I ended up at the wrong time,
in the wrong place,
carrying a dead flashlight
that instead of shining,
offered me an elusive shape—
a spectacle of shadows.

What was a hand
became a dog barking on the wall,
or a ghost-rabbit
vanishing into nothingness.

My rational “I” still asks why,
and I have no answer.
I just smile with sadness:
that was the script,
that had to happen.

Bittersweet medicine,
already swallowed,
the side effects dissolved.
And I boarded another train.

Writing?
I only wanted an ordinary life,
with some humor
and a pinch of self-irony.

Saturn joined,
Saturn divided,
at 8:18 a.m.

Maybe we humans
don’t have the stillness
to break free from the pattern
of silver rings
made of dust and ice,
imposed by an ego.

Maybe we prefer
the safety of the shadow,
ice melts in daylight.

My story:
a new-old flat,
my imperfect poems…
Really?
For this, I was made?

I’m not a poet.
I’m a living voice,
taming incomprehension
convincing myself
that dawn is near,
and I’m strong enough to rise,
not looking anymore
for cold mirrors.

Grey clouds crack open, weeping angels,
rain cascades, a liquid broom
washing earth's filth and sin.
The smell? Enigmatic—spring's embodiment,
summer evening's bold scent.
Drops like strings, smacking,
a hundred clapping hands under a faucet.
The wind keeps pace, whooshing,
shaking excess from leaves.
Tires glide on wet slick,
cars pass like crashing waves.

Peaceful, serene, innocent, refreshing.
Cold strings, exploding like macro water grenades,
rejuvenate skin.
A wonder to stare at, always.
Whether three, experiencing first cognizance,
or thirty-one, marveling.
Rain, a majestic measure of universal peace
in a world of chaos and noise.
Chaotic itself, like a jazz band drumming,
wind wailing past windows—
yet so serene.

Still, rain brings annoyance.
Bones ache, joints lock and creak,
and a youthful strut turns rusty tin-man waltz.
But its mysticism deafens pain
and frees the mind to fly.
Clarity, a rare enigma,
tickles skin raises arm hairs,
kisses lips with reality,
appearing ****, flirting with prismatic curves—
often ignored, and unnoticed.
Euphoria is splendidly remiss.

So easy to catalog memories,
reflect in life's mirror,
and determine what needs changing.
Everything changes with time.

Life, a garden.
We inherit seeds of knowledge,
plant interesting parts.
Love and sadness water, shine on plants
bearing flowers we call friends:
tulips, lilacs, dangerous roses.
Unique: blue, orange, red, white, pink.
Some sweet, some foul.
Each one is unique.
Flowers grow wild and wilt on vines.
Some aren't flowers, but weeds,
diseasing what they touch, like death.
Covered in insects, eroding beauty.
As a gardener, you decide:
anarchic disarray?
Or grab shears, and prune ugliness.
Friends who matter won't let your soul wilt.
Yes, rainfall brings such clarity.

But clarity's bubbles are superficial.
Easily burst, window closing, smog reconfiguring.
A bowling ball rolls across the sky and strikes pins—
a lucky strike.
Tree branches of light shoots extend,
lasts a second, and seems slower.
Adrenaline rushes, heart pounds like a drum.
Seconds pass, another strike, another flash.
A storm had come...
and it would pass.

There was once a child
born beneath the sign
of unburial.

She carried too much—
not in arms
but in tethered memory.
Things with no names,
only weights.

A cracked watch
that ticked in reverse.
A button from a coat
that no one had worn
in three generations.

A feather
from a bird
dreamt once
by her grandmother,
never seen again.

She believed—
as those marked by absence do—
that keeping meant remembering,
and remembering meant
nothing would vanish.

Others crossed her path,
offered to help unfasten the straps.
She refused.
They did not know
which talismans bled
and which only looked like wounds.

So she walked.
Through salt seasons,
through bone-rattling frost,
through forests with no floor
and skies that never asked her name.

The bag grew heavier.
She grew cleverer.
Silent.

And then—
on a day that wasn’t special,
under a sun that wasn’t kind—
she set it down.
Not as surrender.
As an experiment.

The earth did not crack.
The ghosts did not scatter.
Her shadow did not abandon her.

She sifted the contents.
Some were dust.
Some were still singing.
Some curled away like dried petals
and begged to be left behind.

She took a key.
She took the bell.
She left the rest
for the moss.

She walked on.

Not lighter, exactly—
but less governed
by the shape
of her grief.

Bigotedly, I held the same view,
Pacing a tank domestic and half-full
As the airbag now sprung from the hemisphere of my lungs,
Stone-hard and hysteric in the cradle of your palms.

You don’t have to rise like the sun each day—
some mornings, it's enough just to open your eyes,
to sit with the silence,
to feel your heartbeat and whisper, “I’m still here.”

You are not the storm that passed,
nor the ruins it left behind.
You are the seed under the soil,
waiting for the right rain,
the quiet miracle of a soul not giving up.

Let no one shame the pace of your healing.
Let no voice drown out the hush of your trying.
Because surviving is not small.
And breathing, on hard days,
is a kind of bravery the world forgets to praise.

So rest, dreamer.
You don’t need to shine tonight.
You just need to stay—
soft, alive,
and wildly worthy of tomorrow.

You and I—
we feel,
we love,
we regret.
Yet we remain
the binding particle
of a formless self.

They divide us,
pit us against each other.
We found safety
for thirteen days.

Before dawn,
we felt the breath
that seeps through cracks
into minds like a narrow thread of force,
and the fog spilled out.

Above our heads, false stars
created by warm bodies
to annihilate
what passed through the gate
of a birthing woman.

We write words to conjure
happy endings
at the ball of extermination
that tears apart
the pulsing light
of a thousand veins.

Please sit with me
before you go
Do you feel it—
the mourning procession
of human beings
transforming into a state of fission
and drifting away?

And a sigh is so sad
of trembling atoms
when the victim becomes the destroyer.

Feel the force of the fall,
and do not shatter hope
even if the world
trembles to its core
because there is still YOU,
still ME,
and still

OTHERS.

Repentance isn't a feeling word

Actions are the
dispensations separated
by cross , tomb and resurrection

So aches the heart to know
of what or where
or perhaps most ardently
. . . when .

When will I see you again ?

The annual avian ****
storm-troopers and
Luftwaffe have attacked
allied fortresses
of our smaller
fine
feathered friends --

    Chickadees
       Finches
            &
       Wrens --

and have taken
many of their strongholds
this spring here in the
Far North pillaging
needed and perhaps
unneeded sustenance
from our allies
storehouses leaving
nothing in their wake
but an avian version
of empty nest syndrome.

    These black-clad
     Heckle & Jeckle
    Grackle Gestapo
with their click click
       machine gun
   sputtering sounds

think we don't notice their
clever tricks as they
nonchalantly hop
downward from branch
to branch and shuffle
side-ways on our fence
whistling as they move
one way but their
manipulating gaze at
food supplies plans
another.

But our smaller brave
fine feathered friends
hold their ground to
fight the good fight of
faith propagating
their species as the
human species also
struggles with and
against the odds of
blind and partially
blind instinct.