We hurt each other for a dull fun, take bitter draughts to numb the pain, ’til our shattered hearts beat hollow as tin drums, ensnared in a love born barren, a lone communion,  a pale flame sputtering in the dark.  
  
I want to know by what dark alchemy are we bound to fears we cannot see, each fear  
a shadow thickening around the sinking soul? No sorrow strikes deeper than a mind torn, unraveling at the edge of itself.  
  
I am bled of tears, wrung out , this time let ache have its reign, until ache itself goes numb, Grip slipping, a slow erosion of my soul, O, heavens above, what bleak rapture is this, where the void weighs heavier than we can confess?  
  
I float, moored to fractured skies, drunk on the height, afraid to descend, but if my voice ever finds you, stranger, then perhaps you, too, know the taste of solitude.  
  
Tell me, how did we come to this?  
Eyes turned dim, starved for clarity,  
where nothing mourns more than a mind undone, where night itself becomes the wound.  
  
Exiled from tears, I spill them from within,  
my hold loosening around my heart, slowly everything fractures, and in that chasm, nothing is what it seems.  
  
I lost my halo, I lost my grace, I bear my own vice, an anti-saint cast out, self-exiled, a phantom wearing dust for a crown.  
  
Scaling walls to escape the fall, though the abyss beckon, I planted seeds I forgot were there, roots now breaking through cold stone,  
each blossom of thorns a memory buried.  
  
My thoughts bound in quiet ruin, shall I raise the rafters or let myself fade away into eternity, I flicker white, fade to black, bleed to blue, let my soul be exhumed, to be known.  
  
Ashes and dust, my feelings fade in thin air,  
A beggar for truths hidden deep, in a soul  
burned out and breaking through, haunted only by the echo of desire an enlightenment.  
  
My aching entombed, my soul pulsing low,  
a captive within, yet im bound to bleed, lost in a labyrinth dark, wandering slow, my pains then calls, though I dare not go.  
  
In silent paths where shadows teem,  
the heart’s last sanctuary, and pain
heavier than it seems...

Crying into the ocean, I lose my way,
To add to the sea, where sorrow will stay.
To see the reflection of me dissolve,
I cry as the waves around me revolve.
To see, then fall, and splash into the tide,
Where tears and the water forever collide.

I cried into a river, where currents collide,
To see my tear just washed away.
On the bank, I did stand by the rushing tide,
My tears fell to the land, destined to stay.
The river consumed all I could resolve,
My cries to its waters did slowly dissolve.

I cried in a puddle, where grief could dissolve,
But the rain swallowed it up in its collide.
To feel pain drain up, my soul would revolve,
Yet time’s quiet march took the tears away.
As the sun dried it up, I begged time to stay,
But even my cries were swept by the tide.

Crying into the ocean, the endless tide
Returned my tears, which refused to dissolve.
The sea would not let my anguish stay;
Its waves rushed forward in a rhythmic collide.
To see, then fall, and splash, was swept away,
My sorrow’s reflection began to revolve.

I cried into a river, my thoughts revolve,
Searching the depths of its rushing tide.
On the bank, I did stand, to see pain away,
But the waters whispered, "Your tears dissolve."
To add to the sea, I let my soul collide,
Though a part of me begged for my tears to stay.

I cried in a puddle, where the rain would stay,
But the sun’s golden warmth made grief revolve.
Time spoke in the silence of drops that collide,
Reminding me gently of the eternal tide.
My tears, like the puddle, would one day dissolve,
Swept into rivers and oceans, carried away.

The tide will stay, though my tears fade away,
And I will dissolve, as my thoughts revolve,
Crying into the ocean, where all things collide.

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.

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 ****.

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?

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.

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

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 dim light of ancient halls,  
He whispers softly,  
We hear his calls,
a friend clothed in shadows,
in smoke and fire they say,  
keeping the church alive,  
a warm embrace for cold fears,  
preaching hellfire and brimstone,  
a spire of dread pointing skyward,  
where the devil dances,  
a charred marionette on strings of sin.

Oh, false doctrines rise like smoke,  
a specter, a finger-wagging savior,
teaching dagger and cloak,
“Beware! The adversary lurks,”  
they warn with trembling lips,  
“He, the prince of cruelty,  
tenders a tempting bite,
taste the fruit,
the forbidden tree,
eternal damnation ,
a promise wrapped in terror.”

Who is this adversary named?
He the name of misfortune,
one we see in other but not self ,
A mere reflection, a mirror held,  
“Opposition,” say his name,  
“Accuser,” a harsher truth,  
carved in stone, once an angel,  
now a fallen whispers ear,  
the essence of man’s desires,  
the carnal heartbeat of life.

Yet before these shadows thickened,  
before the horns twisted grotesque,  
there was Pan,  
a dancing god of fertility,  
whose laughter kissed the earth,  
and now, in the ruins of time,  
he wears the mask of villainy,  
cast aside in the theaters of faith,  
deemed a demon in the light,
man’s nature tolls of the gods
then called Dionysus,
satyr or faun.

Awake, O spirits of the old!  
No longer villains in this twilight hold,  
but forgotten echoes of a vibrant past,  
once celebrated in wild abandon last,  
now silenced, imprisoned in flames,  
while the new gods parade and shame,  
draped in the garments of judgment,  
spreading tales of black and white,  
magic lost to duality's grip.

Yet the old ones linger on,
the old faiths of past,
in the corners of whispered prayers,  
their essence swirling,  
daring to invoke a truth,  
the bogeyman of our fears,  
is that just a shadow,  
hiding behind the curtain,  
waiting for the dawn  
when the light calls out,  
and we reclaim the dance,  
where all can be sacred,  
in the embrace of life itself.

Change strolls in like an uninvited guest,
rearranging dreams without a care,
while happiness hums from deep inside.
Time, that thief, won’t grant you rest,
slipping through fingers, light as air,
while struggles lurk, so deftly denied.
We chase control, a phantom jest,
but life just shrugs—it's never fair,
and in the end, we’re all just tired.
Pretending not to be expired.

Failure grins like an old cliché,
promising growth but bringing pain,
as patience waits in endless lines.
Control’s a myth we chase away,
a fragile hope we can’t sustain,
while dreams dissolve like cheap red wine.
Regret is free, but still we pay,
and kindness, though it soothes the strain,
is never quite enough to heal.
It’s just a bandaid on the wheel.

Love, they say, is hard-earned grace,
requiring effort, endless care,
but effort’s tiring, love runs cold.
Success demands a faster pace,
yet talent’s scarce and life’s unfair,
as luck decides who takes the gold.
We chase applause, we mask our face,
convincing all that we don’t care,
while deep inside, we yearn to be,
someone worth the irony.

Forgiveness whispers like the wind,
a soft illusion sold for free,
while grudges stick like stubborn glue.
Comparison will keep us pinned,
we measure lives in misery,
forgetting that we’ve paid our dues.
Perspective shifts but won’t rescind,
the creeping weight of all we see,
so here we stay, we sit, we stare,
pretending that we just don’t care.

Life’s a joke we laugh away,
dressed in dreams that rarely fit,
and truths we dodge but can't outrun.
Success is fleeting, so they say,
while time erodes both charm and wit,
and peace is hard to find in fun.
So here’s the truth we can’t betray,
we try, we fail, we throw a fit,
and in the end, there’s nothing new,
just life, and me, and maybe you.

I have frequently wondered,  
paused amidst the tides of mortal thought,  
if the titanic significance of dreams  
is more than shadows of waking moments,  
more than Freud’s puerile maps of the psyche,  
more than echoes of a terrestrial dance.  

In dreams, perhaps,  
life and matter fracture,  
time and space dissolve like mist on the abyss,  
and the mind, unfettered,  
sojourns to ethereal worlds  
where barriers fade and silence hums.  

I have felt the tremors of such thoughts,  
arising from the wintry slumber  
when a figure entered my life
a repellent scion of barbaric decay,  
watery eyes dim,  
a yellow beard untamed,  
lips heavy with the weight of ignorance.  

This life was not life,  
but a half-slumber,  
a bovine meander through Catskill fastnesses  
where morals vanished  
and law was but the whisper of wind.  

Yet, in nocturnal wanderings,  
this one soared to spheres unknown.  
Ululating in drunken reveries,  
raging against a shining thing,  
a mocking blaze that danced in abysses,  
that laughed and shook  
as vows were cast to leap high and burn through  
any hindrance,  
to reach the great cabin of brightness  
with queer, distant music.  

Oh, these visions!  
Great edifices of light,  
oceans of vast space,  
shadowed mountains rising in grandeur,  
valleys where echoes lingered like mournful ghosts—  
and always the blazing entity,  
the laughing tormentor.  

Bound in strait-jackets,  
raving in words as wild  
as the primeval forests of a distant home,  
the dialect coarse,  
the imagery sublime.  

Dreams of abysses and soaring within them,  
burning,  
always burning through the veils  
of mortal comprehension.  
Revenge sought,  
triumphant and terrible,  
against the light that mocked,  
against the unknown that devoured.  

What truth lay in these ravings?  
What life was glimpsed,  
what fiery cosmos  
beyond our brittle frame?  
For such words spoke not of myths,  
nor sang the songs of men.  
These visions erupted from a place  
that no mortal book or legend could name.  

Thus, I sit in wonder,  
speculating on these blurred fragments,  
these shadowed memories of another life.  
Perhaps, in dreams,  
we touch a truer reality
a life more vast,  
more infinite,  
than this feeble sojourn upon the earth.

Welcome, dear soul, to the fiery embrace,
Where pleasure and sin find their rightful place.
Forget what you’ve heard, the lies they’ve spread
Hell’s not torment; it’s where life’s truly led.

Lust and desire aren’t vices to shame,
They’re art forms perfected in passion’s flame.
A dance of bodies, a feast of the flesh,
In Hell, these pleasures are always fresh.

Heaven may promise a cloud and a harp,
But its paradise is tepid, stale, and sharp.
No touch, no taste, no thrill of the chase
Just hymns on repeat in a sterile space.

Gluttony’s king in this molten domain,
With endless banquets and wine that won’t wane.
Greed’s not a crime but a game we adore
Dive into gold, there’s always more.

Envy and wrath? They fuel our fun,
Competitive flames under the devil’s sun.
Pride? Oh darling, we’ve mastered the art,
In Hell, self-love is the beating heart.

And let’s not forget our master below,
Lucifer, charming, with a radiant glow.
No ruler of chains, but a host with finesse,
Inviting you in with a wink and a jest.

Meanwhile in Heaven, they whisper and pray,
Clinging to halos that tarnish each day.
What do they do? Does anyone know?
All we’ve heard is “harps” and a dull golden glow.

Angels pretend it’s the place to reside,
But secretly sneak to our wild side.
Gabriel sings at our endless soirees,
While cherubs peek through Hell’s fiery haze.

So step through the gates and leave guilt behind,
In Hell, you’re free to indulge the mind.
Heaven can keep its rigid façade
Down here, we honor the lives you’ve led flawed.

Eternity’s waiting, the flames softly roar,
Welcome to Hell, your new, thrilling decor

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A flash of light,
sharp, broken glass underfoot,
her smile
captive, electric, a god's cruel gift
glows in the fog,
flickers, trembles,
an untamed star
lost in the city's steel veins.
But what is beauty if it drips from the mouth of ghosts,
whispering her name in silence?

She stands,
a flame scattered across the concrete sky
softer than any dream that burns the soul,
wilder than what we pretend to touch.
Do you remember how her voice shivers through you,
cracked vinyl spinning memories,
dust, decay, and heat?
Gods do not look this way;
they cower behind the scent of burning roses.

Her fingers wrap around the world,
each movement violent with grace,
but I see the dark beneath
that sweetness,
and I wonder if love is the rope
she ties around herself
or the knife she drives through the hearts
of the lost.

Her laugh is a fracture in time,
a moment too pure,
too much,
that I swallow whole
like acid, burning my throat.
What do we call that
when nothing left feels real?
When her eyes turn,
and the night begins again—
silent, dark,
and heavy as broken wings?

But I cannot forget
the way her spirit
ignited the ruins of me
one smile, one movement,
a blaze too fierce to die,
too pure to touch without ruin.

Do you remember the sky when she passed
how it bent
and bled for her?

And yet, she is gone.
She always was.
An illusion,
a creation of something I cannot hold.
But God, how she burned.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Sometimes I sit here,
staring at the blank page,
wondering what to write about
what’s rattling around in my head.
Is it something profound,
or am I just ******* again?
Sometimes I think I’m winding people up,
other times, I’m genuinely trying to say something.

I write when I’m happy.
I write when I’m sad.
I write when the world looks beautiful
and when it looks like the bottom of a bin,
Even if it might smell a bit ******,
Sometimes it’s rage pouring out,
sometimes it’s a laugh at my own expense.
I never really know what’ll spill onto the page
maybe my heart, maybe just nonsense,
Unfortunately I won't apologise,
If my words are offensive,
maybe you the problem not me,
I said something about religious fella,
The other day while writing.

Someone told me in a comment,
“You’re going to hell. I’ll pray for you.”
“Brilliant,” I said, “save me a seat down there.
We’ll compare notes.”
It didn’t bother me
the offended always amuse me.
If they hate it, I say,
“Read it again or don’t read it at all.
I’m not writing for you, anyway.”
What do you want me to do ?
Say im sorry?
Never going to happen.

Faith? Oh, I toy with it,
poke at it,
hold it up to the light like a shattered bottle.
I’m not asking you to agree,
just asking you to think.
Otherwise, life would be boring, wouldn’t it?

Then there’s the poetry I read sometimes
half the time I think,
“What was this bloke smoking?”
Other times, I look at my own stuff and think,
“Maybe if I’d smoked something,
it’d actually be good.”
Where is that ****** muse when you need her?

The knock on the door the other day was priceless, though.
A couple of witnesses, chirping away:
“It’s your lucky day! You can be saved!”
Poor sods didn’t realize I’m already booked for hell.
“Come in,” I said,
“Tea? Oh, don’t mind the taste,
that’s just the poison.
Best get to hospital, hail the Dark Lord!”
They ran, of course,
and I laughed so hard I nearly spilled my tea,
a little dark I know,
but how else do i amuse myself when I'm fresh out of ideas to write about ?

That's when I tell myself, "Just another day."
What thrilling chaos will tomorrow bring?
While my blank page hungers for ink.
Another day to scribble in my mind.

These barren cries whisper plains,
Despair. This silence, artic, yet brightens refrain.
Hushed dreams glisten; they surge, then blooming,
Horizons where shadows dance, fading into softly.

Despair. This silence, artic, yet brightens refrain,
Grainy laughter spins through sands of grains.
Horizons where shadows dance, fading into softly,
Seamless yet prickled, tender echoes still seas.

Grainy laughter spins through sands of grains,
Turquoise dawns flood sepia skies.
Seamless yet prickled, tender echoes still seas,
Worn edges of hope, a kaleidoscope's fleeting horizons.

Turquoise dawns flood sepia skies,
Dreams dissolve, shimmering fragments yet night.
Worn edges of hope, a kaleidoscope's fleeting horizons,
Shards illumine faith; prophetic whispers.

Dreams dissolve, shimmering fragments yet night,
Hushed dreams glisten; they surge, then blooming.
Shards illumine faith; prophetic whispers,
These barren cries whisper plains.

Oh, children, come gather, and listen in close,
To a tale of behaviors that bother the most!  
A lesson in kindness, as quick as a tick:
This little mantra, don’t be a ****.      
      
Imagine young Larry, quite rude in his ways,
Who butted in line at the fairgrounds for days.
He’d push, he’d shove, with a grin so wide,
Till they tossed his *** right out for his rude little pride!      
      
Then there’s Miss Claire, who’s quite the chatter,
But always she talks as if no one else matters.
She’ll cut in mid-sentence, she’ll hijack the floor,
Till friends disappear, right out the back door!  
  
And look! There’s sly Benny, so slick and so witty,
With backhanded compliments, oh so pretty
To say, “You look nice… today, at least!”      
He thinks it’s a joke, but he’s just a rude little beast.

Now meet Mr. Fred, the ultimate champ,
Who’d win at all costs, like a cold-hearted lamp!
He’d gloat if he won, if he lost, he would pout
Until everyone’s cheers turned to, “Hey, Fred, get the hell out!”

And don’t get me started on poor Mr. Lee,
Who talks on his cellphone for all to see!
The bus hears his life, the ups and the downs,
And wonders aloud, “Does he think we’re all clowns?”      
      
Or ghosty Miss May, who’ll vanish and dart,
Till she needs a big favor then, oh! She’ll take heart!
But friends aren’t just there for a quick disappear,
Be there when it’s good, be there when it’s drear!      
      
Yes, kindness is golden, but some never see,
Like Finn who one-ups, never lets things be.   “You climbed that mountain? I climbed it twice!”
Oh, dear, someone save us from one-up advice!

And next, meet young Theo, who leaves a big mess,
In every shared space, with no thought to confess.
A spilled drink, a wrapper, some crumbs from his treat
This ******* assumes that the fairies will clean up his feet!

Then there’s dear Patsy, who skips every “thanks”
Who treats help from others like limitless banks.
The waiter, the driver, her parents, her friends,
She takes and she takes, till the friendship just ends.

Now Oliver’s always the first to take credit,
Though others around him are ones who have led it!
He swoops in and beams, and says, “Yes,
that was me!”
While others just sigh, as they stand silently.

Or grumpy Miss Jan, who’ll twist a small slight,
Into a feud that could last her for life!
Instead of forgiving or letting it go,  
She’ll hang on like a dog with a bone, oh no that's just so!

And finally, Sammy, who’s loud and who’s brash,
Who loves to start fights and go out and splash.
A “keyboard warrior” with no heart in sight
Stirring up trouble on screens late at night.      

So remember, dear children, it’s really quite slick,
To act with some kindness, DONT BE A ****.
For friends are like flowers; they don’t grow on stone  
Water them kindly, don’t live life alone!

Hear me not, yet feel my breath,
A susurrus etched in ebon shale.
What lingers whispers not of death,
But wraith-song borne on ashen gale.

The oculus is veiled in dust,
The portal gapes, the vow untrue.
Where halls resound with vacant trust,
The dawn distorts, the dusk imbues.

Their sigil scorned, their tale unscrolled,
Yet dunes consume the steps they laid.
The firmament withdraws its hold,
The zephyrs parch, the rivers fade.

Those who wander, sight unblessed,
Shall tread where embered tongues entwine.
No benison to break their rest,
But ossuary rites divine.

The balance tilts, the judgment wends,
Anubis veers, the soul unmoored.
Bound in dust, where silence bends,
Their final dirge remains assured.

Flesh is a threshold, spirit a lure,
Reft of the tithe the dead bequeath.
Let cindered runes in soot endure,
And waken that which dwells beneath.

The shade in vapor, the wraith in brine,
A vestige veiled in void’s embrace.
Ereshkigal, in requiem shrine,
Release the one who waits in place.

Shroud them in umbra, tether them deep,
What stirs in stillness must not rise.
By fractured spire and oath to keep,
Let what was sealed now blind its eyes.

Yet egress wanes, and pyres expire,
What walks must dwindle, what calls must bind.
A whisper lost, a rite conspired,
The gyre undone, the fates entwined.

Flesh is a sepulcher, spirit the key,
Seal what has drifted, what yet remains.
So I murmur, so let it be,
The veil is fallen, none speak the name.

Change is the constant; the rhythm of time never ceases its cycle.
Longing for peace, yet preparing for war in the shadows of fear.
Walls that we build to protect us will also confine us in silence.
Happiness drifts as we chase it, elusive and fading from view.

Richest in gold, yet the poorest in spirit, the heart remains hollow.
Independence demands that we lean on the strength of another.
Leaders are strong when their hearts lay exposed to the winds of destruction.
Trying to blend, we are lost in the masses; ourselves disappear.

Knowledge expands, but the deeper we delve, the less we can fathom.
Certainty falters, for truth is a vapor that slips through the grasp.
Logic deceives as it folds on itself, bringing chaos from order.
Closer to answers, we find that the questions grow darker with time.

Gaining the world means the courage to risk all you cherish to lose it.
Time heals the wounds that it carves with its passage, relentless and cruel.
Simpler the life we create, yet complexity lies in its heartstrings.
Greatest of truths may be born from the lies that we whisper in fear.

Love holds us fast, yet it loosens the chains of our deepest desires.
Harming the ones we adore, we reveal both the frailty and fire.
Fearing their loss, we may push them away, though our hearts cry for holding.
Memory fades when forgiveness demands, yet it burns through the void.

Freedom is sought, but the order of rules is the comfort we cherish.
Change is our terror, yet life cannot grow without constant upheaval.
Ambition rises to build and destroy, as the wheel keeps on turning.
Striving for perfect, we stumble through shadows that laugh at our dreams.

Now is the present, a fleeting illusion, the past in the making.
Shaping the world as it shapes us in kind, we are locked in its rhythm.
Infinite time cannot bend to our will, though we chase it through whispers.
Death is a shadow that gives life its weight, though we run from its grasp.

Life is a paradox, woven from threads of the meaningless fabric.
Small in the cosmos, yet gods in the hearts that we carry within us.
Goodness and evil are one in the dance that defines every action.
Truth in its glory resides in the space where our doubts learn to sing.

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.

The fiery heart of the poet shines through ages, His furnace forged quietly and unseen in the dark, Finally his heart is inscribed with a name only heaven can read and angels know,

He is haunted by the "One" who walks in fire and lives in the shadows away from light,  
He journeys through paths unknown, hidden and strange finding nourishment for his soul while enlightenment finds the mind.

He hears the voices of innocence singing in the distance, laughing like children in Eden's call, yet the shadows that follow him still fall,
for our innocence is but a moment in time,
turning with fire and soil.

The sound of a distant hammer clang, lifted by some unknown hand, that could shape a Tyger fierce or calm a Lamb so soft, who dared breathe light into these trembling forms, fill them with the storm’s ancient blood and  breath of a golden wind?

I saw that fleeting moment of infinity in the simple grain of sand, a world held tight in the human grasp; I touched heaven in the curve of a wildflower, where angels stand side by side in common place.

See now the journey of the poet, paradise opens its gates, and mercy waits in stillness,
but chains are wrought by iron hands, clasping the heart, casting darkness upon forgotten lands.

Let those in their stone palaces bow to the innocence they have overthrown;
for our prisons rise where lambs are led,
and angels shed their tears for the cities painted in blood and red.

Awake, O soul of the lowly poet who walks,
shake free of the mortal shroud that holds you and walk once more among stars, taste heavens for all that breathes is holy and wild, each soul a flame, each life a song.

He stands while heaven weds itself to hell,
where opposites dwell, fierce and bright;
joy and sorrow knit close as one part of tomorrow, woven in night, yet rising with the morning sun.

So he treads through the fire and through light, His heart becomes the furnace, his soul a lyre, feeling the earth shake from the silent hymn, in every star for this world is the breath of creation and through this he is alive in its blaze.

I hope you’re awake.
The world is breaking.
We don’t want comfort
we want peace.

They say you made us.
Then why does hunger
wear your name?
Why do your children
sleep in the cold?

We ask for quiet.
You answer with silence.
We sing to the sky,
but no echo returns.

Did you craft this grief?
The pain we hold?
Or did we give you shape
to carry the blame?

We argue, we fight,
we fall for belief
but no hand lifts us
when we fall.

Your name lives in laws,
in fire,
in war.
If you wrote the book,
why let it burn?

No crown.
No wings.
No final word.
Just hearts breaking
in the dark.

Still, the bombs fall.
The children weep.
The oceans rise.
And hope thins.

Are you still watching,
or did you turn away
before the smoke rose?

I used to pray.
Now I reflect.
If you are real,
then why the silence?

PS:
We need a miracle.

We built a mountain
out of dust
dry skin on old bones
and hollowed-out eyes
drinking from the crack in the glass.
The rivers ran backward,
spitting out promises
that tasted like iron.

Feet,
footprints carved into gravel,
burning with the weight of a thousand forgotten years—
we ran like shadows chasing the sun
but the light never reached us,
just slipped away
into the cracks of our teeth
and disappeared into the sky
that never looked down.

I saw the rain dance,
but it wasn’t real.
It was a mirage in the distance—
a waterfall that never hit the ground,
and I,
caught between the drop and the fall,
tried to hold onto it,
but everything slips when you hold it too tight.

They say souls
float like air—
but have you ever felt the weight of nothing?
The way it clings,
heavy like smoke that won’t rise?
I found one
stuck between the ribs of a city
too busy to care,
its whispers crushed in the concrete
by the weight of all the things we didn't say.
No one listened,
not even the wind.

I don’t remember how I got here,
but the silence
is too loud to ignore—
a buzzing hum that fills every space,
from my chest to the world outside.
A thousand eyes watch,
but none of them blink.

Maybe we were never meant to find what we’re looking for—
just pass through the doors,
always on the other side of the glass,
fogging it up with every breath,
reaching for something,
but never touching it.
Always running,
but never anywhere.

And in the end,
we’re just dust again
silent,
waiting to be swept away
by hands that forgot
how to hold.

Thoughts dance in stillness,
blinking, the mind’s quiet pulse
a moment takes shape.

Blink, a fleeting pause,
the echo of thought lingers,
like ripples in time.

Thinking of thinking,
eyes close, reopen again
the world blinks with me.

What is the machine, but the child of our hand,
born not of nature’s womb, but of thought’s long labor,
growing like a child, then like a beast
its bones steel, its flesh metal,
its heartbeat the rhythmic clank of gears?
Is it a thing we made,
or is it something we are becoming?

You, standing as a tourist from the stars,
gaze upon the machine as if it is life’s second birth,
a marvel spun from human hands
that neither heaven nor earth can claim,
the thing we say we create,
though we may not know how.
Tell me, visitor from far-off worlds,
do you see the silkworm’s simple labor
its tiny threads spun from its soul,
and think it less wondrous than the machine
that spins silk without a single breath,
without hunger or the frailty of life?
Is it not, in the end, the same thing?
Both, driven by unseen forces,
both, a manifestation of the cosmic hand,
both, in their essence, a thing of wonder.

But I ask you again:
If you had no knowledge of God or man,
no trace of history or belief,
what would you make of these things?
Would the iron ship of man,
its belly full of steel and steam,
seem less miraculous than the great whale
whose body, built by ocean’s hand,
dives through the depths,
unseen by the eye of men?
Would the speed of the automobile,
a thing of burning flame and fluid veins,
seem less alive than the horse
who carries us,
weary, across fields
as the sun sinks low?

Tell me, stranger,
if you were to ask, as I have,
who makes the horse,
and the answer comes back
that God makes it,
how strange, how strange
that no one would say the same
of the car that hums,
its wheels spinning on the earth,
its frame forged by human hands
as though those hands too
had been touched by some divine spark
of creation.
But we do not make the car, they say
we only build it.

What of the child,
who though formed from the seed of man
is born to the world,
as though the hands of the mother
had no say in its being?
And yet the machine
it is made, as they say.
Is this not a riddle of language,
this sense that to “make” is to call it into being
with the full force of creation?
And yet, I wonder,
if we did not make it,
who then gave it life?

We turn to facts,
as though they could reveal the truth.
Machines, they tell me,
are new to this earth,
only two generations old,
yet they have become as gods,
wielding power like the sun
over the human race.
Before the machine,
men worked the soil,
they sowed, they reaped,
they built in their hands
what they ate and drank.
Now, with the coming of machines,
half the world turns its hands to steel and smoke,
to the hum and grind
of the factory floor.
The fields grow larger,
but so do the cities,
where men and women,
their hands busy with levers and bolts,
live apart from the earth they once knew.

And so I ask you,
what of these people?
These men and women
who tend the machines
as though they were their children,
who feed the beast of industry
with labor and sweat?
What would happen
if all the machines vanished,
if the world, for one moment,
was without its engines,
its iron hearts and electric veins?

Would the world still turn?
Would we still eat, still sleep,
still dream?
Or would we be nothing
without the machine?
What is it, then, that we have created?
A thing of iron and fire,
of light and spark,
that binds us to it as surely
as the sun binds us to the earth?

You see, we are the builder of these creations, these man made wonders,
Machines have become more than a just function.
It is the reflection of spirit,
of man made flesh,
the embodiment of our desire
to take control of this world,
then bend it to our will.

It is not unnatural,
but as natural as the water running through the valley,
that drives the canyon’s depth,
as natural as the waves that shapes the shore.
We are bound to it,
for it is the reflection of ourselves,
and in it, we find our future,
our past,
our deepest desires.
The machine is not separate from us,
it is us,
for we have made it in our image.
It is not the question of whether
we are the makers,
but the question of whether
the machine,
in all its wonder and terror,
has made us in its image.

And here we now stand,
at the edge of the machine’s fire,
and we wonder if we have already lost
the very thing that makes us human.
For what is man,
but the sum of his contradictions,
his heart that yearns,
his mind that reasons,
his soul that dreams?
And the machine?
It is nothing but a mirror,
reflecting all that we are,
and yet, it does not feel
the warmth of the sun,
the cold of the night,
the joy of a child’s laughter,
or the sorrow of a broken heart.

Still, it goes on,
spinning its webs,
turning its wheels,
as we,
dancing in the shadow of the machine,
wonder whether it is life
or death
that it offers.
We ask,
and the machine answers in its silence,
and we,
we must learn to listen.

I stopped it
right there
in my mind
between one tear
and the next blink.
The world cracked still.
Like God forgot the script.
Like clocks
finally choked on their lies.

And I walked
barefoot,
through the frozen ache of light
curling like fog around a laugh
you almost had.

I tasted
the rain before it hit the ground,
let it linger on my tongue
like the names I never said.
Kissed the steam
off your coffee cup
and whispered secrets
to the dust motes in your room
they listened better than people ever did,
I held your smell in my nose,
drowning in each scent.

A hummingbird mid-flap,
stuck between flight and forever
I kissed it too.
Soft as ambition
dying in a cold city.

I held a flower
for a thousand years.
It never withered.
My hand did.

I found love
locked in the way your lip curled
right before goodbye.
I held that moment
until my own heart cracked
like glass under memory.

You think stopping time heals?
No.
It just slows the pain
to a crawl
so you can savor it.

I walked through lovers
like churches.
Empty.
Sacred.
Haunted by prayers
no one answers anymore.
I touched your cheek,
and you didn’t flinch.
First time.
Last time.
Every time.

I bent over my younger self
still full of fire and delusion.
Didn’t wake him.
Didn’t warn him.
He needed the fall.
We always need the fall.

If I lived forever,
I’d write poems on comet tails
and stitch stars
into the silence.
But I’d still miss you.
Every hour.
Of every never-ending day.

Time isn’t the enemy
it’s the proof
we ever mattered.

But still
in that breathless hush
where nothing moved
I kissed the sky,
held the world in my palm,
and told it:

“Stay here.
Don’t move.
Just let me feel
everything
before it’s gone.”
in the moment
forever.

Once again the light of night stares deeply,
Moon’s got me, fingers in my skull,
cracking, peeling, tearing at thoughts
let me be,
I never gave permission for
laughing, smirking
like it owns the night,
like it owns the pain that won’t let me go.

Time folds itself like crumbling paper,
rips apart, mends itself wrong
Minute by minute,
one AM, two, three, four, six,
numbers, fragments, slipping through fingers,
nothing makes sense but the heaviness.
One more hour, one more moment,
and I’m still awake,
count sheep, count dogs, count cats
Nothing!

Sleep? A liar,
a trick of the light,
a hallway that leads nowhere,
a door that doesn’t open
I chase it,
fall into it,
but I wake,
each time
repeating
staring at the ceiling,
listening to the wall breathe,
mind racing away from me,
why won't you let me be.

If I could
I would tear the moon from the sky,
break his light,
fold him into something small,
a paper boat,
something that could sail off,
something I can crush.
But no,
I watch
smug, distant,
untouchable,
repeated,
the moon, laughing.

And me?
I’m a shadow of a shadow,
too awake to sleep,
too tired to be.
The body is a thought,
the thought is a whisper
where am I,
what is this,
where did the night go?

I watch myself,
waiting,
waiting,
waiting
until I collapse or fade,
until the universe sighs,
until time stops pretending,
until sleep gives in
or I let go.

Tick—tock, the wall blinks back,
hands circling our days like vultures.
Sunrise, sunset—another grain falls.

We count time in echoes, in light-years,
watching comets carve their nameless orbits,
wandering like satellites without a home.

Falling into the tomorrow.
We think we know

There’s a hate in my heart,
buried deep, under liqueur’s burn
and the chill of colombian snow,
strewn across train tracks,
long and wide,
stretching into nowhere.

My family doesn’t see it—
too busy with their own lies.
The preacher, with his sanctified tongue,
wouldn’t dare touch it,
and my friends?
They only skim the surface,
pretending they know me.

Hate hums like a low engine,
alive but dormant,
its rhythm keeping time with my pulse.
I drown it,
I chain it,
but it always stirs,
a shadow in the corner of my mind,
laughing softly at my attempts
to suffocate it.

It wants to devour,
to rise,
to scream its name across the empty tracks.
But I hold it down,
not because I’m strong,
but because I’m tired.

Hate doesn’t die;
it learns to wait.
It lives in truce with silence,
biding its time,
until the snow melts,
the tracks rust,
and it no longer needs
my permission.

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

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

My star cracked— (spilled, bled, drowned, sank)—
under the dirt, under the bones, under the
weight of old mistakes // (how many deaths did it take?) //
the fox bit my ankle— SNAP— gone—
red tail swallowed in a white howl,
left only clawmarks in the marrow of winter,
& the serpent? hunger-curled, frost-twisted,
black tongue frozen mid-flick—
a heartbeat caged in stone.

(where does it go? where does it go? where does it go when the cold comes down?)

Ink must flow in lines,
metered, measured, high-minded
else it is not art.

They sneer at free verse,
counting feet like prison bars,
locking out the wild.

Rhyme too clean? Too trite.
Rhyme too loose? Unrefined slop.
Gold melts in their hands.

Ancient names they quote,
wielding rules like brittle swords
paper cuts still sting.

Silence when they read,
hushed as if the gods had penned
what they claim to own.  

Yet wind speaks in gusts,
rivers carve new paths through stone
poetry is free.

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

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

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

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

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

Beneath the argent spires of a moonlit glade,
Where ebon vines in arabesques cascade,
Whispers of zephyrs in perfumed wane,
Entwine the symphony of night’s domain.

Opalescent pools,
veiled in stygian gleam,
Hold captive stars adrift in a liquid dream.
Celestial murmurs wend through gossamer trees,
Ethereal hymns adrift on astral seas.

A wraithlike orchid unfurls its argent crown,
Breathing nocturnal fire where shadows drown.

"Raindrop Derby"
Raindrops race downhill,
children cheer for streams of fate
small joys shape the world.

"The Ant Parade"
Ants march in a line,
tiny wars on pavement cracks
a boy laughs, enthralled.

"Coin Waltz"
Spinning a coin fast,
hypnotized by its waltzing
all else fades away.

Tonight,
the river is
not water
but song,
its body unraveled silk,
golden-threaded murmurs,
spilling, spiraling,
drowning the hush
of the land in hymn,
in motion,
in breath.

Every ripple
a hand stretched toward dawn,
every hush
a heartbeat echoing through the soil,
unfastening morning
like a clasp at the throat of time.

Her body
Like a unwritten scripture,
Beauty beyond comparison
shifting verses,
shifting
a road carved by the hands
of the unseen,
soft fire licking the bellies
of unturned stones,
reed-thin prayers drift on high
rising to sky.

Each echoed note
A musical masterpiece
of her body a light sound-spun  through incantation,
whispering secrets to the root-veined hush,
where silence folds into bloom,
In a secret garden
known to none .

The wind
smears its fingerprints across the sky,
stains the horizon with blue spun from memory,
bows its head in reverence
to the aching dawn.

The wheat hums.
The river sighs.

Somewhere,
a blade of grass bends and sings.

Somewhere,
the breath of lovers writes
its own psalm in the dust-kissed hush
of a bridge where names,
hands, mouths, moments,
are carved into forever.

And oh, the clouds
burning alabaster, forgotten ghosts
exhale light,
let golden thread unspool in restless rivulets,
let carefully crafted prisms scatter
across the trembling skin of the world.

Making lines across the earth.

Every unturned stone
a story.

Every tree
a violin swaying and bowing to the wind.

Every feather and wing
unfolding like an unread letter,
written in the ink of all things unsaid.

Here,
even time drips honey
through the curve of the earth,
even the stars
are just myths waiting to be remembered,
even the sea
ancient, unsleeping mother
knows the melody of our unspoken longing.

The river opens
not like a wound
but like a mouth learning the first syllable of joy,
like a child pressed against the chest of the universe,
like hands unthreading the knots of night,
like your name,
unspoken yet known
in the hush of the wind.

And in this moment
where light devours shadow,
where the earth hums in the language of gold,
where the sun unstitches the silence of forgotten fields

we are not lost.

We are
becoming.

Something  
      greater,  

           that will find itself  
                within  
                     itself.

How often do you look inside,
and find the parts you try to hide?
The dreams you lost, the fear you keep,
the thoughts that stir when you're half-asleep?

How often do you walk away,
from chances you meant to take that day?
Do you watch the world go passing by,
and feel too small to even try?

How often do you fall, then crawl,
wishing you could stand up tall?
But something holds you in the dirt
a voice that whispers, “you’ll get hurt.”

How often do you speak your mind,
and leave the careful words behind?
Or search for truth in what you feel,
even if it cuts, even if it's real?

How often do you cry alone,
in quiet rooms that feel like stone?
And still, somehow, you wipe your eyes
and face the day before sunrise.

How often do you trust what's new,
the road ahead with no clear view?
Or sit and stare at empty air,
at things you wish were really there?

How often do you try to see
the parts of you you hide so deep?
To open up, to take the chance
on love, on hope, on sweet romance?

How often do you ride the wave,
let go, be bold, be less afraid?
Or do you laugh, or break the rules,
play your part and bend the tools?

But through the dark and through the light,
through every wrong, through every right
when all is lost or all is won,
when storms are gone and skies are sun

Just be yourself—no need to prove,
no need to run, no need to move.
You’re enough in every place
in every fall, in every grace.

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.