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54 · Apr 30
Violets
Malcolm Apr 30
The sky bruises at the edges
violet veins bursting through the silence
like old wounds speaking.
Not blood, but memory
spilled across the firmament.

Distance is a color,
you just never noticed.
It hums in plum shadows on her cheek,
in amethyst regrets curled in the corners of old letters,
in the sigh of a cigarette smoke ghosting
toward someone who isn't there.

Color makes the world turn
not gravity, not time,
but the way rust stains a prayer on an iron gate,
how saffron screams from a monk’s robe
while the lavender dusk swallows the sun whole
without apology.

But black
black is something else.
It doesn’t turn.
It doesn’t beg.
It absorbs.

It’s the silence
between stars.
The unspoken between lovers.
The last thing your father’s eyes held
before he sank.

And violet
that hesitant echo of black
is distance turning its head away
just before the goodbye.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
APRIL 2025
Violets
54 · Mar 12
FRAGMENTS
Malcolm Mar 12
I try to recall your voice, but it's a whisper,
Fading like mist in the cold dawn air.
Your face dissolves in the ripples of memory,
A reflection trembling on water’s skin.
I reach for the past, but my hands grasp shadows,
And love lingers only as an aching ghost.

How cruel that time turns love into a ghost,
A presence that lingers but speaks in whispers.
I search for your warmth, find only shadows,
Moments unravel like dust in the air.
I chase the outline of your touch on my skin,
But the years have stolen my memory.

Or is it my heart that betrays my memory?
Have I built a ghost where once stood love?
I trace the echoes of you on my skin,
Yet all I can hear is the wind’s hollow whisper.
Your laughter dissolves into thinning air,
And I am left holding nothing but shadows.

Each night, the moon sculpts your form from shadows,
But dawn unravels the dream, steals my memory.
Your scent, your touch, they vanish like air,
A love slipping further into the arms of a ghost.
Even in sleep, you call to me in whispers,
A name I once knew, now foreign on my skin.

I press my palm to the cold of my skin,
Tracing the places where you left your shadows.
But silence answers my longing whispers,
A cruel reminder of a fractured memory.
I mourn a love that became only a ghost,
A face I can't hold, lost to time’s thin air.

What am I, if you are nothing but air?
If all that remains is an absence on skin?
I grieve a ghost, yet I still call it love,
Still find you lingering between the shadows.
Perhaps I was meant to live with memory,
To haunt myself with these endless whispers.

Your whisper fades into the empty air,
A memory cold against my starving skin.
Shadows remain, but love is only a ghost.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
February 2025
Malcolm Aug 4
In the province long forgotten where clouds rarely broke and stars whispered only to the patient, and the rivers spoke softly to those who listened,
a traveler reached a monastery carved from lime stone and time.
The weary traveler bowed low before an old monk, his heart was heavy
and asked softly:

“How do I know if the partner I’ve chosen is the right one?”

The monk stirred a *** of broth,
and motioned toward two chambers in the monastery.

“One room,” he said, “is made of ice.
The other holds only a small flame and an empty chair.”

He gestured for the traveler to step into the first.

Inside the ice room, the air hung heavy.
Nothing moved.
Even the traveler’s breath felt like regret frozen mid-thought.

“There are partners like this,” the monk said.
“Their presence stills everything
not with peace, but with numbness.
They do not speak to be heard,
but to drown.
Their affection is not given, only weighed.
Their world is always winter,
and they ask you to be snow.”

Then he led the traveler to the second chamber.

A small flame danced quietly in the center,
casting shadows that looked like possibilities.

“And then there are partners who carry fire—not to burn, but to warm.
They ask nothing you must bleed to give.
They speak gently,
but your soul listens.”

“With them, silence is not punishment.
Stillness is not withdrawal.
Love is not transaction.”

The traveler sat in the warmth and closed their eyes.

“But how do I choose?” they whispered.

The monk knelt beside the flame.

“Sit with them.
Do not ask them to explain who they are.
Instead, ask yourself who you become beside them.”

“If you shrink,
if your joy hides,
if your spirit folds itself smaller just to fit
you are in the ice.”

“But if you unfold,
if your voice returns,
if your laugh forgets it was ever caged—
you are with the fire.”

The traveler wept quietly,
not from sorrow,
but from remembering warmth.

And so they left with no map,
but a truth burning gently in their chest.
04 August 2025
Ice Room and the Quiet Flame
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
54 · Mar 12
The Weight of Care
Malcolm Mar 12
Don’t we ever grow weary of this act,
This endless caring, this fragile art?
Caring how we feel, our hearts laid bare,
Caring how others feel, their burdens to share.
Yet seldom do we pause, seldom do we see,
That we don’t feel like them, nor they like we.

It seem loadsome and heavy this thing, to carry the we,
To make their troubles ours, their joy an act
Of mutual faith, though rarely do we see
An arm extended back, a mirrored art.
It tires the soul, this caring we share,
This weight we bear, our hearts threadbare.

why should we care anyways when hearts are bare and obsecured to be observed,
When the world is fractured more than the, not “we”?
Why should we extend when few choose to share,
When kindness is an act too rare to enact?
It seems a wiser step and much easier to master the art
Of apathy, to let the silence of care be as shadows gentle fall.

But this silence chills where warmth could be,
And empty hands find no measure in solace bare.
So we persist, weaving the frayed art,
Stitching the threads of "I" and "we."
Though tired, we play this timeless act,
For hope demands that we still share.

Yet hope alone cannot teach how to share,
Cannot fill the void where care should be.
Each gesture must be chosen, not just an act,
Each offering made from the soul laid bare.
Though broken, we rebuild the "we,"
A woven thread of hearts, our flawed art.

Perhaps it is this: the beauty of art,
The fragile beauty of daring to share,
That binds us, imperfectly, into a "we."
Though the effort aches, though joy may flee,
The soul is fuller when no heart is bare,
And life is richer when care is not an act.

So we care, not an act, but an art,
Barriers laid bare, and hearts we share.
Though tired, we be... we still choose to be "we."
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
December 2024
The Weight of Care
Malcolm Jul 25
Haiku 1 - Better Mad than Wet

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

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

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

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

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

Haiku 3 - Morning Regrets

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

Moral of the story: Scratch wisely — what you don’t see can still smell.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
July 2025
Take it or leave it
Malcolm May 20
The truth might sets you free
but I’ve seen madmen laugh
in padded cells lined with their honesty.
I've watched liars dance in suits
slick with applause,
paid in full by a world allergic to reality.

Truth is the foundation of all virtue,
but virtue’s broke,
and the charming deceiver just bought a new yacht
on the bones of every honest fool
buried with their receipts
and unpaid dreams.

Honesty is the best policy I've heard
yeah?
Tell that to the corpse who spoke too soon,
or the mother who kissed her child goodbye
so she could lie one more day
and keep him fed.
Where find we difference?
Truth needs no defense?
Then why’s she always bleeding out in courtrooms
where the loudest liar
gets the biggest microphone?
Even crucifixion has better PR than truth.

A single truth can change everything
but a single lie
with a pretty dress
and a perfect pitch
can bury a thousand truths
and make the grave look like a garden.

The truth is always simple.
So is pain.
So is hunger.
So is death.
And none of them are easy to swallow.

Truth speaks even in silence
but silence is a graveyard
where brave words rot
while cowards hum lullabies to power.

Truth is constant?
Sure.
Until you tilt the mirror
and the angle makes the monster
look like a saint.

To speak the truth is to live with courage.
No
it’s to die with clarity,
unarmed and raw,
while the cowards wear medals
for what they never said,

Is this where truth finds?

Truth is light in the darkness.
But even light blinds,
and I’ve seen it
truth glowing so bright
it burns the eyes
and leaves you crawling
into shadow
just to see again.

So no
don’t hand me truth
like it’s holy.
I’ve seen too many altars
stained with it.
Give me a lie
that loves me back.
Give me madness
that sings me to sleep.
Give me the falsehood
that lets me breathe.
Let me win,
even if it means I lose
everything real.

Because the truth
sweet, broken *****
never wanted me free.
She wanted me
finished.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
May 2025
54 · May 19
The Void
Malcolm May 19
It's the rip, the blackened maw, the claw that tears, the **** that spits.
Knees, shredded— crawling through filth, scraping against the stars, that grin, that lie, that barbed glint.
Skulls crack, thrones melt, heaven vomits ash, saints bleed rust.
Slogging through sludge— sin stitched to skin, to bone, to the grin.
Mortals crawl, tongues dry, licking lies, ******* venom, choking on the ash of their own breath.
Chains? Swallowed, each link, a sear, a burn, a scar, a choke.
It's the howl, jaw snapped, embered to bone, a name carved in the rot, in the ruin, in the blood.
Redemption? A sick joke, a priest’s last spit, dread, laughter, truth, bile.
Splintered, shrieks, teeth ground, shards in the throat, prayers, vapor, venom, a last hiss, ash in the wind.
Truth is nothing but a empty void, A painting made of blood and tar, It’s a scream into the abyss,
daring you to look at the rot and ruin without flinching,
It's more like a punch than a whisper.
Malcolm Gladwin
Copyright May 2025
The Void
Malcolm Jul 29
I did not know it then
how much of my life I spent
in pursuit of people
who stood behind curtains,
who spoke in half-gestures,
who never saw me at all.
And I
I mistook their silence for grace,
their distance for depth,
wasted hours praising shadows,
thinking they were saints.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Because in the end,
there is only one truth worth knowing
that none of us knows
and that this
is the only freedom
we were ever given.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
54 · Jul 25
The Mountain Moves
Malcolm Jul 25
Real knowledge lives where ignorance admits its name,
and when we meet the crooked path,
we turn within—not to condemn,
but to understand what bends in us.

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

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

He walks slow, but he walks still.

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

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

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

Wisdom comes in threes:
Reflection, which sees with stillness.
Imitation, which echoes.
And Experience
which carves its lessons into the skin.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
July 2025
The Mountain Moves
Malcolm Mar 12
Fields blur, rivers drown beneath a murmur
slow tides, flowing, cracking soft like glass.
I seek no fame, nor glory’s fractured furor,
just roots that dig, where time is lost to pass.

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

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

I find no peace, except in stillness there,
in rivers’ hum, their endless, boundless air.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
November 2024
My Thoughts of Tranquility (Sonnet)
Malcolm Jun 25
Thy hollow eyes like haunted lanterns blaze.
In silence dost thou bear thy soul's unrest,
While madness cloaks thee in a shadowed haze.

Did sirens draw thee with their viper’s breath,
To drown thee in a brine of love and fear?
Or didst thou dream too close the verge of death,
And wake to find no guiding angels near?

I knew thee once all fire, fierce and fair,
Thy voice a flame that sang in measured grace.
Now wand’ring winds do toss thy golden hair,
And chaos paints strange sorrow on thy face.

Yet rise, O Muse, from ash and bitter rain
Let verse restore thy light, and break thy chain.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
June 2025
What plague afflicts thy breast - A Shakespearean Sonnet

This poem, along with others I’ve recently shared, comes from a book I’m currently writing:

Malcolm Gladwin : A Sonnet
Collection of Original English and Shakespearean Sonnets

If this piece resonated with you, I invite you to explore the other poems in the collection—and I welcome your thoughts, reflections, and comments
53 · Mar 12
The Great Joke
Malcolm Mar 12
Deep in the darkest pits, the starving are vanishing. You toss them a crumb, then stand back and watch them rot.

You, all-powerful and unseen, beam your eternal cruelty over this grand, twisted scheme.

You let the young die, and those who still dare to taste life’s fleeting joys, But you won’t let the ones begging for an end just slip away.

Countless who now rot in the earth, once swore blind allegiance to you, died happily convinced they'd found salvation.

You keep the poor shackled, year after year, their desires more tempting than your so-called paradise. Too bad they never saw the light, but they died smiling, rotting all the same.

Many of us mock you, say you don’t exist and maybe that’s the best thing to believe. But then again, how could something not be, if it can play such a sickening trick?

If everything lives through you and can’t even perish without your say-so—tell me, what difference does it make if you don't exist at all?
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
August 2024
Malcolm Jul 23
Golden roads
call brave
      from the stillness,
      where no map shows the way
      I felt the breath of something ancient
      stir the morning’s gray.

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

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

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

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

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

So leap.
Jump breath held
      Trust falling,
      into the firelight unseen.
      For doubt is but the dragon’s trick
      your path was always keen.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
July 2025
The Road Whispers is a duel poem - the first two lines of each stanza if read together form a new poem within the original poem
53 · Mar 12
A Careful Reflection.
Malcolm Mar 12
When looking at each moment in life ,
I am thankful for every breath, every ache, every fall,
For hands that shake, for lips that bleed, for eyes that burn,
For voices screaming, whispers breaking, silence speaking loud,
For love that scars, for hate that fuels, for pain that shapes,
For nights alone, for days unknown, for fear’s embrace,
For light, for dark, for shadows waiting,
For rage, for peace,
For fire,
For life.

Life is
A storm,
A fleeting touch,
A whispered name,
A war of longing,
A wound that heals,
A hunger never truly filled,
A poem I’ll never write enough,
A song too short to hold the depth of loss,
A heart too fragile to bear the weight of joy.

It is fleeting,
sorrow lingers,
hands are reaching,
Fingers trembling,
Eyes are weeping,
Heart is breaking,
Blood is spilling,
Each day awaking,
Until none.

Love,
Hate,
Fear,
Hope,
Dreams.

I am thankful for every color, every shade, every scar, every touch,
For the weight of silence, the sting of words, the taste of grief, the scent of longing,
For the art I create in my brokenness, the songs I hum through my pain,
For the echoes of those I’ve lost, the ghosts that still whisper my name,
For the ones who stayed, the ones who left, the ones who return in dreams,
For the fire in my chest, the ice in my veins, the storm in my head,
For the love that consumes, the rage that ignites, the wounds that still burn,
For the fragile embrace of a moment too fleeting to hold forever,
For the knowledge that nothing lasts but everything matters,
For the simple fact that I am here.

Here,
Now,
Always,
In this moment.

I taste the air, feel the weight of hunger and fullness,
Hold the warmth of hands,
See the light shift,
Walk through pain,
Remember I Must,
Breathe.

I,
Live,
Love,
Hurt,
Heal.

I am thankful for every second, every wound, every gift, every loss, every love, every hate, every whisper, every scream, every sunrise, every night that doesn’t end,
For the aching in my bones, the rhythm in my chest, the melody that plays when I close my eyes,
For the ink that stains my fingers, the paint that colors my skin, the words that shape my soul,
For the ones who walk beside me, the ones who left footprints, the ones I’ve never met but still feel,
For the taste of rain, the scent of earth, the way shadows stretch and shrink,
For the silence before the storm, the calm after, the moment in between,
For the love I can’t explain, the hate I can’t erase, the fire I refuse to extinguish,
For the weight of knowing, the freedom of forgetting, the beauty of beginning again,
For the scars that remind me I survived,
For the truth that even pain is a gift,
Looks fade away,
For all.

The Gift,
The Burden,
A Blessing,
The Curse,
Our Fate,
To Choose,
Light,
Dark,
Everything,
Nothing.

Nothing is,
Everything
Everything is
Nothing
Dark is light
Light is
Dark
Choice is how we see things
Everything,
Fate the question,
Procrastination the Curse,
Each day the Blessing,
Memory the Burden,
Or
Gift,
That's for us to decide .

Time moves forward, memory lingers, love stays,
Pain whispers,
Dreams return,
I exist,
Always,
Even when I don't.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
January 2025
A Careful Reflection.
53 · Mar 12
The Rhythms of War ...
Malcolm Mar 12
Our leaders tell us war can be avoided,
but the past says different,
these leaders say wisdom will guide trembling hands, but where was this guidance previously?
hovering over the nuclear switch,
While the weight of our history presses heavy against the future,
a script we've read before,
tattered and frayed at the edges, blood-stained in the middle,
lives lost without pause.

These mighty Empires begin to fall and decline not with dignity,
but with the echoes and shouts of the desperate,
As they clutch at the last fragments of their power,
like broken glass cutting into a trembling fist.
Economies shrink while debt swells, promises empty and hollow,
while banners of "freedom" fray in the winds of the luming chaos.

Rising powers sharpen their teeth and prepare for the feast
on the bones of alliances formed in desperation,
silken agreements now unraveling in the heat
of trade wars and territorial dreams.
China's yellow brick roads stretch far,
binding continents in a golden snare while bridging indifference,
the West stumbles through days,
tripping over yesterday’s triumphs during nights of false comfort.

The war machine prepares while generals dream in algorithms now,
Old minds stepping to shadows as AI thought hums lullabies of control
over drones that dance across the sky,
but who programs caution?
Who codes regret?
A single spark,
miscalculated, misunderstood,
and the sky burns again, shadows and screams burnt into cold cement.

Oceans boil,
not from heat, but fury,
as Arctic ice melts into disputed borders,
and resource wars writhe in the depths.
The future generation drinks bitter water
from a cup cracked by climate's revenge.

Diplomats, hollow-eyed,
speak of "talks" and "sanctions,"
but beneath the table,
hands clutch at guns and knives.
Appeasement tastes of ash
a prelude, not a solution.

History's will say that Peace, is our inheritance, our new right.
what is peace really when it feels cheap and has worn too thin to cover the old scars that have never disappeared,
new wounds that burn.
The drums of this new war beat softly now, unheard in the distance
but still,
they beat when close enough there is unmistakable sound,
a rhythm we cannot unlearn.

And when the final ultimatum falls
in whispered threats and coded commands,
will we still feign surprise,
pretending the play was never rehearsed?
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
December 2024
The Rhythms of War ...
53 · Jun 26
Her Island of Love
Malcolm Jun 26
There is an island where night wears perfume
of crushed orchids, rain-soaked roots,
and the shadows of drums echoing through
wild fig, mahogany, and sandalwood.
It is shaped like her
hips in the curve of the bay,
lips in the rise of each tropical thunderstorm.

Dark waterfalls pour from her crown,
cascading curls of black fleece,
chaotic rivers that snap the teeth of combs
and drown the day’s discipline.
In each cove, a secret hums
a memory, a map,
a honey-thick promise.

She shakes herself loose and I follow
a rag in the wind of her motion,
spun silver threads, stripped, surrendered.
My thoughts tangle in her forest of scent
spice, sweat, incense,
a melody too wild for music.

This is no place found on any map
but I’ve been here in dream and fever.
Oarsmen chant in rhythm with my breath,
bright sails crack like kisses overhead,
and vessels glide over gold-threaded waves
toward the core of her heat.

Her island is a hearth for the starved,
where no thirst remains unquenched,
no ache unacknowledged.
I come hollow, dry
I leave fulfilled, wet
she fills me with color,
with rhythm,
with her storm-fed pulse.

And when I rest,
head cradled in the dark tide of her,
she rocks me gently
as the night sings low
under moonlight sky
and eyes staring down
a connoisseur of ecstasies,
nursing the nerves of every storm-tossed soul
that dares arrive
and stay.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
June 2025
Her island of love
Malcolm Mar 12
Belief, the spark that starts our chase,
Truth, the light we seek to trace.
Justification, the proof we claim,
Together they build knowledge’s flame.

Belief in what we think we know,
Truth must follow, or it won’t grow.
Justification always leads the way,
Or else our truth begins to sway.

Belief, though firm, it can lead astray,
Truth must be present, come what may.
Justification, always clear and bright,
Brings our darkness into light.

But luck, like shadows, bends the line,
Truth may falter, knowledge decline.
For Gettier’s problems show our plight,
Where belief seems true, but lacks the right.

Belief in a watch, broken yet right,
Truth in the moment, not in the sight.
Justification, though clear in view,
Is tainted by luck, and proves untrue.

Belief can lead, but where’s the cause?
Truth without foundation can give us pause.
Justification may stand tall,
But luck can make it stumble and fall.

In knowledge’s quest, we still remain,
Seeking what we can’t quite explain.
Belief, truth, and justification are tied,
But luck’s hidden hand makes us collide.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
September 2024
Malcolm Jun 23
You whisper like it’s truth–
My body isn’t beautiful.
And then I want the rivers to rise,
want the trees to lean in,
want the stars to unpin themselves
and spell your shape across the dark.
Let the sky spill its archive of light,
let it fall open and weep
the exact shape of your name.

I want my hands to become mirrors,
quiet pools catching your laughter,
so you can see what I see–
how your skin bends light
like a secret the world wasn’t ready for.

And still, you say I look at you
like someone who’s come to take–
but I was only holding still
because your nearness
made the world hold its breath.
Your lashes moved
like small wild things
learning not to flinch.

Your body breathes softly
like a small bird, sparrow caught between sky and storm,
your chest rising beneath my palms–
every sensation felt with a finger tip
not a signal for danger,
but a song in the making.
And every time you shift,
I hear the hush
of wings folding,
not in fear–
but in arrival.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
June 2025
When You Tell Me You're Not Beautiful
52 · Aug 4
How Profound
Malcolm Aug 4
I suppose I could write a few lines,
shuffle them vague, seem deep in disguise
and you’d nod, ah yes, how profound,
projecting your truth on my unsaid sound.

No need to listen, no call to feel,
just scroll and swipe past what isn't real.
Better to nod than ask what I meant,
attention’s too costly to truly be spent.

So here we are in the world of Wuup2,
where LOL’s are prayers and emojis are true.
I pity how language was once carved the skies
now left to rot in vague ambiguous abyss
04 August 2025
How Profound
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
52 · Jun 26
They Turned the World
Malcolm Jun 26
The sun stood still,
and Earth began to move
not in sky,
but in mind.

A lens,
tilted toward the heavens,
revealed that silence
was not stillness.

A knife cut through belief
not to wound,
but to ask,
again and again.

An apple fell,
and with it,
the veil between the stars
and the street.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
June 2025
They Turned the World
52 · Aug 2
Star-Thirsted Mind
Malcolm Aug 2
I sit alone with thought, as one might face the sea in a wild storm,
watching tide rise and fall as waves stitch themselves into the distant horizon,
looking for reason
a pattern not of answers, but suggestions to what it all means.
My heart, fallen like time-felt dust, fluent in silence,
presses against the sky of night.
There is a pause where nothing waits
but the ache of wanting.

But is it wanting at all,
to know that which is there but we cannot see?
Or just a hunger fed on shadows of stories past?
I look inward while minutes skim twilight and ask myself
does longing hold meaning,
or am I chasing fading smoke across empty waters?
Can my wanting soul truly grasp what the mind denies,
or am I tangled in a web of falling false hope?

I looked to the constellations, not to find myth,
but for questions never answered by books.
Each sound and syllable of starlight now maps a wound I carry
a place absent and void,
where light has left and only memory dwells.
I have stretched my hand all too often,
running fingers over scar
to reach is to lose the clarity of surface.

Yet, does losing clarity mean losing truth?
Is doubt the thief of certainty, or its keeper?
I feel the mind’s sharp edge slicing the quiet in me,
cutting away comfort, cutting away belief,
cutting away illusions I once wore like skin.
But the soul protests, whispering of a depth
that reason cannot fathom, touch, or name.

It is not despair—oh, not yet.
For something unseen walks behind my wondering,
my elusive questionings.
Yet quietly it does not speak,
only shifts the air just enough
for me to feel the ground shake beneath each footstep,
to remind me:
the world listens,
even in its hush.

Is this just self-delusion’s gentle hand? I often ask myself.
While I walk and wrestle with silence all too often
is it a veil, a prison, or a gift?
A curse with a poet’s name?
And when the world’s noise swells like storm-lit waves,
drowning the quiet tides I seek
the clamour of scrolling screens,
the fleeting truths of countless tongues,
each beckoning with noise and urgent distractions,
pulling eyes and hands away
from the core meaning of the question

Do I blame the noise, or my own tired will?
Is the hunger real, or just an echo,
born from fear of emptiness in this life?
Does the mind protect me from falling,
or chain me to a prison of doubt?

I feel the weight of a thousand shallow fires surround me,
fires burning bright but never burning deep,
consuming only the surface grasses,
never touching roots that drink the dark or consume the soul.

Can I be certain there are roots at all?
Or do I dream of darkness as a place to hide
from the blinding truths daylight demands?

And if I run from truth, do I deserve it?
If I question belief, does it still shelter me?
Is the skeptic in me the truer seeker
or just the coward afraid of being wrong?

In searching for those roots,
I begin to question the impulse to doubt within myself—
whether suspicion is itself a crafty disguise
worn by the part of my soul too tender to trust anything.
I let my uncertainty become a song sung high, a rhythm,
a sweeping tide rather than a wall.

But still, my mind screams for answers,
demands proof in logic and reason,
while my soul waits, patient, in the dark,
offering only feeling,
and cloning faith from flickers of hope.

Somewhere in this universe, along the trail of quiet stars,
I feel drawn by a pressure not forced,
not fierce, but firm—like wind knowing
how to lean without ever bruising the grass.

I start to believe in a gaze
that does not pierce but softens,
a regard not veiled by fear,
but shielded from being misunderstood.
I name it presence,
though it bears no name at all.

Yet every time I close my eyes and find the strength to reach for this presence in shattered hope,
my mind begins to whisper truths: illusion, mistake, desire.
The mind plays tricks, after all.
How can I trust what I cannot see?
How do I find faith when this doubt is the louder voice
wait—the only voice I’ve come to know?
How do I find belief when logic and reason
scream something more real than anything else?

There are days so still they crack with beauty,
their hollowness shaped like an answer never spoken.
Not absence, not longing—just the aftermath
of having needed too long without touch.
My thoughts become fixed as a fast,
a hunger refined into light
before darkness comes crawling.

But still, every new horizon that comes
shifts with each call to reason,
and the questions that remain in the silence
scatter every small truth I find.
Now obscured by the drifting shadows of meaning and inner noise,
my tired mind and weary faith is what
a lost ship adrift in a raging storm,
in a sea without north, nor compass, nor shore.

The more I search, the more the sky expands before my eyes
not into clarity,
but into vast unknowns.
Each star, a beacon of a new mystery.
Each silence,
a deeper riddle I dare not solve.

“I am mine,” whispers the voice in my spine,
“and all I carry is tension made radiant.
I am the pause before choosing,
and the weight of choosing after.
I do not stir war,
but I know the balance between stillness and strike.
I am not breath,
but the moment before breath begins again.”

Life—neither oracle nor flame—beckons,
not with certainty,
but with distance:
a journey older than any maps,
toward a cradle that might hold
either a poem,
or an echo
that once thought itself love.

And so I trace my star-thirsted mind,
through night’s vast tangle and the static hum,
seeking a core beneath the glittering distractions
a light that neither blinds
nor fades.

I learn that questions have no end,
and answers only open doors,
that true seeking is surrender,
and the deepest knowing
is to be lost.
02 August 2025
Star-Thirsted Mind
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin

This poem isn’t for everyone.
If you’re the kind of reader looking for depth in a few lines,
this won’t serve you.
It doesn’t cater to the short-attention-span reader.

It demands to be sat with and wait for those who dare to drown.

Basically, this poem is about someone (me) people sitting alone, lost deep in thought, trying to make sense of life, faith, doubt, and meaning. It’s like standing in front of a wild ocean—powerful, unpredictable, and kind of beautiful—but also overwhelming. we not really looking for answers, just... signs. Something that makes the struggle worthwhile.

In this poem I question everything which isn't unusual and I think this goes for many people—why we as people long for things, whether the hunger for meaning is real or just fear of emptiness. There’s this constant battle between logic (the mind) and faith (the soul). The mind wants proof; the soul just wants to feel something real.

The poem wrestles with whether doubt is weakness or wisdom, and whether searching itself is the point—even if you never actually find anything. It touches on how noisy and distracting the modern world is, and how easy it is to get pulled away from what really matters.

In the end, it’s about accepting that not everything needs to be solved. Some things are just meant to be lived through, felt, and explored. This is where we need to start to realize that being lost might be the most honest place to begin.
52 · Mar 12
The Book of Man
Malcolm Mar 12
A story book their ingenious invention,  
written with dishonest intention,  
Penned by scribes with trembling quills,  
To carve out myths and codify wills,  
A patchwork text of borrowed, made up lore,  
Bound to man an enthrall, to preach, implore.  
  
Not a single voice divine, nor a holy pen,  
But the schemes of greed, ******* by power-hungry men.  
Written by the minority they cleverly invent,  
for the majority their ambitious intent,  
Chosen by those who claim divine favor,  
A gift to the few, the masses enslaver.  
  
A God who needs commandments penned?  
A deity whose truths must transcend?  
To laws of war, to their tribal gain,  
A heavenly writ with mortal stain.  
  
Two animals, or was it fourteen?  
Forty days, or was it fifteen?  
Contradictions ripple, yet they declare,  
"The word of God!"—their iron lair,  
For it's their word and their holy plea,  
but a claim of man their divine decree.  
  
Centuries passed; the scrolls were stitched,  
By priests and kings, their ambitions enriched.  
To conquer lands, minds, to quell dissent,  
On faith's frail wings, empires were bent.  
  
The Gospels, ghostwritten
then passed through hands,  
Not disciples' truth, but shifting sands.  
700 years later...
Paul's letters forged to fit the mold,  
A tale retold, for power sold.  
  
Oh, sacred book, still the world’s best-seller,  
A golden cage for man, a truth-jailer.  
A labyrinth of fear, of sin, of shame,  
Man’s grand invention in God's name.  
  
So hail the Bible, a text of man,  
A masterstroke, a cunning plan.  
Not divine, but deeply flawed  
A monument to man ambitions,  
not God.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
October 2024
The book of man
Malcolm Mar 12
Ideas, impressions, sense refined,
A mirror held to humankind.
Passions burn where reason treads,
A slave to what the heart has fed.

Virtue, vice—no logic's claim,
But echoes felt in pleasure's name.
Hume’s tools cut through belief’s facade,
To find no truth in man or God.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
September 2024
Malcolm Jul 15
Begin each day
not with conquest,
but with a quiet intention
to soften the world.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Let that be your legacy.
Not your name.
Not your voice.
Just the warmth you leave behind
in the places
where it was cold before you came.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
July 2025
The Quiet Art of Becoming
52 · Mar 12
Bound by Time ...
Malcolm Mar 12
We are all brothers and sisters through time,
no matter the generation before or yet to come,
we share the same thoughts and feelings.

Just as you feel when you look out into the oceans and watch the waves,
this was how I felt.
Just as you experience frustration in the tangle of everyday life,
I too lived in days filled with frustration.
Just as you are one of many in a crowd,
I too was a face among the countless.

Just as you are refreshed by the river’s gentle flow,
I too was cleansed and renewed.
Just as you seek relief on a hot day beneath a tall tree’s shade,
I also drew comfort from nature’s quiet arms.
Just as you take air into your lungs,
drawing its essence deep within,
I too breathed the same breath of life.

Just as you stand in lines, waiting for your turn,
so have I queued in endless waits.
Just as you feel joy bloom in the laughter of a child,
so too did I find my heart lightened by the same sound.
Just as you lie awake at night, searching the stars for answers, questioning the moon,
so have I ask the starless sky for wisdom, sought life's meaning,
in the vastness
above.

Just as you tremble at the thought of loss,
I too have stood there at the edge as well,
feeling time slip slowly through my hands,
like sand.
Just as you now reach for comforting hands of another in love or life's despair,
I too have reached out,
yearning to be held,
to be seen,
to be understood.

Just as you find relief and strength when the storm has passed,
so have I risen,
shaped by the trials that sought to break me.
Just as you marvel at the sun’s rise,
its warmth touching your skin,
I too was humbled by its light,
knowing it shone on all who lived before me
and all who will come after.

Life flows for us all just as it always has,
and just as you are a part of its great river,
so too was I
carried forward,
never alone,
always connected,
In wonder,
Lost in question,
We are,
One.
52 · Jun 25
Where Nothing Grows
Malcolm Jun 25
When I was green, the heavens oft did frown,
With tempests dark, yet sometimes pierced by gold.
My garden, scarr’d by rain that beat it down,
Bore naught of fruit its gentle womb might hold.

Lo, autumn cometh with her solemn tread,
And I must seek my grove, now left forlorn.
The yield I ought have gatherèd lies dead
By briny tides to grave and shadow borne.

In soil thus sick, by salt and sorrow marred,
What hidden balm could nurse a seedling’s breath?
May blossoms dreamt in sleep the frost discard?
Or must all bloom be choked by time and death?

An inward fiend grows glutted on my pain,
It drinks my heart and sings in tones profane.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
June 2025
Where Nothing Grows

This poem, along with others I’ve recently shared, comes from a book I’m currently writing:

Malcolm Gladwin : A Sonnet
Collection of Original English and Shakespearean Sonnets

If this piece resonated with you, I invite you to explore the other poems in the collection—and I welcome your thoughts, reflections, and comments
51 · Jul 14
If an Angel Loved Me
Malcolm Jul 14
If an Angel Loved Me
If it whispered my name
into the hush between stars,
would i turn
or would the heavens shudder
and pull me deeper into their breath?

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

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

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

And yet, beloved shadow,
I call to you.

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

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

I would go with you
without map,
without question
if only once,
your wings bent low,
not to rescue,
but to rest
beside me.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
July 2025
If an Angel love Me
51 · Mar 12
Lantern and Flame
Malcolm Mar 12
Lantern and Flame
From pulpits built on brittle lies,  
their words crumble like ash,  
filling the skies with emptiness.  
The sacred chains that once held the meek  
shatter beneath the roar of voices.  

A fire smolders in mortal hearts,  
its embers feeding where fear once ruled.  
No idols rise, no gods remain;  
the soul ascends,  
carving its truth from the void.  
Earth takes back its kin,  
unashamed of desire, unafraid of sin.  

A lantern sways in the darkness,  
its flame trembling,  
revealing what prophets hid.  
No pearled gates, no thrones of gold—  
only soil, fertile and raw,  
where truths root and grow.  
The descending lights from burning stars,  
cold and distant,  
Fall upon ambient shores.  
They seek no praise,  
bearing witness with silent indifference.  

They gaze upon the fallen earth with silent eyes, unshaken  
They offer no grace, no forgiveness, no judgement  
only a savage beauty,  
reflecting the shape of our hunger,  
Our deepest depth.  

The pulse of flesh,  
the spark of want,  
a hymn rising from deep within.  
Not from saints or stoics,  
but from open skies and burning hearts.  
Kindness blooms where roots entwine,  
while wrath devours deceit.  
Indulgence whispers its song;  
restraint bows its head.  
It seems every choice once condemned  
becomes a doorway through freedoms stairs,  
they walk softly, when each step offers, enlightenment, wisdom  
knowledge in its path,  
the road less taken.  

Through ancient soil,  
fires ash, our simple roots stretch deep entangled,  
entwining with the unseen.  
The winds of our time shift,  
stones turn while mountain lean toward us,  
as if drawn by a force  
older than time.  
A murmur stirs through veins of earth,  
a call rising from hills and plains.  
Desire sculpts the barren clay,  
and night lingers when summoned.  
No angel intervenes;  
only human hands  
shape the world.  

The sea without age glimmers, dark and endless,  
its waves carrying secrets.  
Leviathan stirs beneath the tides,  
its power silent,  
its wisdom primal.  
The salt burns against our tongues,  
its songs carve truth into flesh.  
The depths rise,  
freeing the soul,  
and the self emerges,  
unchained from the waves.  

A temple rises,  
built of wax and bone.  
Incense curls,  
veils unravel,  
shadows press closer.  
Each word sparks a fire;  
each chant shifts the stars.  
No guardian angel watches here;  
no light spills from heaven.  
Only mortal hands command the dark.  
Flames rise;  
the mortal speaks,  
and the heavens sigh.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
October 2024
51 · Mar 12
The Poets Dilemma
Malcolm Mar 12
What right have poets to beseech truth from poetry’s veil?
Is it not a fragile whisper, fleeting amidst the maelstrom,
A reverie crafted from ink, meant to capture what the eye can’t hail,
Yet clutched by hands yearning for warmth, for something whole?

Why do we demand the words to unveil light in a world sewn in obsidian,
As though mere script could dispel the suffocating gloom?
Is it not the prerogative of stars or the sun's blazing minion,
To rend the dark, to chase away what makes the heart assume?

How can mere glyphs, strung in their delicate order,
Possess the power to strip away the veils of unseen night?
Do they not quiver like a cosmos at its farthest border,
Groping for lucidity, for revelation’s fleeting light?

At what fathom will we permit our hearts to sink,
Before ascending the rungs of wisdom’s sacred spire?
Is it only in grief that we pause, reflect, and think,
Or in silence’s embrace, where we confront our deepest fire?

If the question were posed—“Death or a life without Poetry?”—which would you claim?
Would you surrender to the void or wield the quill as your lance?
And if Knowledge itself stood bare, would you dare the same,
To consume its burden, though it spirals into an unknowable trance?

What is true illumination when the poet’s plight is plain,
To question as a sage, to tear the heavens open wide?
What if the universe offered its truths, but only in pain—
Would you seize them, though they lead to naught but a hollow stride?

Rivers cascade; the sun bleeds, and still we pry,
Is the answer tucked in silence, or sung in the song?
For only in questions, not feeble answers, do we untie,
The enigma of the cosmos, where we all belong
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
September 2024
Malcolm Mar 12
To the north, storms knock at the house,
whipping wind like an impatient guest.
The east clings to its sun,
a stubborn beacon refusing to dim.

Dogs bark and whine next door,
their unease rippling into the air,
while the new day stretches itself
across every restless life.

Birds scatter, wings folding tight,
hiding from clouds that growl
and gather their heavy armies.
Yet somewhere,
a patch of sky stays untouched,
a lonely blue, watching.

Rain falls in soft percussion,
kissing the earth as if in apology
for interrupting.
The sun peeks quietly through,
a quiet witness to the chaos unfold.

Life and people hums beneath it all
trash cans rattle to the corner, conversations flicker with chatter,
and cars rumble past on their path with little notice.
This is paradise,
frayed and imperfect,
offering no grandeur,
just the beauty of being.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
September 2024
Malcolm Mar 12
I.
your gaze slithers through the twisted veins of dead poets,
a thief in blackened lace, tearing the soft fabric of breath
that once fluttered with the sacred pulse of truth—
now hollowed, mimicking, shapeshifting
through stolen syllables,
godless echoes turning raw passion into nothing
but an empty mouthful of lies.
you feast on them,
no debt paid, no soul bled dry.
just shadows,
cut from the same thread as a thousand hollow promises.

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

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

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

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

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

Do you hear it?
the hollow sound of your empty voice,
repeating what others bled for
but never felt?
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
October 2024
NOT ALL VAMPIRES **** BLOOD
Malcolm Jul 10
You summon storms wild
from whispers in the dust.
I forge new fences
from yesterday’s rust.

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

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

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

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

For even mazes
made of rue,
have secret doors
that open to the place
I always knew.
Malcolm Gladwin
July 2025
Compass of Ash and Flame
Malcolm Jul 25
He who fishes in another man’s well
often catches *****
yet still acts surprised when it itches.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Conclusion:

"Take joke seriously,
but not yourself."
Malcolm Gladwin
July 2025
Confucianism
Malcolm 3d
Unlatch the shutters of thought,
let the quiet pour in;
Let the world’s noise drift like a tide beyond reach.
If questions rise,
keep them folded in silence
let patience teach.

The day will come when the heart speaks without sound,
when the smallest truth stands clear as a flame.
So open the mind and hold back the tongue,
yet feel all the same.
15 August 2025
Open the Mind, Still the Tongue
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
50 · Mar 12
Sometimes
Malcolm Mar 12
...
Sometimes I contemplate the thoughts I shouldn’t, whispers from a dark corner of my psyche, curled in the spaces where sense disintegrates, fractured musings that neither lead nor liberate.

Sometimes I succumb to the urges I cannot name, drawn by the siren of chaos and craving, a rebellion against the tethered self,
seeking silence in the transient, the absurd.

Sometimes I speak the truths that make you recoil, words too sharp, too naked in their honesty, they splinter the calm with their jagged clarity, and I wonder if silence it might be the better lie.

Sometimes I wander where my feet should not tread, to lands where thought decays into cold desire , where time stumbles over its own feet, and the air tastes of something lost, or never known.

Sometimes I sit, still, as the world dissolves around me, rooted to the earth in a stasis,  
I can neither escape nor explain, the unspoken yearning to move, yet remaining captive to the gravity of thoughts, the inertia of being.

And in the emptiness, I find a perverse kind of truth, a strange wisdom in the pauses,
in the dissonance between what’s desired and what’s done, as the self in this spiral,

I find no peace, only the inflictions and contradictions that gnaw at the edges of my soul, leaving me half-whole, always searching, always undone.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
August 2024
Malcolm Mar 12
Fire's breath on canvas,
Illusive, cruel to adeath,
Whispers pierce the night.

Loom threads lies unseen,
Velvet dusk with molten glow,
Earth hums tales below.

Dark symphony calls,
Void swallows, leaving its mark,
Shadows in the field.

Winds howl through the wild,
Vigil kept beneath the sky,
Heart dares to take flight.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
October 2024
Thoughts of the Untamed Haiku
50 · Mar 12
Woven in Whispers
Malcolm Mar 12
Solitary spark,
Threaded through fate’s silent loom,
Veiled in silver dusk.

Held in fleeting dream,
Breath and hunger gild its chains,
Flesh, a borrowed home.

Gossamer unwinds,
Light unlaces night’s embrace,
Echoes drift like mist.

Nothing fades, but folds,
Rivers cradle their own gaze,
Waves return to sea.

Form, a fleeting name,
Time’s light touch reshapes and molds,
Yet I still remain.

This is how it is and how it has always been - Always ...
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
January 2025
Woven in Whispers
Malcolm Jul 23
they don’t sleep.
they submit.
bodies boxed in concrete coffins,
ten floors high, a hundred deep
paper-thin walls where arguments
bleed through like veins under skin.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

this place is a psalm of what’s left
after justice forgets your name.
after the future skips your bloodline.
after the hymns
turn hollow.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
July 2025
HYMN OF THE HOLLOW CITY
50 · Mar 12
Love Anthology
Malcolm Mar 12
A Love Anthologies

I. Invocation

Beauty, abyssal in your seraphic trance—
flames licking stars that don’t dare look back,
I ache in your gaze, soft as a lie,
the twilight’s kiss, trembling on your lips.
How could we, so fragile, not fall—
plummeting into you, undone by desire?

Your fragrance is a hymn, a psalm sung
to gods that don’t care about the rain.
Kisses that bind and break,
potions meant for the meek,
to erase the gods—burn them clean.
What fate did you draw from the stars,
casting ruin and ecstasy, reckless in your design?

Beneath your steps lie broken hearts,
bones burned, wings shredded by your flames.
Still they chant, soaked in delirium—
“O radiant doom! You are both heaven and hell!”

II. The Meeting of Souls

How do we hide from this collision?
You, a bowstring, pulling me tight and arrow in the heart,
a song I never wanted, but had to hear, that plays on repeat
Who bent us into this? This clay formed into a beautiful sculpt
Some cruel composer,
writing melodies and songs of longing we never asked for, with words we don't know.

We break, we burn, we ignite,
twin sparks lighting up the darkness.
Your laughter rips through my silence—
a knife, an embrace, a prayer.
And in your touch, I find everything
I thought I could not be,
yet was always meant to become.

III. The Autumn Sky

You are the autumn sky—
rose-lit and falling apart at the edges.
Joy? Grief? Who knows where one ends,
when the other swallows it whole.

Sadness floods me, a tide
that erodes my bones,
marking everything I loved as lost.
Your fingers trace the scars,
the ruins wolves left behind,
as if nothing ever mattered.

And still, you burn me.
A blaze that consumes,
but in the ashes, I find you,
once again.
I am yours—
in my destruction, in my surrender.

IV. The Weight of the World

Love is the weight we carry,
a gravity we cannot escape.
Through empty nights,
under the burn of distant stars,
we wear it like a crown,
heavy but made to stay.

It lives in the quiet of sleep,
and in the screams of waking life.
Love is what survives—
both a wound and its cure.
Through agony, it purifies,
and leaves us ragged,
but whole.

Without it—what is there?
Just hollow shells and bitter breaths,
choking on the ache,
and even in forsaking,
it refines.

V. A Memory Eternal

Do you remember me?
Your breath, the very air I inhaled—
the fire that surged in my veins?
Those nights when stars bled silver,
and the world, drowned in your smile,
became irrelevant?

Even now, with shadows creeping—
your ghost clings to me,
a hollow, a sickness.
Can love, now gone,
be reborn from the abyss we’ve made?

As suns rise from drowning seas,
so does your memory—
sharp, burning, and infinite.

VI. The Reckoning

Time crawls, hissing, without mercy.
And yet here I stand—naked, raw,
your touch branding me like a scar.
Your eyes, cold and unyielding,
mark my worth—
and I burn in your judgment.

In this decay, I find something untouched—
an ember, still breathing,
defiant against the abyss.
O Beauty, destroy me again.
Thread me with your broken needle,
and tear me apart once more—

For in this ruin,
your song never ends—
a hymn of fire,
always yearning,
always burning,
until nothing is left but ash and desire.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
August 2024
49 · Mar 12
Serpent Coil
Malcolm Mar 12
Fair is foul, and foul is fair,
A dagger gleams before my eye,
The serpent coils beneath the flower's care.

The witches chant their eldritch prayer,
The cauldron bubbles, vapors rise
Fair is foul, and foul is fair.

"Out, brief candle!" Life laid bare,
A shadow struts, its hour nigh,
The serpent coils beneath the flower's care.

The stars retreat, their fires rare,
Desires burn where secrets lie
Fair is foul, and foul is fair.

In thunder, lightning, poisoned air,
Ambition bids the world comply,
The serpent coils beneath the flower's care.

By pricking thumbs, I sense despair,
As fate decrees that kings must die
Fair is foul, and foul is fair,
The serpent coils beneath the flower's care.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
January 2025
Serpent Coil written as a Villenella
Malcolm Jul 7
I shouted up with trembling fists,
"Tell me, stars, why do I exist!
How do I shine? How do I last?
How do I burn into the past?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Until the day of mine has come .
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
July 2025
Shouting Small to the Universe
49 · Mar 12
TEMPORARY
Malcolm Mar 12
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 ?
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
January 2025
TEMPORARY
49 · May 23
Forgive and Forget
Malcolm May 23
You said forever,
and I
I believed like a child watching stars crash into oceans,
with fists full of broken promises
and pockets sewn shut by trust.

You took
something I can never get back.
My time.
My love.
My ******* everything.
You drank it like sweet wine,
spat it like sour truth.

I stood
through every fight
like the last soldier guarding a war no one cared to win.
I showed you joy
like colors to the blind,
a sky without roof,
a breath without fear.

You learned yourself
through me.
But did you ever learn me?

We painted sunsets.
Played in sand
like gods pretending not to bleed.
My best friend now has fur and four paws
she never lied,
never left.

And you...
you said you’d follow me to the ends of the earth.
Turns out you meant
until it got hard.
Until love
looked more like sacrifice
and less like escape.

I wasn’t jealous.
I was open.
Transparent.
A mirror with no back
and still
you ran.

And now,
six years crawl like ash in my lungs
and still,
I choke on your name
sometimes.
Sometimes, I smile.
Sometimes,
I rage like a storm that forgot how to rain.

You took what was sacred
and turned it
into strategy.
Calculated exits.
Silence like knives.

And I
I gave you music,
poetry,
freedom,
truth.
I gave you me.

Family
You said they hurt you,
used you,
bruised you.
And I believed.
But in the end,
you chose them
chose comfort in chaos
over the revolution of love.

You’ll say I was the villain.
Fine.
Every fairytale needs one.
But let the record bleed:
I built you
while I was breaking.

I gave you the map
and you used it
to leave me
stranded.

So no
I don’t forgive.
Not yet.
Maybe never.

Because how do you forgive
someone who burned down
the only home you ever built
with your bare hands?

And how do you forget
a fire that still
burns in your bones?

When I look into the eyes
The eyes of the past
and feel hollow.

You were rich with me.
We were rich in love,
in commitment,
in laughter,
in all the things
money can’t fake.

And still,
you threw it away
like loose change
in a foreign land.

I don’t care if you hide.
Memories
don’t need light
to haunt.

I still smell your ghost.
Still hear your voice
in songs we wrote.
Still see your smile
in the ruins of what could have been.

But never again.
Never again will I
give someone the key
to a kingdom they plan to plunder.

You were my best risk
and my greatest ruin,
even if all I was left with
was loss.

Maybe I’ll forgive,
one day,
when the stars stop remembering
how your name
felt like both prayer
and punishment.

But I will never forget.

Never.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
May 2025
Forgive an Forget
Malcolm Jul 14
Whisper, and the Stars Forget You
Who listens now,
when a voice breaks the silence like a wing through frost?
Not the flame-eyed watchers above
they burn too bright to bend.

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

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

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

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

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

Bring me no visions.
Bring me the cloak you wore
when you walked with the blind boy,
feet ***** from the road,
laughter like something nearly human.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
July 2025
Whisper, and the Stars Forget You
49 · Mar 12
What is Poetry...
Malcolm Mar 12
What is poetry but a history of the human heart,
its joys and aches woven through time,
a thread of truth spun by countless hands.
All poets speak the same language,
wrestling with the same restless spirits:
fear, love, death, longing, adventure, failure.
We are seekers of what lies beneath,
hunters of shadows and light.

The pleasure of rhythm,
the echoes of sound—
words that feel more
and mean better.
We stretch them across the silence,
carry them from the known
to the uncharted,
wild, unhinged,
and alive.

Oh, how we long to hold poetry in our marrow,
to store every verse,
each fleeting line,
this romance with time.
We write for ourselves,
yet always for strangers,
hoping they find pieces of themselves
in the fragments of our truths.

Why do you read my words?
When your gaze is indifferent to me,
do you stay because they hold something real?
Do you feel comfort
or hear connection
in the quiet rhythm of the page,
as your eyes trace the spaces between lines?

Or is it because we love poetry
more than we love ourselves?
Because it sits uniquely,
where silence was—
a placeholder for longing.
These words,
small as they are,
stretch farther than the edges of this page.

When you saw the title, did it call you?
Did it offer a whisper, a welcome,
a taste of something untasted,
a key to a door of simple lines?
How did two words pull you near—
two words that opened
the depths of this moment,
this offering,
this memory of the human heart?
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
September 2024
49 · Mar 12
Under Starlit Skies
Malcolm Mar 12
Before you sleep my beautiful one,
Don't let sleep be jealous of your beauty,
Let us walk hand in hand down to the ocean,
Let the moonlight guide our way to the shore.

Let passion be a journey into love's depth,
As we walk, let night air consume us,
As the heavens spark with soft, gentle light.
Let the stars bathe us in their bright aura.

I want to hear the silence of each footprint
As we walk across the golden sand.
Your breath is of sweet delight.
Oh my love, hold my hand tight;
Never let it go as we walk in the shadow of the moon.

You spark and ignite every inch of my desire!
Let's stop for a minute and watch the ocean.
The time is upon us, let us absorb the moment.

The stars in the sky call your name softly,
And the sands dance on your perfect feet.
What stillness in the enormous heavens,
And what whispers of harmony we share.

In this timeless moment, I pull you close,
Your soft locks of hair through my hand,
Never have I felt such fleeting thrills!
Every desire crying loudly in silent echoes.

The night feels more lovely than the day;
It writes in a forbidden language of its own,
Eternal words through silent speech
The infinite name of Love!

You are my only lover, my fire burns for you!
You are my full and every desire!
Let us become one and hold each other.
The nights are dark, but our hour is everlasting!
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
August 2024
Malcolm Aug 9
Run From the Small Fires
Do not let fickle minds smudge your still water.
Some carry only mirrors,
so they may admire themselves
while pretending to measure the world.

They duel for the crown of a thimble,
brandishing rules like rusted keys
to a door that opens onto nothing.
They will spoil the wine of your words,
turning the vintage to vinegar.

Do not linger in the marketplace of fools
where voices are loud,
but the wares are air
and the applause is the dry clap of moth wings.

Smile.
Wave.
Swallow the ember that wants to leap from your tongue.
Better a silent oath under your breath
than the long scrubbing of their smoke from your skin.

Avoid their hands
sticky with the tar of self-importance.
Avoid their feasts
a table heavy with arrogance
but starving of truth.

Wisdom sits in a cathedral larger than pride,
its spires lit by questions,
its stones carved by humility.
Those who dwell there
have no time to throw pebbles at passers-by.

So run.
Run from petty brawls and papier-mâché crowns.
For to argue with a donkey is to bray in chorus,
and to wrestle a bull is to be flattened beneath it.

Leave them to their puddles.
Your river has farther to go.
09 August 2025
Run from Small Fires in Straw
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
48 · Mar 12
The Last Evil
Malcolm Mar 12
Hope, the final shard of the box, remained,
Not a blessing, but a quiet tether,
Binding the will, a silken chain unseen,
Whispering promises through hollow winds,
The evils now roam free, clawing the earth,
And still, they hold to what was left inside.

Inside, they hold to what was left,
The earth clawing free evils now roam,
Through hollow winds, whispering promises,
A silken chain unseen, binding the will,
Not a blessing, but a quiet tether—
Hope, the final shard of the box, remained.

The box of Hope, remained shard-like,
An anchor tied to despair’s subtle breath.
Action waits, lulled in its hypnotic hum,
Hands falter, waiting on stars to align.
The cycle repeats, unbroken, a spell cast,
Inside and out, the box is never empty.

Empty is never the box; out and inside,
A spell cast unbroken repeats the cycle.
Align stars to waiting hands falter, hum,
Hypnotic in its waits; action breathes subtle,
To despair tied, an anchor of Hope.
Shard-like, remained, the box of the final.

The final breath of Pandora’s folly,
Hope weaves its lie into mortal veins,
“Better will come,” it whispers so sweet,
Yet better never comes, just the waiting.
Palindromic is its promise, circling
Forever, always, back to the same song.

Song the same to back, always, forever.
Circling promise its palindromic waiting,
The just comes never better; sweet whispers,
It will better, "Come," so mortal veins lie.
Into its weave Hope folly Pandora breathes,
The final shard, the box of evils remains.

Hope remains—the illusion unchanged,
Its promise a mirror of stillness.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
January 2025
The Last Evil

Written as a Paladrone
48 · Jul 23
Raindrop Psalms
Malcolm Jul 23
Before first light,
I slip away from the crowded square
and climb the worn steps of forgotten heights.
But the season’s breath is spent,
and I long for shelter again.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A distant voice stirs beneath the static hush,
haunted by the shape of fading hills.
You sent the first note, fragile and true
together,
we raise our voices in a fading hymn.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
July 2025
Raindrop Psalms
48 · Jul 23
The Quiet Grief
Malcolm Jul 23
I mourned with many,
but alone
I bore the weight no tears had shown.
For they were gone
their spark, their flame,
The one who taught my soul its name.

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

And now they’re gone,
but I remain
A voice shaped softly by their flame.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
July 2025
The Quiet Grief
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