a poem collapses language into feeling.
connection isn’t absent—it’s shattered.
grief lives in the space where meaning fails.

Love, once central, now spirals—
fragmented, ******, falling inward.
It doesn’t speak. It disintegrates.

On the ridge where borders kiss,
a lion learned the wolf’s quick heart,
a wolf learned the lion’s long breath.

They tied a city to their quarrel,
stitched an altar through a throne,
and walked the same ascent until
the feud forgot its name.

Brother, said the friend,
and the stones remembered.

Beauty isn’t verdict.
            It moves—
     slow, sudden.

One eye sees chorus.
      One hears a bell.

We met in the middle.
      Called it human.

          No greetings.
      No apologies.

Just the sentence,
already burning.

Silence held the shape.
        We stepped in.





.

cold in my chest where charcuterie burned
pages of lifelines now crackle and moan
prayers for a future never returned
and silence within, the loudest I’ve known

“Six Sons of Silence”

Silence, water, mirror, salt, pulse, thread—  
each word returns, distorted.  

Mother sews the sixth stanza  
with breath too bitter for a lullaby.

The sons respond in braided absence  
until reverb names them anew.




.

ghosted in comment box  
    where goodbyes decay, unread  
                I draft silence now—  
  syntax can't cradle absence  
nor data warm the soul

Heart open, trusting,
Fagin's shadows play their game,
Deception's cruel dance.








.

"Week in a Wink"


Mon rocked up in trackies, Tim Tams for tea,
By Tues the kookas were laughin’ at me.

Fri slid past quiet, Sat hit with a thud,
Sun’s still August — we’re stuck in the mud.




.

"unspoken storms"

Still waters conceal unspoken storms,  
Not from apathy, but a need for calm.  
Eyes don’t always radiate cries within—  

Some truths resist the need to begin.  
Let them talk, assume, decide—  
In silence, whole galaxies reside.

"The Impossible Turn"



To hold what harms, to face without flinching,
                                      to shape warmth from wire.
To drop the name, to meet the eyes, to let edges soften.
To burn the mould, to kneel in ash, to rise listening.
Not conquest. Not perfection. Only forward motion.





.
© Now, Frederick Kesner

Éclair My Heart

Fill me up with custard’s glow,  
soft as secrets whispered low.  
Chocolate coat our midnight vows,  
each bite a bow that time allows.  

Glossy tease of vanilla sighs—  
declare your love in pastry cries.





.

"Croissant of Confusion"

Your layers spiral inward,  
a buttery maze without a map—  
I bite the edge, get lost in curves,  
crumbs falling like questions.  

Is it pastry or pastry’s dream?  
I’m too entranced to care which.

"first bruise"

Streetlamps flicker,  
echoing their silence.  
The chill—  
not just in the air,  
but between glances  

that once burned.  

Footsteps dissolve  
into memory's fog,  
while love  
learns its first  
bruise.

"The Empire‐Skeptic and History Class"

Your Aeneas builds an empire
on exile and sorrow—what of the cities
he conquers, the peoples displaced?

Transformation has a cost.
By glorifying his ‘spark,’
we risk overlooking the suffering
ignited in his wake.

"right here, right now"

all we have is right now—
that morning you dropped your umbrella
and puddles burst into applause

looking for the right person—
then seeking the right time—
chasing seconds like fireflies

pinpointing the right place:
location, location, location—
our compasses spinning free

so here’s the thesis: home lives in joined footsteps—
come wander with me
when all we’ve got is right here... right now



.

"Rusted Harp"


Strings crust over
like ancient ossuary bones,
once vibrant with touch,
now mute in neglect.

Each pluck would be agony—
a resurrection of rust,
a hymn to how
we let beauty corrode.




.

"The Meagre String"

In a dusty corner
the final string trembles—
a solitary note aching
                   to become a verse.

It breathes its solitude
                  
                  into splintered wood,
praying its fragment of promise
                   still sounds sacred,
even missing the choir’s embrace.





.

The moon
lifts its bright cloak
high in the sky,

unraveling time’s knots
without a sound, and
the wind pours whispers
into yearning,

weaving
its swift wakefulness
through the night.





.
Español

La luna
alza su manto
claro en el cielo,

deshilacha los nudos
del tiempo sin ruido,
y el viento derrama
susurros al hastío,

bordando
en la noche
su ágil desvelo.





.

"for whom the bells toll"

Imagine standing at the edge of day,
                roused not by birdsong
but by a single, unclaimed toll.

As you read, pay attention
       to how that sound
becomes more than noise—
how it might carry stories
    you’ve left unspoken.

Notice the careful beat of each line
and the quiet spaces it leaves behind.
Rather than telling you what to feel,

the poem lets its unnamed bells
                          become your guide
through dawn’s uncharted moments.





.

"Pastry Saltry"

I woke this morning in a buttery daze,
heart folded like dough, kneaded and praised.

You strolled in, glistening with pretzel grace—
salt crystals winked on your powdered face.

We rose on warm gusts, flaky promises spun—
together the world tasted half sugar, half sun.

"Archive Soul”
  
An archive opens:  
folder titles like breaths you forgot.  

Inside, your silhouette fractalised—  
flesh parsed into metadata.  

Memory = 84% accurate.  
Love = untagged.






.

Donut Disturb


Do not knock until I’ve iced my mood,
glazed in sugar’s gentle trance.
Each hole a hollow plea for peace—
sprinkles shielding sleepy thoughts.
Ring me only when calories don’t matter.

"Murmur of Whiskers”





In pre–dawn hush
you pad across linoleum—
soft paws tracing the map
              of my half–dreams.

                Your quiet breath
becomes a tethered prayer,
stitching ragged edges
of my nightly fears.

              No need for words:
your calm is the benediction
       that steadies my pulse
before the world awakes.






.

Light
A single spark
arcs
in the hush of thought,
braiding
hope into the dark.

Residue
Grey ash settles
on pages never finished,
charred
margins tracing first desires.

Memory
From cinders
of yesterday’s fervour
rise soft echoes
of half-formed melodies.

Message
We shape our breath
into tethered words,
casting lantern-bright
into another’s night.

Light
That echo returns,
igniting fresh wonder—
the spark leaps on.







.

“Veins of Mist”
by arqios

The hills exhale in threads— pale veins of mist
                            tracing the pulse of morning.
Beneath the hush, stones remember the weight
                    of footsteps that never returned.
A crow calls once, and silence folds a cloak around it.
The sky does not answer. It only listens
             with the patience of old gods.

"our online lives"

I just stumbled on you in poem
and its quiet ache has stayed with me
all afternoon. The way it turns
a missing notification into something
almost sacred—pixels drifting
like fallen leaves, prayers planted
in comment rows—feels so true
to our online lives.

when the quiet breaks


i learned to love the silence
not because it felt like peace—
but because it never lied to me.

the noise left bruises,
every laugh a little jagged
every “i’m fine” cracked at the edges
and every promise wore someone else's face.

but silence? she didn’t pretend.
she just sat beside me while my hands trembled,
while my breath forgot how to stay.

people say healing is loud
but mine looked like folded laundry
and rooms i didn’t run from.





.

“Epistle at Noon”


Steam curls from the chipped mug—
a psalm rising in arabesques
against the sunlit kitchen tile.

My spoon taps a rhythm
like distant temple bells,
calling memory from its slumber.

Between the coffee’s warmth
and the hush of half–read pages,
I find an unexpected covenant:
mercy in ordinary motion.






.

a harrowed reference = photojournalist’s bucket
brimming with raw film conveying targeted wishes—
blank frames sparking imaginings

Streetlamps flicker,  
echoing their silence.  
The chill—  
not just in the air,  
but between glances  
that once burned.  
Footsteps dissolve  
into memory's fog,  
while love  
learns its first  
bruise.






.

Madame Ranevskaya’s Reverie  
poem 2 of a Chekhovian suite

I dance beneath boughs heavy with spring,  
wine-warm laughter on my tongue.  
The air tastes of childhood and lost letters—  
murmurs of father, of home.  

Yet every footstep echoes farewell;  
hope, a threadbare gown I once wore.  
I sip nostalgia like champagne—  
sweet, effervescent, and gone too fast.  




.

The Orchard’s Lament  
Morning mist drapes each blossom  
like a bride reluctant to wake.  
Petals fall in silent confession—  
memory’s hush in every drift.  

Roots hold secrets of laughter and tears,  
a debt of seasons owed to shadows.  
Soon, steel will bite bark and bloom  
and these ghosts will scatter on the wind.  




.

Should I die—think only of dew at dawn,  
Whispering on grass that shivers bright,  
Ghostly lines where my breath has gone,  
Vanishing in the arms of light.

Let each drop hold my final sigh,  
Tender residue of night’s embrace,  
Till warmth reclaims them in the sky,  
Leaving only memory’s trace.





.

"Paws in the Light"

A sunbeam waits.
Two cats settle—
quiet, apart, together.

No words. Just warmth.

In stillness, memory stirs.
You’re allowed to stop.
This moment matters.

But perhaps— you are
not forgotten. Not truly.
Your voice threads the dusk
between radio static,

slips between keystrokes,
hums in the silence
after a song we don’t know
why we love.

The garlands might wilt.
But the roots are
underground and unsupervised.
And still growing.

needed a car yesterday, yesteryear
getting all the ducks in a row for my own car,
it's hard for a cowboy without a steed....
scabbing rides to work ain't fun
and ubering can get quite dear.... my dear
so who's gonna drive me home, tonight? .

These bridges you have thus built
and those you keep on building
are the ones we can always cross
from which pebbles we can toss
and watch their ripples downstream
crossing over into our once upon dream

Oh, to remember such
unspoiled kinship with the divine,
where even the wind was a companion
and silence spoke in full sentences.

Perhaps this poem isn’t just
a backward glance but a gentle invitation—
to return, not in time, but in spirit,
to that meadow of soulfulness
where love was once our native tongue.

Some part of us still listens
to the rustling leaves, hoping
the gods haven’t stopped calling.

globe
not a stage a planet

bruised planks orbiting a sun made of soliloquy

audience as constellation—
each cough, a satellite of meaning

Rome burned here twice daily, except Sundays

and Hamlet rose and fell like a tide without moon

this was the world entire— conflagration fuelled
                                        by candlelight and gesture

call the rain
name it— not for mercy or for penance.
let it seep through cracked stone,

drawn by what we almost remembered.

no supplication. no altar. only canopy. only air.
it falls, scrubbing silence off the last clean wall.
we call, again— not to keep it, but to let it go.