Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
 
Not every road
is paved or clear
some crack
like old beliefs—
two lanes splitting
in an argument
neither wants to take—
or win

Go left
the ground gives way

Go right
the sky burns

There is no
best answer
only what breaks least
beneath your feet—
but chin up
even broken roads
lead home
Katelyn Tarver—You Don't Know (lyrics)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ug2Ki8hpxcI
 1d
jewel
doors & how they swing so far wide
like the gaping shadow
of a pair of lips waiting...

i wonder if you realized i felt the grace
of your arrow -- brushing so lovingly through
the flesh of my *****
& i couldn’t help but to smile

take it away from me, the flutter in my chest, the
residuals of your golden essence
sitting on the rim of modelos
& passenger seat of my monte carlo

when i watch the neutral tones of grainy film
seep into your oily features
i wish you would smile just a bit more

two lovers draped over this canvas
cast their passionate shadows over bedsheets,
pleasurable touches & a recipe for a sickly afterglow,
burning like the delicate backs of fireflies
bursting like a pearlescent bubble
chased by bitter aftertaste of longing

how i wish you knew
how much you made me feel
how my paints drip like honey
& form the lines that become you

when i breathe again the essence has vanished
like paint thinner on acrylic. honey replaced
with a spoonful of sugar
& i cross the street to meet you

suddenly the memory leaves no trace behind
& i can’t help but to trace the spot
where you once stood
copyrighted, poemsbyjewel (2025).
I walk upon the earth
I pretend that I own it,
I see an army of ants
attacking a Mantis,
I watch it accept defeat,
it is silent in its prayer,
it is crippled in its faith,
my empathy is tested,
I whisper to its god,
give it a quick death!
but its god does not listen
it is slow and torturous,
I hold my breath as the
Mantis weeps. I see the
last leaf fall from a
winter Wisteria it is
naked and boney, it has
become ugly
in its nature …
Clay.M
Tears
are not afraid
to get wet—
tears will find
another way
through—

Like rain cutting
new roads
through rock

Like rivers tricking
land to let go

Even the smallest
drop knows—
water moves
what won’t
a twisty verbiage, but stop!
it is not cutesy or frivolous,
buy an awed respect,
for that fact;
the complexity of the monumental
is the sum of:
the bricks, the letters,
the words, the lines, the stanza and
of course, the spaces in between
that makes simple so ****
complex
2-18-25
Established landmarks removed test the fates—
Burning wind in a vacant sky.
Rearranged cosmic hemispheres of mind—
Oracle of day not seen with naked eye.

The need for warmth a thing of the past—
Frigid waters the basis of new-fangled cell.
Tortured derelicts kept from spiritual vision—
Oracle of night hangs in day’s empty shell.

Dubious means to generate a sun of artificial light—
But a fling cannot replace a love that is shunned.
Yet warm rays of sunlight still flow above the temporal—
Still hanging in defiance of the 60 cycle hum.

Regain your bearings oh heart of true light—
Everything in its place: oracle of day and oracle of night.
©2017 Daniel Irwin Tucker

repost
This world grows in me—
stone and root,
water bending like sorrow—
the river rises,
catching smooth stones,
carrying all that has been broken.

She spills—
cunning as a courtesan,
her movements deliberate—
a quiet confidence in every curve,
never losing herself.

Her hands shape the world she touches—
soft enough to cradle,
brave enough to let go.

The mountain pauses—
a quiet thinker.
Each step is careful,
his resolve etched in stone,
teaching me to belong—
to stand firm.
Even when the wind cuts,
even when the world
shivers beneath me.

And the forest—
ancestral,
speaks of skies torn apart,
alive with things
I’ve never seen before—
its roots speak softly,
an inheritance of quiet strength.
It whispers of lives lived long gone—
a story written in every leaf,
a hand outstretched
from every branch,
reminding me—

I am their breath,
their silence, their strength—
through stone and root,
water and sky,
this world grows within me—
I am not alone—

None of us are.
The river is my mother,
the mountain is my father,
the ancestral forest, my grandparents...
and I, their breath.
Next page