Joy , love, pain and life

2d

William A Gibson

Play it slow-
not for romance,
but because the strings are blistered,
and every note splits the sky
with fire.

Stroll through the panic,
it’s routine:
duct tape on the windows,
radio on low,
a list of missing birds
tacked to the wall
like fallen saints.

You said you'd carry me,
but the world’s gone grey,
and the olive tree’s
just smoke now.

There’s no audience left.
Just wind
and its thousand-watt warning.

Still, your spine curves to the rhythm
like a fever dream from Babylon,
hips like warning sirens,
ankles sunk in ash.

I want to understand
what we ruined,
but only at a pace I can stand,
only with eyes closed.

There was a time
we dressed like lovers.
Now it’s mylar blankets
and filtered masks.

We knew the promise;
we broke it anyway,
above it,
beneath it,
inside it.

Someone keeps whispering
about children,
as if hope still blooms
in poisoned soil.

Play it slow,
with bare hands if you must.
But don’t pretend this isn’t a requiem.
Don’t dress it up in velvet or vows.
Just let the music float
and burn,
like everything else.

SoCal climate: golden skies, ash in your lungs, beauty on fire.

#climate #requiem #smoke #collapse #aftermath #silence #burn #memory #decay #survival

2d

Marshal Gebbie

Seeking the Substance?

Time, like dry sand,
Trickles between the fingers.
Substance-less it flows
As if the yesterdays
Had no more importance
Than the tomorrows?
As if the complexity
Of just, being,
Quantified the
Resultant meaningfulness,
Of the ebb and the flow?

For twixt the expanse
Of birth and death
Lies the pulsing vacuum
Of time, of being.

Indulgently,
It is ladled, consumed
With the importance
Of self.
In actuality
It emulates a flatulence,
A triviality,
A nothingness
Of ego,
A vanity!

For where
In these four-score,
Years of Life,
Or so,
Lies substance?
An actual achievement
Beyond that
Of self-indulgence?

Search the avenue
Of your
Halls of Conscience.....
Candidly,
With certitude
And with deep,
UTTER TRUTH!

And in all
Honesty,
Can you deny
This Great Void
As being, actually
Comprised,
Otherwise?

M@Foxglove.Taranaki.NZ
27 July 2025

Tic-toc sings the clock
Where's the meaning,
Does it stop?
Is it black or is it white
Filled with promise or of fright?
Why this quest of four score years
As indulgence perseveres?
Why compulsions grasp for more
Reveals why we slam the door?
Tic-toc sings the clock
Laughing now, to sadly mock!

Uncomfortable about this?
I'm not asking you to reveal anything but I am demanding that you search your soul with integrity.
This write is not about sunsets and daffodils, this is about your grit and the fire poetry instills in your heart!
M.

2d

Maria Mitea

…It is way too explicit,

And
I’ll never be beautiful for anyone,
Not even for you,
I will never hide my chickenpox,
Grind me to sand, and I'll shout to the wind,
Wash me! Wash me away!

I’ll never pretend that I am pretty for anyone,
Not even for you,
I’ll let my skin dry like the Atacama desert,
I’ll let the harsh mountain storm bite my face,
The eagles eat my flesh on the tower of silence, so
There is nothing left to dream about,
Not even bone dust for the rain,

I’ll fight like gladiators, not to be beautiful for anyone,
Not even for you,
I won’t let the clouds overshadow my scalp,
I’ll pull right now, one by one, every hair follicle,

What you ask me to be is not beauty, it is a butterfly
That flies and flies around a light bulb
Until it dies

A shadow that weaves white nights,
I will not invent myself to be pretty for anyone,
Not even for you,

If you wish to enter my blood,
You have to swim in the imperishable waters,

#tolstoicehovmaria #mitea #bjeorklisa #gerrardlovemysticsdostoievski

3d

Anais Vionet

resorts of the mind

Here at our rooftop, collegiate, ‘resort of the mind,’
an early heatwave has struck - we’ve been advised.
Like we needed it. It’s 94°f and climbing - we’re not insensitive.
We’re aware that the sun is bright and the air is crisp and hot.
It was Friday morning, until the sun pointed to noon.

Nothing’s going to stop the summer swelter except thunder storms - which are on their way - we’ve been advised.
A seasonable tempest is being piped-up from the sea.
Like we needed it. We can see the far horizon’s shadowed billows and curtains of rain - we feel the changing wind.

But we have every reason to be cheery, forewarned as we are,
here at the pool, in the still needed shade, armed with margaritas.
The weather may change, the season alter, but we will, unaltered, remain.

We seem to have captured a moment of buz. People are swinging-by, dropping-in, bringing drinks and party snacks then lurking by the pool.

Fridays are 'sui generis'—magical—because they play tricks with time. Dreary weekday landscapes seem to transform, as the old week wanes and ‘the pert and nimble spirit of mirth awakens.’
(A purposeful Shakespeare misquote).
.
.
Songs for this:
Heat Wave by Linda Ronstadt
Heatwave by Bronski Beat
Heat wave - Bing Crosby

BLT Merriam Webster word of the day challenge 07/25/25:
Sui generis = something unique, or in a class or group of its own.

I have a (FaceTime) Med School interview with John’s Hopkins on Monday!!
I'm duper-nervous.

#heatwaves #midsummer #storms #poolside #fun #humor

3d

Agnes de Lods

The Grey Level

Another gray trip to a small town.
At the bus stop:
an abandoned bicycle,
trembling in the rain,
waiting for someone,
who never came.

The coughing crowd,
getting on and off,
headed for the unknown.
Actors carrying
heavy bags of ugly food.

Out of the corner
of an invisible eye
snatches of words
drifting into a wrinkled world—
not the first, vivid green,
but the tired lettuce,
expired bananas—
a symbol of unreachable luxury.

Casual dialogues about angels and demons,
atheists and spiritual needs.
Random people battered by reality
rolling out a red carpet for their thoughts,
spoken aloud in the indifferent air,
small talk about kicking life—
an existential fight to survive.

The game downloaded
by an unfair fate.
Something put him, her, them
on this wrong level,
an extreme mode
the deepest discomfort.

Unfair purpose of pain.
For many,
not being loved is an aching way,
for others,
the lack of bread.

The multiple truths
closed in one small drop
of a rainy day without a name.

#thegreylevel

3d

Dr Peter Lim

A Buddhist Idea

Wherever you are
         let your thoughts be pure:
         good Karma you'll attract
         that's the outcome for sure

3d

Shay Caroline Simmons

My Detective

When a detective falls in love, he does not know who to bill for expenses--
everything is up in the air.

At a mixer for suspects, he invites me to dance via loudspeaker.
Radiant in my white dress, I resemble a snowy owl
even down to my carefully bandaged hand which he takes without hesitation.
I whisper in his ear:

I am Leon Czolgosz.
Your heart is the President of the United States of America.
We are dancing in Buffalo, city by the Niagara.
My detective, of course, falls hard.

The next time we meet, I wait for him in the bullpen at the police station.
They know him there.
They hire cellists.
He confesses his deepest fantasy to me:

I want to speak words of love to you
via telephone
with our hands naked and separated only by the safety glass.
I want the call recorded
and broadcast to wild lovers around the globe.

Shortly after, we are married. I wear my favorite bearskin robe.
My small black cubs frolic nearby,
climbing the pews and then tumbling gaily down again.
My detective is resplendent in his tuxedo.
The hired band plays Funiculi Funicula.
I snarl when my detective gets too close to the cubs, and this inflames him.

At last, we lie in bed together, like busy machines come to rest.
I am wearing nothing but the revolver-shaped earrings he has given me.
My detective wears a felt fedora
and a look of smug adoration like a daredevil over the falls in a barrel.
I am The Queen of the Mist,
suspected in various thieveries, check kiting, and jaywalking.

Our love is an aviary
where birds wheel above the thundering water like intelligent confetti.
Look in your mailbox, I tell my detective.
I have left you a valentine and an Easter egg.
He asks if, after all, I am his mystery client.
I enter a plea of innocent.
My love is happy now, laughing.

#niagara #assassins #detectives #birds #crime

5d

Aegis Vistoria Penumbra

Intermission: Warning

These stories were ours.

Meant for you and me.
Reader and writer.
Not divine, not secret, but still sacred.

They were already shared.
But never with her.
Never for Fate.

This story, this grief.
It was never hers to interpret.
And yet she reached in.

She stole verses I gave to you.
She twisted what was ours,
Into something she could sing for herself.

These are the pieces she dug out.
What was previously shared,
Now tainted by her intrusion.

They were torn out from their homes,
And stitched where they did not belong,
Not by my choice,

But by her trespass.

x https://hellopoetry.com/poem/5066755/nightmare/

x https://hellopoetry.com/poem/5021519/prestige/

x https://hellopoetry.com/collection/136316/suppressium-the-dignicide-doctrine/

x https://hellopoetry.com/collection/136315/mistys-journey/

x https://hellopoetry.com/poem/5034083/blood-upon-the-sunrise/

x https://hellopoetry.com/poem/5046928/the-answer-shall-be-revealed/

x https://hellopoetry.com/collection/136318/****-me-kindly/

x https://hellopoetry.com/poem/5037300/we-got-green-eyes/

x https://hellopoetry.com/poem/5036128/do-you-praise-the-sword-or-the-man/

x https://hellopoetry.com/poem/5044542/shoot-shoot-shoot/

x https://hellopoetry.com/collection/136317/diamond-devil-vs-iron-angel/

But she did not stop there,
No.
She pried beyond what was spoken.

She infiltrated beyond what was documented.
She didn't stop at memory.
She wanted what hadn't become language yet.

These stories were mine.
Unwritten, unfinished, unposted.
Still fluid within the shelter of thought.

Still private.
Still alive.

But she couldn't wait,
To pull threats from the mind,
To taint not just the lesson,

But the source.

Now she knows what even you don't.
She has seen what has yet to be shared.
Not as a privilege,

As a threat.

So if you, reader, choose to stay,

Do so as one who understands the gravity of patience.
This is not entertainment.
This is reclamation.

At least, it is the attempt.
Because success is not guaranteed,
When she is still listening.

So then, let this be a warning.

In the chaos of your ideas,
And the silence between your thoughts,
Beware what parasites may linger.

If you think your mind is private,
Yours alone,
You may be mistaken.

Neither reality nor fiction,
Has a right,
To invade your mind.

Yet both,
Will do whatever it takes,
To steal it for themselves.

Learn from my mistakes.

You can't keep her out.
She will force her way in.

Fate is already looking through your eyes.
All she needs now is your voice.

So when all else is taken,
When she occupies your mind,
Speak from your thoughts,

Not hers.

Don't lend your voice to anyone.
You can't help but think others' thoughts,
But you had better speak your own words.

This intermission serves as optional context for Paralogue C (https://hellopoetry.com/poem/5099132/wont-you-bear-with-me-through-this-moment-of-weakness/).

We will soon return, to the story, of 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑊𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑊𝑎𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔.

https://hellopoetry.com/collection/136314/the-wings-of-waiting/