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  2d Pagan Paul
Emma
In the stillness, she danced,  
water swirling like secrets,  
time a mere whisper,  
eyes closed to the chill,  
skin alive with the pulse of the depths.  

A fleeting liberation,  
where moments collide and shatter,  
thoughts unfurling like wings,  
forgiveness a fragile thread,  
I am the universe,  
emotions spreading like wildfire,  
sleep draped in silken shadows,  
light filtering through the cracks,  
nakedness swathed in raw truth.  

Tomorrow hovers, a shadow,  
a bruise in hues of dusk—  
she stands fierce, a believer,  
an idol crumbling softly,  
wonder scattered like autumn leaves,  
complex,  
a hundred regrets unraveled  
by the tenderness of touch,  
the clash of hearts.  

Forgotten streets murmur,  
eyes gazing through fractured glass,  
twisted futures loom,  
the shell of dreams yet unformed,  
caught in the symphony of now,  
overlooking the madness,  
the deceptions,  
the lovers broken like fragile glass.  

The scratch of pen on paper,  
the rhythm of a heartbeat,  
inked memories blur,  
sweet sorrow cascading—  
not unlike revelations,  
a bitter pill to swallow,  
the absurd,  
the shifting of my visage,  
the lens refocused,  
the key turned in the labyrinth of thought.  

Chains echo in the quiet,  
the poppies dance like sisters,  
bound by a thread of crimson,  
tears cascading,  
sinking in solitude,  
loving through the ache,  
death approaching,  
a tender, inevitable embrace.
An oldie.
BECOMING

There is always resistance to change,
the pursuit of perpetual growth,
becoming being like the moon’s
relentless phases as night gently
prints itself on world.

Soft rain falls like new thoughts
on fields dancing with spring.
What was there before and gone
is becoming once again.

Clouds drop flushed notes
on the vapor of the air,
bubbles over river pebbles
form, break, and form again.

Becoming is a song not yet heard,
melodies promising wishes  of
unknowingness.

Becoming lies just under that
thin layer of life, those infinitely
precious seconds before what is
to be.
This is a snapshot in history,
a cold day in mid December,
in the year twenty-twenty four
and civilisation is so last season.

There are three major conflicts
happening in the world today.
No! Not conflicts. Wars!
In Sudan, in Gaza, in Ukraine.
All have been eaten by savagery,
cruelty, pain and despair.
But they overshadow the others.
Stories of suffering yet to come.

In Afghanistan women have been banned
from attending college to train as midwives.
Trained midwives are forbidden to work.
There are no male midwives in Afghanistan.
Women's suffering is yet to come.

In Iraq there is a new government marriage law.
It is now perfectly legal for adult men
to wed girls as young as nine years old.
More or less legalising child abuse.
Children's suffering is yet to come.

And yet if all these wars were to stop
there will still be many more wars.
There will still be savagery and pain.
There will still be cruelty and despair.
There will still be pregnant women and pre-pubescent brides
screaming for help in the long dark nights.
And nobody will lift a finger to help.
Their suffering is yet to come.

So why are we allowing ourselves to slide,
to fall, to regress, to return to Mediaeval barbarism?
Is this our destiny?
Or is this...
Our suffering yet to come.
Pagan Paul Jan 11
A ghost walking the day
like a spy upon a dream,
she stares out of a window
arrayed in black bombazine.
Hair tinged with a little grey,
such sadness she bears alone,
drifting through the quiet rooms
of a cold and empty home.
Saving her love for loneliness,
wrapped in an airy husk,
night cannot come to soon
and the veil fall with dusk.


© Pagan Paul
.
  Jan 11 Pagan Paul
Emma
I did not come to this earth
to die for the shadow of a dream,
to impale my heart on the sharp thorns
of ambition’s endless rose.
No, I came to live inside the quiet rivers,
to carry the soft weight of the morning’s light
in my hands,
to bury my face in the soil of ordinary days
and rise, fragrant with their whispers.

I did not seek perfection;
perfection is a cruel wind
that bends no branch,
allows no blossom to fall.
Instead, I search for the cracks—
those holy fractures
where the light sings its way in,
where life spills like wine
across the trembling lips of the world.

We are fluent in pain,
each of us holding the dialect of loss
in our bones.
I have read the script of your tears,
seen my own reflection
in the glass of your breaking.
Your heart is a book I know by touch,
each page etched with sorrow
and the tender thumbprints of hope.

I do not long for glory—
glory is a fleeting bird
with a broken wing.
I long for the quiet threads
that sew the sacred to the common:
the bread shared at a wooden table,
the warmth of a hand that holds without asking,
the beauty of a scar kissed by time.

There is a beauty in suffering,
a beauty that does not demand mending.
It stands like a mountain at dusk,
silent and untouchable.
It does not cry for transcendence,
but for the gaze of another,
for the voice that says,
“I am here.
I will not turn away.”

Let us walk,
not as conquerors,
but as pilgrims,
our feet stained by the dust of this earth.
Let us stumble,
our burdens carried not in shame
but as offerings,
as gifts to one another.
We will not flee the ache of life—
no, we will drink it,
pour it into the chalice of the stars,
and watch it glow softly,
a lantern that whispers,
“We are here.
We are enough.”
  Dec 2024 Pagan Paul
Emma
I am trapped in this gilt prison,
the bars gleaming like polished teeth,
pearls spooned into my mouth,
their luster turning sour against my tongue.
I wait, always, the watcher,
my hands folded in prayer or paralysis,
listening to the foreign murmurs of the dead—
crows with their black flags
of warning, wings slick with omen.

The mirrors blink,
candles flickering like failing hearts.
The grass outside shivers,
each blade whispering a secret escape
I cannot touch. A swan glides,
its neck an unbroken question,
its shadow darker than the water
it cuts open.

The door shuts with a hush
that feels like a burial.
Photographs click—ceremonies
of absence, memories that grin
like skulls. Death leans in,
a kind-faced thief offering rest.

There are two of us here—
me, and the other me,
bloated with hunger,
my fingers jammed into my throat,
my power swallowed whole.
We bridge this silence
with words brittle as bone,
oaths sworn to break,
the air shattered by the whine of a bullet
brushing skin.

Wells brim with sadness,
their depths haunted by the ghosts
of those who screamed and were silenced.
She thought he stood beside her—
a phantom lover with a tongue
barbed as wire, slicing her
into ribbons.

She dances, her arms a red spiral,
the hula hoop spinning tighter,
a circle of wounds closing
like a mouth around her body.
The swan watches,
its white wings gleaming with the stillness
of something that cannot save her.
I found an oldie.
Pagan Paul Dec 2024
I should like to lay my sceptre
down upon your velvet purse,
but I am all to well aware
that may sound a little perverse.

So let me stoke your deepest fires
of you I could be no fonder,
but once in a while, its good to smile
at the occasional double-entendre.
Another silly one!
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