Enlightenment, they call it
man’s emergence from immaturity,
a self-imposed prison built of cowardice and laziness.
How sweet the yoke of docility,
how warm the embrace of guardians
who feed us thoughts pre-chewed,
who guide us with the steady reins of convenience.

Sapere Aude! they cry.
But courage falters when fear looms large
fear whispered by pastors, tax men, and officers.
Do not argue, they demand,
as if reason were a sin,
as if obedience were salvation.

Books think for us,
pastors believe for us,
physicians eat for us
and we, content in our mechanized stupor,
trade our birthright for comfort.

Rules and formulas,
chains dressed as wisdom,
bind our minds with their silent weight.
The leap to freedom
is an uncertain stumble over ditches
too small to justify our terror.
Yet we cling to the familiar yoke,
fond of our immaturity,
trained to fear the very light
that promises liberation.

Even the guardians,
those architects of complacency,
cannot escape their own machinery.
Prejudice, like a loyal hound,
turns and devours its master.
New chains replace the old,
new dogmas leash the unthinking mass.

But freedom lies not in revolutions,
not in shattered thrones or scattered crowns.
It hides in the fragile flame of reason
the courage to think,
to question,
to speak against the tide of quiet conformity.

The age of enlightenment, they claim.
No, we dwell in its shadow,
its distant echo,
fumbling toward a freedom
we barely dare to imagine.

Our Simple Gratification...
We crave the quick...
a spark,
a fragment,
a line.
Depth feels distant,
too heavy to hold.

Poetry shrinks
to fit the scroll.
A whisper of meaning,
half-formed,
assumed profound.

The page waits,
but we turn to screens.
Books linger unread,
their weight
a burden we refuse.

Why read
when the world sings
in flashes and noise?
Why think
when quick answers
quell the ache?

Effort feels cruel—
to linger,
to labor,
to climb.
We skim,
pretend we know.

A click of page,
a simple like,
a fleeting rush.
The thrill fades,
but the need grows.

Beneath it all,
something in us aches.
The depth, meaning ignored.
A truth forgotten.

The profound demands our patience.
The lasting requires time.
Great things take time,
Good things come to those who wait.
But we,
in our haste,
choose the shallows
over being immersed in depth.

What is this need
This world of consumers,
to consume and discard,
to find the next quick fix  
to rush through the beauty
that waits
to unfold?

Perhaps one day
we’ll stop,
linger,
listen.
And remember—
the richest treasures
are never instant.

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.

Empty days drift in a world made of smoke and disguise,  
Made-up lies, a life of despise while she hides.  
A castle of echoes, a throne built on fantasy,  
Her lack of reality—this is her majesty.  

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

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

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

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

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

She plays at being something—a star, a delight—  
But eager to always stir and fight.  
Yet sinks with the sunrise and fades with the night,  
Porcelain dreams crumble fast and never last,  
Leaving her lost in the wreckage that won’t pass.

Timed Achievement  

A goal timed with care,  
each step woven with purpose,  
the end line in sight.  

Peaceful Resolve  

Clear conscience, like light,  
guides calmly toward your aim,  
strong and sure of self.  

Fading in Shadows  

Misery awaits,  
for those pleasing all but self  
dreams lost in shadow.  

Bound by Purpose  

A man bound within,  
purpose wrapped tight in silence,  
seeking a new path.  

Ignition of Dreams  

Mediocre sparks,  
enthusiasm fans new flames  
ideas come alive.  

Roots of Achievement  

Strong roots lie at home,  
a foundation built on love—  
from here, dreams take flight.  

Climb to Victory  

Victory’s high crest,  
calls to those who dare to climb  
each summit embraced.  

Lift Each Other  

Accept who they are,  
raise others to reach their heights  
in strength, we achieve.  

Choices that Ripple  

Choose with all your heart,  
each act ripples in the world  
mountains shift through will.  

Steps to Achievement  

Humble steps build dreams,  
the first foundations of strength  
seeds planted grow high.  

Reaching for Stars  

Reach as far as stars,  
though the moon may slip away  
a light still greets you.  

Enduring Wisdom  

Thinkers mocked first,  
rise where light and truth endure  
wisdom stands honored.  

Beyond the Fear  

Goals lie past your fears,  
just beyond that line of doubt  
cross to find the light.  

Choosing the Path  

Past leaves its own mark,  
yet future calls with clear hands  
each step clears the way.  

Harvest of Effort  

Kindness sown with care,  
patience nurtures every bloom  
harvest waits in time.  

Giving and Letting Go  

Give, then let it go,  
accept what life brings in turn  
gifts of grace remain.  

Effort Rewarded  

Dreamers wait for chance,  
but the wise set forth to act  
fate favors the bold.  

Bright Anticipation  

Expectation’s light,  
steady heart and thought aligned  
mark the mind of strength.  

Listening to Truth  

Reason wears anger,  
yet seldom serves purpose well  
be calm, listen deep.  

Genius Within  

In each of us lies,  
a gift that lifts the world high  
secret genius.  

Strength and Balance  

Gentle with all things,  
yet firm, holding steady ground  
soft strength finds its place.

Winds howl through my ears
empty voices, empty rules,
dust beneath my feet.

Stars burn, mountains fall,
yet still they beg me to care.
I just light my smoke.

Winds howl through my ears
empty voices, empty rules,
dust beneath my feet.

Stars burn, mountains fall,
yet still they beg me to care.
I just light my smoke.

Elias's incantations from the Grimoire - part of the fictional prose, "Reflections of the Summoned"
Elias spoke out loudly and called out to the netherworld, I call upon thee,      
Bael, the King of Secrets,      
to leave your thrown amidst the high court,    
and to come forth,      
grant me knowledge beyond my mortal grasp.    
    
Echoes of Ars Goetia      
In the tongue of the Unheard,      
words spiral, not for mortals' comprehension,      
but for shadows, caught in unseen threads.      
From the roots of the Earth, I summon,      
binding syllables like iron chains:      
Tar’zem’et salfor’en quirel.      
Hear me, O spirits, born of sulfur and starless skies.      
      
Through the eternal gateways of Solomonic binding,      
These names whispered, sigils etched in bloodless script:      
Vra’kalith Zura’el takhat,        
Lif’or salmalai—it!      
From the depths of the Abyssal Archive, rise.      
Rise, kings and lords of the infernal choir.      
      
Bael, Cloaked in the Shadows,      
Bearer of Three Faces: man, cat, and toad,      
I call your name:      
Muris’tak altrenod Bael-dra.      
"By the shadows of the first moon,      
grant me invisibility,      
cloak me in absence,      
let the eyes of man forget my form,      
as I tread in the unseen realm."      
      
Asmoday, Crafter of Lies and Truth,      
King of Three Heads: bull, man, and ram,      
rider of the serpent of wisdom,      
I call your name:      
Asmodé krenov-alritha venno.      
"Grant me the power to transmute the base,      
to shape gold from lead as those who came before me tried and failed,      
and reveal every secrets from the lips of silence.      
Let the forge filled with infernal wills, burn bright!"      
      
Paimon, Lord of Knowledge,      
rider of the dromedary, crowned in stars,      
I call your name:      
Quereneth Paimon! Chreskoth iretna.      
"By the ring of stars above,      
grant me your wisdom,      
to see beyond the shroud of time,      
to speak the languages of the forgotten,      
and command the storms of celestial heavens."      
      
Belial, Father of Lies,      
Lord of Nothingness, destroyer of empires,      
I call your name:      
Lorithen Belial salath unvora.      
"Grant me dominion,      
make the world bend to my decree.      
Let the weight of my words      
command the winds, the earth,      
and the hearts of men."      
      
In the darkness, I shape their names,      
stitched in fire and ash,      
etched into the fabric of night itself.      
Tar'zalun, nith-raek, sol’mial!      
May their whispers resonate in my bones.      
The infernal hosts have heard,      
their powers unfurl as smoke in the void.      
      
And as the air stills with their presence,      
I stand, trembling on the precipice of consequence,      
a scribe in shadow,      
speaking the names that silence light.    
    
And this is where Elias journey began......

The world of man is a canvas of paradoxes filled with absurdity and contradiction, stretched apart taut between light and shadow, the known and the unknown.            
           
There are those who walk in this mundane world, this reality might seems as solid as stone, but in truth, it is porous.          
           
Unseen to mortal eyes, the spirits of the  Goetia roamed the peripheries of existence, their essence seeping into the cracks of human desire, fear, and ambition.          
           
In the chambers of their ethereal court, the 72 gathered as the night deepened. These spirits each a king, a duke, or a marquis of the unseen realms and each had their unique domain, they had talents honed over millennia to twist or elevate the fates of men.          
           
[b]The Summoning [/b]         
           
It began, as it often did with human desire and with a summoning. In this story there was once a man named Elias who in his quiet basement knelt within a sacred circle etched in chalk along the uneven surface of the floor, Elias had drawn the five pointed star, sacred pentagram and lined the circle with ancient symbols that were long forgotten to many , symbols older than time and language itself.    
   
He surrounded himself with dull burning candles, each one careful placed on a point of the sacred star, these candles flickered softly in the dim lit room, their light trembling as if they were afraid of what was to come.          
           
Elias's hands sweaty shook nervously and his voice quivered, almost choking on his own saliva as he read aloud from the ancient grimoire, he began reciting the incantation, his breath fogging in the cold stillness of the air.    
   
“I call upon thee, Bael, the King of Secrets, and to come forth, to leave your thrown of your high court and grant me knowledge beyond my mortal grasp.” For a moment, silence pressed against him, suffocating and absolute.          
           
Bael heard the call, as all summoned demons do. But his appearance was not immediate; no spirit hastened to serve. Bael, his form a triune amalgamation of man, toad, and cat, resting on a spiders body materialized slowly, his presence filling the room with an otherworldly pressure.

“Knowledge you seek,” Bael’s voice intoned with a slithering, a sound that seemed to come from everywhere at once, “but what price will you pay, Elias? Knowledge is a blade; it cuts the wielder as easily as the foe.”

Elias hesitated. He was no fool; he had read the texts. He knew the Goetia did not deal lightly. Yet desperation was a heavier weight than caution. “I offer my service, great King, and my loyalty for the secrets you reveal.”          
           
Bael’s laughter was like a stone dropped into a fathomless well. “So be it.” He extended a clawed hand and touched Elias. The pact was struck. Elias’s journey began not with light but with shadow, for Bael taught him the art of obscuration, how to hide, how to listen, how to make the unseen visible.          
           
The knowledge Elias gained through hiding listening and being unseen gave him great advantages and power over his enemies and friends, but it came with a heft cost, this knowledge isolated him from others, each secret he learned carving another barrier, creating an unfillable chasm between him and the rest of humanity, for this was the price of knowledge which now confined him.          
           
[b]The Temptations [/b]         
           
In the courts of the Goetia, Elias became a pawn in a game far greater than his comprehension. The demons were intrigued as they watched him, their interest piqued by his ambition.          
           
Botis, the Reconciler and revealer grew eager, he loudly declared to his sixty under demons he was the next to approach Elias. Where Bael had shrouded, Botis would uncover.            
           
Elias had many sleepless nights after learning all the worldly knowledge, he realised what he had learnt could not be unlearned and questioned the price he had paid, however on one particularly peculiar evening he drifted off into a rare and uneasy slumber, it was on this night that Botis made himself known to Elias and appeared in his dream.            
           
"Elias, Elias," Botis whispered in this dream,  "Who's there ?" Elias asked, It's I Botis and his demonly snake-like visage suddenly appeared softened by a halo offering otherworldly calm.            
“You are estranged from your family,” Botis hissed softly. “I can mend that for you.”          
           
Elias woke in a sweat, the dream so vivid in his mind that he could not forget what the snake with the halo had said.          
           
The next day, he found himself compelled to write a letter to his estranged brother seeking to repair and reconcile. To his surprise, the response was warm. Slowly, Botis worked through Elias, guiding him to restore what had been broken, But reconciliation came with a cost, all of Elias secrets were unearthed as they clawed their way to the surface, old wounds reopened, and his vulnerabilities were exposed to others, this left Elias questioning whether it was better to have left the past buried and had he been tricked.          
           
Meanwhile another demon named Forneus, the Orator, observed these events unfold with a calculating eye, he saw Elias with a different purpose. Seeing potential in the man’s eloquence, he whispered into Elias’s ear during a public debate, filling his mind with perfect arguments and irresistible rhetoric. Elias’s words mesmerized his audience, earning him fame and influence amongst his peers. Yet, as his reputation grew, so did his dependence on Forneus’s whispers. The line between Elias’s voice and the demon’s became indistinct, and with it, his sense of self began to erode, Forneus slowly took control of Elias.          
           
[b]The Struggle[/b]          
           
Not all temptations came with immediate rewards. Marchosias, the warrior cloaked in flames, came to Elias at his weakest moment. Beaten down by the consequences of his growing power, Elias was on the verge of abandoning his pursuits.          
           
“Rise,” Marchosias growled, his voice a molten command. “Truth is not for the faint-hearted. You wield power now. Use it to burn away the lies that bind you.”          
           
Elias stood, fire rekindled in his eyes. Marchosias taught him the discipline of strength, the courage to confront his fears, and the will to endure pain for the sake of truth. But as Elias grew stronger, he became colder, his heart hardening with each truth revealed. His relationships frayed, and he began to wonder if strength was worth the isolation it brought him.  
 
[b]The Lesson[/b]        
           
The demons of the Goetia did not see themselves as villains. To them, humanity was a forge, and they were the fire. They tempted and taught, lured and led, their pacts a crucible for mortal souls.  
 
Phenex, the phoenix of knowledge, was the last to visit Elias. He came not in fire but in song, his voice a melody that stirred Elias’s weary spirit.  
 
“You have sought secrets, reconciled with the past, wielded the power of words, and embraced the strength of truth,” Phenex said. “But tell me, Elias what have you learned?”  
 
Elias was silent. The knowledge he had gained was immense, but so were the scars it left. He had risen high, yet he had lost as much as he had gained.          
           
“I have learned that power is hollow without purpose,” Elias said finally.          
           
Phenex nodded, his eyes alight with an inner flame. “Then you are ready. The greatest secret is this: the demons you summoned were not your masters. They were mirrors. Each temptation, each lesson, was a reflection of your own soul. What you sought from us, you already possessed. We merely helped you uncover it.”    
   
Elias awoke to an empty room. The chalk circle was smudged, the candles extinguished. The weight of the knowledge he had gained was both a burden and a liberation. The demons of the Goetia had left him, their purpose fulfilled.    
   
But their whispers lingered in his mind, a reminder that the line between temptation and enlightenment is as thin as a razor’s edge. In the end, Elias was left with the greatest power of all: the choice of how to wield what he had become, there lies many truths in this story Elias thought to himself, that we all have our demons and how we use them and let them use us is what matters and through this, it will determine what we become and how we will wield it.

Death is not the opposite of life, but part of it, like rain drops run to a stream, an flowers wilt,
It's releasing us from suffering, everything new grows old and bodies fade away.      
      
Do not fear death my friend, it's comes for you and me, It is as much a part of life as living,
The destination we will see.      
      
Those who have truly lived deeply, bare no fear of the end, for this might be the beginning where spirits now transcend.        
      
We live on until the ripples of our existence fades and our cause in the world dies away,    
Until the light we brought in us ceases and stops shining eternal we will stay.      
      
Our souls rise, moving to the next stage,        
this is what really matters you see,      
Our existence isn't ending just moving momentarily.      
      
Scattered by the storm, as fleeting clouds flee,
with our last gasped breath, spirit flows out, blown like strong gusts lifting the dust from mountain tops.      
      
Time devours all bodies slowly, we cant destroy a soul, maybe life the rehearsal all part of final goal.    
      
We lives on in every heart we touch and every life we change, live life with meaning is more important than a existence lead in vain.      
      
Memories don’t grow old, they are true treasures don't you see, held close reminding us that as all must go, this is the inevitable unfortunately.      
      
Nothing can replace what is lost ,but nothing can take what is remembered        
Today we feel the sorrow,
comforting for memories tomorrow.      
      
Remember these small truths, we were born alone and we shall die alone,        
Everything begged borrowed and stolen will stay behind as we arrived empty-handed      
and will leave barefooted.      
      
Our comings and goings, they are just different parts of one life entangled in the spring flowers , summer sun, winter’s white snow, and the clear wind moving white clouds and autumn leaf.      
      
We were born into this world and will leave at our deaths for what is life really, but a test.      
      
The moon reflected in puddle of water,        
A flower floating in the deep blue sky,        
Is life just a river in which we will all drown and die .      
      
Do not cry for death, but celebrate life.      
Pain is the price we pay for love and death the mirror in which life’s meaning reflects.      
      
We can hold onto love and don't need to let it go, but like the rose all beauty shall eventually fall , hold onto to those you love until you hear the call.      
      
For nothing in life is guaranteed, not even tomorrow, take the moments and make it count for remember after joy comes sorrow.      
The warm touch of life lingers far longer      
than death’s sting and with new seasons, happiness brings.      
      
But everyone we know , eventually has to go ....

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

The air is thick, thick like flesh that knows no touch,
burning in secret moments beneath the skin,
breath—hot, shaking, wet against the pulse of desire.
It clings to us like sweat, like fire, like longing.
Scent of skin, of hunger, of desperate need,
something ancient, an instinct older than breath.
The world itself quakes—rational thought splinters,
fractures into stardust beneath our hands.
Logic is a wisp, a dream long forgotten.
What exists now, what is, is only the moment.
The primal call. The burning, yes, yes, yes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lust was never the sin.
Lust was the art of being alive.
We rise. Again.
And it begins anew.

Dreaming under clouds,
moonlight shines upon the fields,
truth is foretold now.

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

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

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

Thou hast named the dream,
wind-blown was my spoken word,
moon now seeks for thee.

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.

Who am I?
Not formed of parts,
but a fracture,
splintered by the weight of forgotten names,
the weight of nothing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And still, I stand.
Broken.
Unfinished.

Oh the Innocence  
That laugh, that wild howling in the throat of youth,
Unseen fingers scramble for the last thread of light  
Here, the angels are naked,  
no wings to catch their fall.  
The river splits,  
splashes,  
and chaos is born  
from the lips of the unholy, the pure.  

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

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

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

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

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

Where doth Nature find its whole,  
A scream of fire in the rain.  
Flesh in the dirt,  
bones wrapped in moss.  
Everything turns,  
and everything falls.  
Chaos is the language,  
and we are the words scattered  
across a broken page.  
No order, no truth,  
only the flood of thoughts  
rushing to drown themselves

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.

"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.

...
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.

It seems like a raw hallucination,  
a slow-burning betrayal,  
a collision of unspoken hunger,    
Here we are,  
The room shakes,  
a flicker of voices,  
but they blur, distant, static, pale shadows against the raw pulse of your eyes locking with mine.

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

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

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

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

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

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

She knows.
She knows this game is hers to win.
But I’m already lost,
already burning,
already thinking of what we’ll do
when the space between us is nothing but ashes.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I never 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 ?

Drunk on swollen pride,
ego sips lies, one by one
glass half-full of self.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There’s no grace without truth
no salvation without the burning both:
light and darkness, love and hate.
This is the measure. This is the scale.
So hold both, feel both,
and you will know what it is to love.

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.

Silence dusk hums, echoing light,
Blackened roots drink falling stars.
Sifting Hollow winds carve breathless verses,
Drifting feathers trace lost names.
Trust unspools in silver spirals,
Dusk and dawn in fibres unseen.

Unseen, fibres in dawn and dusk,
Spirals silver in unspools trust  
Names lost trace feathers drifting,
Verses breathless carve winds hollow sifting.
Stars falling drink roots blackened,
Light echoing hums, silence.

Verses return where whispers lie silent,
Time bends beneath the breath of dusk.
Blackened hands shape rivers of light,
Drifting memories burn into spirals.
Hollow eyes watch the nameless stars,
Unseen echoes whisper long-lost names.

Names long-lost whisper echoes unseen,
Stars nameless watch the eyes so hollow.
Spirals burn into memories drifting,
Light rivers shape hands blackened.
Dusk of breath the beneath bends time,
Silent lie whispers where return verses.

Stars dissolve, unchained from time,
Unseen hands thread silver spirals.
Dusk and dawn reflect through light,
Hollow songs carve sorrowed verses.
Drifting shades unmake their names,
Silent wings unfurl through roots blackened.

Blackened roots through unfurl wings silent,
Names their unmake shades drifting.
Verses sorrowed carve songs hollow,
Light through reflect dawn and dusk.
Spirals silver thread hands unseen,
Time from unchained stars dissolving.

Dissolving stars, unchained from time,
Unseen hands thread silver spirals.
Dusk and dawn reflect through light,
Hollow songs carve sorrowed verses.
Drifting shades unmake their names,
Silent wings unfurl through roots blackened

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.

A tempest stirs, a grievous wave,  
My heart shatters for those left to crave,  
For trust betrayed, for lives undone,  
By men who once stood, now they run.  

The sacred name of Christ now smeared,  
His church defiled, by those once revered,  
Their hearts corrupted, their hands unclean,  
They sought the lusts that could not be seen.  

The catalogue of ruin grows with haste,  
A parade of leaders who've lost their grace,  
Apostates in shadows, hearts turned to stone,  
From faith once vibrant, now wholly alone.  

An onslaught of disclosures, vile and base,  
Darkened secrets unveiled in disgrace,  
****** sins, abuses of spirit and mind,  
Criminal deeds, of the vilest kind.  

How does one reckon with a man betrayed,  
When the lies are thick, the truth delayed?  
How sick, how jaded, the heart must be,  
To wrestle with the loss of sanctity.  

Hypocrites thrive in their glittering dens,  
Throwing stones while their own house bends;  
Counting blessings in coin and debt,  
Blinded by riches, lost in regret.  

The church, once radiant, now wears the stain,  
Too many scandals, too much pain.  
False prophets stand, their altars cracked,  
Deeds of darkness that time won't retract.  

Lust cloaked in the semblance of light,  
These Devils dressed in white, preaching what's wrong and right,  
Telling us how to quell our deep sighs,  
Do they not know the cost of their lies?  

Do they not see the soul they have sold,  
For the fleeting thrill of power they hold?  
Why do they dance on the backs of the weak,  
Leading the faithful, with lies they do speak?  

Is there no God, or is He just being ignored,  
As we watch them exploit, deceive, and hoard?  
Why do they cast away truth if its pure,  
To feed their desires, their hunger obscure?  

A wave of sorrow, a tempest of ire,  
A reckoning soon for those who conspire.  
The church, the broken, left the reborn,  
Yearning for something as people they mourn.

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.

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?

Has anyone pondered the weight of love's flame?
Or the ache it leaves when none remain?
Both are gifts, though laced with pain,
The heart survives, though never the same.

I linger with lovers in their blissful trance,
Feel their joy in a fleeting glance,
Yet walk with the broken, their tears untold,
Mending hearts once fierce, now cold.

No bounds contain the soul's design,
It loves, it shatters, it dares to entwine.
Each touch unique, yet all the same,
The fire of passion, the quiet of shame.

And all its echoes — joy and ache,
Are pieces of beauty that love must make.

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.

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.

If you knew the hourglass had cracked,
and every grain was sliding fast,
would you sit and watch it empty,
or flip it over, make time last?

Would you call the ones who left you,
just to mend what once was torn?
Or leave the past like shattered mirrors,
reflecting ghosts that feel unborn?

Would you chase the distant skyline,
feet on fire, lungs alive?
Or breathe in slow, just hold the moment,
watch the sun dissolve and thrive?

Would you stand upon a mountain,
feel the earth beneath your weight?
Or walk the streets you’ve always known,
before they whisper you too late?

Would you spend it making laughter,
dancing reckless in the rain?
Or write your name in ink and blood,
so something of you might remain?

Would you teach your children wisdom,
leave them lessons carved in stone?
Or hold them close and say much less,
let love be felt and not just known?

Would you dare confess the secrets,
that you’ve buried, deep and raw?
Or take them with you, locked inside,
a vault no living soul can draw?

Would you fight to stretch the seconds,
bargain hard to stay alive?
Or bow your head and face the darkness,
knowing all things must arrive?

If tomorrow lost its promise,
and the road turned thin and steep,
would you run, or would you rest?
Would you wake, or would you sleep?

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.

A bird flew by and dropped a seed,  
It landed softly on fertile soil.  
With time, it grew, deep roots to hold,  
But the flower dreamed of fields afar,  
Longing to leave and reach the sky,  
Unbound, untethered, and free to roam.  

"Why must I stay when I wish to roam?"  
It asked as life stirred within the seed.  
The wind would whisper of the wide, free sky,  
Yet something held it fast to the soil.  
It yearned for adventures distant and far,  
But the earth, unyielding, kept its hold.  

The flower grew, but resented the hold,  
For its restless spirit was born to roam.  
It gazed at clouds that traveled far,  
And dreamed of the life beyond a seed.  
But all it had was the binding soil,  
Its roots too deep to touch the sky.  

"Help me!" it cried to the vast blue sky,  
"Loosen these roots and free their hold!"  
But no reply came from the watchful soil,  
Nor from the clouds that drift and roam.  
Even the rain ignored the seed,  
Its drops sinking deep, yet never far.  

The flower watched the birds fly far,  
Their wings alight beneath the sky.  
It envied creatures sprung from seed,  
Unfettered by the earth’s firm hold.  
Ants and bees would come and roam,  
Yet always it stayed within the soil.  

Seasons turned and nourished soil,  
While winds would carry whispers far.  
The flower, though fixed, began to roam
Not through the fields, but in the sky.  
Its radiant beauty took its hold,  
A miracle sprung from a simple seed.  

Bound by soil yet free in sky,  
The flower found that the deepest hold  
Was not in roots, but in dreams that roam.

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.

Golden nectar flows,
sacred honey, vats of sun,
blessed in barrels deep.

Echoed praise dance halls
in quietness, we wait for grace,
mead poured like pure sunshine.

Brewed like prayer in cup,
ancient hands the humble craft,
joy steeped in amber rain.

What do you call the picture of self
My mind played my heart like a violin,
Time ticked by like an old clock’s hymn.
Standing at the edge of reason’s wall,
Where shadows rise and echoes call.

Questions dwell in unspent wells,
Is truth alive, or just the tales we tell?
As our age shapes grows and bends the arc of our frame,
We sketch and outline our self, yet never the same, at times defined while other abstracts
The picture of self oftentimes distracts.

What do you see when you gaze inside your mind, what holds the entirety of your heart in shaken grips girth.
A distant flicker or a star that died? What do you see when you look inside?
Does your quill pierce the foggy shroud, does it write in truth
Or is it lost in the crowding cloud?

Every action carves the soul,
Each stroke defining, yet never whole.
But who are we when the mirror lies,
When the smoke of others dims our skies?

Is your canvas real, or an abstract stain?
Do you wear your chains, or break the frame?
Does your rage hold you caged,
A prisoner of masks, a silent plea
To shatter the cage and set self free.

Society molds with hands unseen,
A puppeteer weaving the in-between.
They sell the self you never chose,
A fragile photograph, a fading pose.

Yet seeking truth is no weak refrain,
It’s the ship that sails through storms of pain.
For every lie the silence sows,
A spark of truth in the darkness grows.

Rationality falters; the heart endures,
Beyond the veil, where the soul matures.
So cast the map you think you know,
And sail where unlit waters flow.

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

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.

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?

Beneath the veil of a perfect life,
A beautiful home, three children, a wife,
The hearth was warm, but the fire grew cold,
Yearnings untold in the silence rolled.

A chance encounter, a fleeting stare,
A whisper of something beyond repair.
Not love at first sight, but a seed was sown,
In the quiet corners where dreams are grown.

A life of halves began to unfold,
Guilt wore thin, but the heart stayed bold.
The lies, the longing, the laughter, the ache,
Each stolen moment, a soul to forsake.

Two hearts entwined in a fragile tryst,
The world looked on through a shadowed mist.
The playground whispers, the friendships frayed,
A fortress of secrets they desperately made.

To her, a husband, to him, a wife,
But together they tasted forbidden life.
The children watched, confused and torn,
As families shattered and lives were mourned.

A spit in the face, a punch in the night,
Eyes of the innocent, wide with fright.
The cost of passion, the price of desire,
A burning love from a reckless fire.

Years have passed, and the whispers fade,
But scars remain where choices were made.
The world has moved, but shadows persist,
In the town where the scarlet woman exists.

Would she undo it, the hurt, the pain?
Or would she fall down that hole again?
For love remains, but the question’s there—
Was it worth the weight of the cross she bears?

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?)

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."

I am the wind, that shifts endlessly, never still,
I walk the earth where mountains rise, then fall.
All things are born, yet in time they will die,
Return to dust, one truth, the greatest call.

Can you see the silent lotus, blooming through the mire,
Its petals soft, but rooted in the deep.
So too, you find wisdom through the fire,
In the darkest places, let your spirit leap.

The river’s current carries both pain and grace,
Suffering, like rain, falls where it may,
Yet through the storm, the heart must find its place,
For with each storm, the clouds give way to day.

In each breath, a universe unfolds,
Impermanence, the seed of all we are.
Let go of grasping, for life’s tale is told,
Not in what we keep, but in what we are.

Love is the sun, both tender and fierce,
A flame that melts the cold of selfishness in life.
In truth know this, that real love can pierce
And through the pain, your heart will be blessed.

Walk every path with mindfulness, let it guide your way,
Joy and sorrow, both will pass you by.
In every step, the truth will open wide
In letting go, you touch the heavens,

For I am the silence beneath your breath,
The stillness that holds all things in place,
When you release your fear of life and death,
You will see: you are then enlightened, and this is grace.