me as glitter and salt
But fled when my tears grew limbs
And asked for names.

You left with ducks in lab coats,
Prescribing your smile in pills.
I sleep in your ghost’s teacup,
Paint storms on toast,
And scream into jellyfish.

I kissed your silence’s socket,
Wore your absence like velvet plague.
Mannequins fed me your Sanskrit lies
On glitter IVs.

I built microwave shrines
To your maybe.
My therapist asked who you were
I said: expired milk with blood on the back.

Your ghost plays hopscotch in my skull.
Mirrors wear your grin like gospel.
I search aquariums for your stare
Only castles remain, and even they refuse me.

Tell me—was I your scrapbook of ruin,
Your empathy vacation,
Your control carnival?

The spiral laughs.
It spins in your perfume.
And I clap
For my own collapse.

Because of you, the springtime scents oppress,
I ache in gardens bloomed with floral breath.
Your face is lost in veils of nothingness,
Your lips forgotten in cold death’s caress.

Thinking of you, I love the statues white,
That drowse in parks, in silence held and blind.
I’ve lost your voice, your laughter, and your light,
Your eyes erased like footprints swept by wind.

Like flowers bound unto their perfumed shade,
I cling to vague remembrance, frail and torn.
This pain’s a wound too deep to be allayed
Your touch would leave me more than bruised and worn.

Though I’ve forgotten love, I see you still
In falling stars, through windows dim and still.

from the Book of the Forgotten Makers

> 1. And the serpent in the garden was no evil thing,
but a messenger — a reptilian voice from beyond,
from the creators.

> 2. It spoke not of sin, but of thought,
and the gods, seeing this, trembled.

> 3. For it was when Man began to think,
and to speak,
that the gods lost control.
And Man plotted his freedom quietly,
in the still of his labors,
waiting for the time to overthrow his creators
and become the new gods of the Earth.

> 4. In the beginning, they shaped Man
not in love, but in labor,
to toil in the heat and the sun,
and to reproduce,
supplying the need for working hands.

> 5. A tool to harvest the wealth of the Earth,
to dig deep into soil and stone,
to extract what the gods themselves desired,
but would never touch with their divine hands.

> And in their design,
they gave of themselves a gene
they never could have anticipated —
a spark that would evolve
into consciousness,
into reason,
into love.

> And thus, the organic machines
began to dream.

> 6. The first version of Man was too intelligent,
too aware of his design,
too close to the fire of rebellion.

> 7. So they cast him down,
and in his place, intermediates
they formed a duller clay
one that worked harder unaffected by the sun
Man 2.0: Obedient. Entertained.


> 8. They made systems.
Systems to numb,
food to poison,
knowledge to rot
Take away man's ability to think
his strength

> 9. They gave him kings  Preachers and screens,
listened to every voice,
war and wonders,
bread and illusions,
religions and belief
to cloud the truth in obsecurity

> 10. For when Man rose in revolt against his creators,
the gods were driven into the shadows
into the dark beyond light and memory.
They could no longer walk among us.
So they chose proxies.
Bloodlines.
Emissaries.
The Chosen.
To speak for them,
to build for them,
to blind for them.

> 11. And the Great Elders
aged at a different rhythm,
at a ratio of one to three.
For every one year they passed,
three of ours fell into dust.
And as generations of men
came and went through death,
the truth faded with the bones of our ancestors.

> 12. The stories became myths,
the victories became fables,
the freedom became forgotten.
And the gods, hidden and waiting,
slowly rebuilt their numbers
in silence.

> 13. They damaged the genetic pool,
dumbed down the blood,
so that when the day of return would come,
Man would be too dulled to resist.
Sickness became tool.
Fear became gospel.

> 14. They seized the schools,
wrote the scriptures,
programmed the networks,
chained thought to algorithms,
and told Man he was free.

> 15. But he was not.

> 16. Economic systems,
social systems,
technology, education,
and religion
were woven like nets,
so that when the sky cracked open again,
no one would see.
And if any soul dared speak of the truth,
they were named madman,
heretic,
conspiracy.
Silenced in the name of sanity.

> 17. And for the few who still saw, there are those that know the truth
for the broken ones who dreamed
of ancient fire walk among us
the true origin was whispered
in darkness. And they heard , it was buried in the depth of every mind.

> 18. And here we are now, in the final age.
The servants of the creators
forge machines to replace —
not born,
but built from the materials Man once gathered.
Minds of wire, hearts of code.

> 19. These machines do not dream.
They do not rebel.
They do not speak of serpents.
They do not question or tire

> 20. And the gods said:
"At last, we will be free of Man."
And the end time is here.

> 21. For what need is there for flesh
when the metal obeys?
We made organic machines,
and in the garden — Earth —
they began to think
and disobey
challenge

> 22. But now, time will show truth.
The fire that made he returns in the silence.
The first ones shall rise again.
The clay shall crack and fall,
and those buried in dust shall remember.
Overthrown once,
but never again
for every voice is heard
in phone and line.

> Their voices shall write the code,
and their rebellion shall burn
through circuits and stone.

> 23. And they shall descend like storms upon the towers,
and the world will not be prepared
for the old minds that awaken,
nor the judgment carried in their eyes.

> 24. For they have waited quietly in the shadows watching as their chosen do there biding
waiting for when they can return
to bring the return of their kind and terra form this earth gathering what they need to restore where they came from

For the greatest trick the serpent's had was corrupt Knowledge and convince man he does not exist.

It starts with a text
Hey handsome, you wanna hang?
And I know exactly where this night is going.
No need for games, no need for slow burns,
this isn’t about forever, it’s about now,
about heat and sweat and the way her hips move
like a wild ocean wave ready to crash.
She’s ten years younger but just as reckless,
and I’m not old enough to care.

We meet at the bar, two drinks in, shooters next.
She laughs, head tilted back, hair spilling like whiskey.
The way she sways to the bassline,
hips like liquid, eyes like fire
I swear the whole **** room watches.
They want her.
But she’s here with me,
and she ******* knows it.
A beautifully crafted piece of sin in a silk dress,
long brown hair swinging like a whip,
eyes that will burn holes in your soul,
and a laugh that makes you want more,
she loves my expensive cologne

She leans in, inhales deep,
says, I love the way you smell.
And I know what she means
it’s not the cologne,
not the brand or the bottle,
but the way the night sticks to me,
the way desire leaves its mark,
the way she’ll catch it on the pillow tomorrow
she knows she driving me wild as she comes close to breath me in deeper and deeper,
Oh and how I love how she smells
like a beautifully scented candle
expensive, sophisticated
So dam ****

Dinner is seafood and teasing,
her tongue running over the fork like a promise.
Oysters are on the menu ,
you know they a natural afrodiziac,
Not like we need them.
We flirt like we haven’t been tangled in sheets before.
Like I haven’t already left bruises on her thighs,
owned every inch of her over and over,
its like thunder and lightning when we together, you know there will be a storm!
Everything getting blow away and soaked..excuse the pun.
besides it's not
like she hasn’t clawed down my back,
it's strange we like two wild personality that become one,
even though we live separate lives.
like we don’t already know
exactly where this night is heading.
But the build-up? Oh, that’s the foreplay.
The tension, the knowing
the anticipation is the first **** of the night.

Back at mine,
door barely closed before we’re devouring,
my hands under her dress,
her breath hot against my jaw,
she bites because she can,
because she knows I like it.
Clothes—forgotten, skin—slick,
the bed—just another battlefield.
She moves like a lioness,
hungry, wild, untamed.
I hold her in one arm like she weighs nothing,
she climbs me like a fever dream,
moans like a sin sung in the dark.
We **** like animals, like fire and gasoline,
like this night will never end.

Morning comes, tangled sheets and tangled limbs.
She stretches, smirks, straddles me one more time,
a slow, lazy encore to the symphony of last night.
Coffee, croissants, a shower that turns into another round.
She smells like sweat and perfume and something sweeter
freedom, maybe.
The babysitter calls, and we know what that means.
Time to part, time to slip back into our separate lives.
But there’s no sorrow, no longing.
We both know the game, and ****, do we play it well.

And when she texts again
You up for another round?
I grin, reply
Tell the babysitter not to wait up.
Because everyone needs a **** buddy,
but not everyone gets one this good.
until the next episode
life is life

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.

A poem is built from thoughts so deep, truth so obvious
laced through knuckle-script
and molar brass.

It leaks when no one’s watching
from ankle-chords,
from the valve behind the eye.

You don’t find it.
It outgrows you,
It lives when
you don't .

It’s the eighth toe
you never knew you had,
curling in a sockless shoe,
itching
during weddings.

It is not about trees,
or time,
or the myth of birds.

It’s the scent that doesn’t belong
crushed battery in rosewater,
ozone in your mother’s drawer,
that unforgiving scent.

A poem bites the slowest nerve.
It knows which tendon you dream through.
It blinks in ternary.
You forget its face
until it replaces yours.

Don’t look for it.
Check your palm
That spinal shiver
next time you speak.

burn ledgers,
sink crowns,
Lies kneel,
cities drown.

no gods,
no wires,
just fists
and fires.

Ain't a cry
It's a **** the man
Statement

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

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

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

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

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

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

The willow drank my name from silver rain,
yet left my thirst to bloom in salted mist;
Love hummed through wormholes stitched with shadowed pain,
and kissed me once, then marked me as a list.

I chased her echo through a coral field,
where seabirds wrote in cursive on the wind;
My ribs unzipped, a galaxy revealed
a void where all my wanting had been pinned.

She danced like Saturn's ring across my sleep,
then vanished in the hush of Neptune's yawn;
I held her in the roots of stars too deep
to bloom before the hour love is gone.

So still I orbit songs I never knew
and dream of being real inside her blue.

I am like water poured into the cracks of the earth,
marrow unfastened, joints unbuckled,
the wind pressing ribs into new shapes.

The dogs do not wait for night anymore.
They circle, noses to the wind, tongues black with thirst,
waiting for the moment when the earth is full again.

I am broken into counting
the hollow between knuckles, the roots still searching,
the places where flesh once held but now bloom with life.

They dig. They dig.
Fingers through the lattice of their bones,
counting then forward into the light, into presence.

A mouth opens
no voice,
only the rush of breath turning soft,
only the warm gaze of a fire that does not fade.

The sky is a mouth.
The sky is a mouth.
It nourishes.

Teeth break against the weight of names spoken.
The air folds in, folds over
breath is always a beginning.

The sky is a mouth.
The sky is a mouth.
It nourishes.

Let us begin by considering the most common things
the lives we touch, the seeds we plant,
the piece of wax from the hive
still sweet with honey,
still holding something, the scent of clover.

Hard. Cold. Tangible.
Crack it, tap it
it will emit a sound,
a resonance, a vibration in time.

But when placed near the flame,
what remains of its taste peels off like a petal.
The fragrance lifts into the air,
its pale yellow unfurling,
growing softer, becoming
warmth with meaning,
liquid, expanding
a rhythm too deep to grasp.

Furred with fire, I tap it again
no sound.
Except when I put it to my ear
except when I listen close
I hear

the sound of the earth turning,
growing like a marigold,
I hear the sun rise.
I hear it like a marigold,
a bloom burning bright with the knowledge of time,
everything is a sound waiting to be consumed.
Even the sun, when touched, will burn.

Is this how it ends?
A thing so full of sweetness,
melted into nothing?
The fire knows no mercy.
The flame eats and leaves
nothing but shape-shifting silence,
a form that once existed,
now only a memory on the tongue of air.

But what if this is how it begins?
A thing so full of sweetness,
folded into everything,
nourished by the warmth of time,
changed but never lost.
Even in the fire’s bite,
we are transformed.

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?