The blight swept Irish fields, crops crumbled to dust,
They starved on barren land, betrayed by false trust.
The ships sailed for England, with bellies of grain,
While coffins piled high, in the cold bitter rain.

Hollowed by dire famine, Irish voices grew weak,?
Their language was silenced, each time they dared speak.
Irish songs were forbidden, their faith forced to hide,
While English law reigned, with its power and pride.

The green Irish valleys, flowed crimson with dead,
In Derry and Belfast, shattered streets bled red.
“The Troubles” unleashed bombs, the air burned with fire,
As brother fought brother, in streets choked with ire.

Murals of martyrs stared grim, from brazen walls,
Names whispered softly, in dim candlelit halls.
Cruel soldiers in armour, patrolled every street,
And children knew fear, before finding their feet.

Yet under the weight, of the rifle and rule,
They clung to their stories, in bard’s ancient school.
The harp still was strummed, beneath the cloak of night,
Keeping the flame of their souls, forever bright.

British sons too felt lost, on streets far from home,
Their names carved in stone, where the mourners still roam.
They carried the weight, of a war not their choice,
And spoke of their loss, in a trembling voice.

One day ****** guns, fell to silence at last,
Though deep scars in their hearts, still clung to the past.
Hands crossed worn lines, where the blood once did flow,
And seeds of a fragile, wary bond did grow.

They’ll never forget, those they buried in clay,
Nor the pain that forged, who they are to this day.
They now share their markets, their music, their trade,
New bonds have been woven, though old wounds won’t fade.

Two peoples once torn, bruised by conflict and dread,
Now walk side by side, down the road still ahead.
The border once guarded, with watchtowers and wire,
Now welcomes the traveller, without armed attire.

And if two proud isles, can crawl out of their gloom,
Perhaps other nations, can defy their own doom.
Walk away from their ruins, with hands intertwined,
And heal ancient wounds, in the hearts of mankind.

– Tom Vassos, Canadian Author, Astronomer

One year down the road,
two years back behind.
Neither has a sign saying closed,
not that we would pay it any mind.
Indecision is killing us
choking so hard we can barely breathe.
I buried all of our trust
and then beg you not to grieve.

While it’s always been you I adore
I can’t decide if I love or hate myself more.
It eats me alive just like cancer
but I know and I show, us both
the real answer.

Try to illustrate your soul
but my pallet’s lacking the tones.
I tried to pay the tickets and toll
by trading sticks and stones.
A promise I should’ve kept,
but sometimes it’s just too hard,
and so I watched as you wept
just as predicted by the tarot card.

While it’s always been you I adore
it’s been the wrong side I’ve been fighting for.
I chose my tactics and my plays,
to get through that it’s true,
It’s still you
all time and always.

She says “don’t call me kid, don’t call me baby,
when you do that **** it makes me feel crazy.”
“You can’t even look me square in the face,
and you’ve always had an accent I just couldn’t place.”
She says “don’t call me kid, don’t call me love,
you took everything that I ever dreamt of
all of it is now poisoned laced,
or you tried to erase but it can’t be replaced.”

I could never put her on a shelf;
These aren’t feelings I’ve ever felt
just for anyone else.
I’m sure she knows **** well,
for her I’d crawl my body through hell.
All time and always.

I laid down my rifle
a long time ago.
No more shouting from trenches,
no more pride in the mud.

I surrendered.

But she didn’t.

She’s still bunkered up,
hiding behind sarcasm and silence,
armed with old pain
and the ghosts of nights I didn’t cause.

So I get hit.
Over and over.
Sharp words. Cold stares.
Misfired memories that land on my chest
like shrapnel.

But I’m not backing off.

I’m crawling through barbed wire made of what-ifs
and landmines labeled “don’t go there.”

And I’m close now.
Close enough to smell the old perfume
beneath the wine and wilted willpower.

Close enough
to throw in a grenade —
not of anger,
but of love.

Pull the pin.
Say the words.
Let it explode in light
instead of fire.

Let it end this war
with something softer
than surrender.

Has your soul ever been displayed,
Framed by thick wooden-glazed borders,
and set up in the gallery of another's life?

Can you say the painting of you
Beams with joy through heavy clouds,
Sliced by sharp shards of glass-like light?

If not, may you then brush-up yourself,
Quick blots of pink on sunken cheeks,
Lighten the shade under each eye?

Or will you draw the curtain,
Blind me to me, and you to you,
Pinch out the last flicker of fight?

Can you hear it?

The silence.

Everything begins there—
in the spaces between our breaths, where our words stumble, break apart,
and dissolve in our blood.

Everything begins in these silences,
when we simmer beneath the skin,
when our dreams bubble, brew, billow, then boil up into storms
that rage just beneath our calm—
when our thoughts crash against the cliffs of our hearts,
swept by the undertow of what we want, of what we hope,
and of all the things we cope with.

When I’m taking pauses while I’m talking to you, the silence isn’t empty.

There is an intimate maelstrom that swirls within me, pressing against my ribcage.

I feel the tides twist, rise, then fall—
I feel the ocean ebb and flow—
I feel its throb that thunders like war drums in my chest.

I feel… every word I hold back, every word I almost say
like a ripple that never crests,
like a wave that never breaks.

But I like silence.

Because, I also see a glimmer in it.
I see the shimmering sway of ideas.
And I feel… softness in their rolling—
softness like the backwash kissing the shore with its foam.

Sometimes… I wish I could just remain there,
nestled in that brittle fold of silence forever.

But sometimes also, the cotton of silence wrapping around me feels so comfortable
that my thoughts become deafening,
and they pull me down, trying to drown me within myself.

So quickly, in a desperate gasp for air—
I feast on noise.

And suddenly, I crave it.
The way the world roars. The way it crackles.
So I melt into its chaos.

I want to feel its pulse, its pound, its music.
I want to drown in the drunken hours.
I want to feel my heart rise with the loudest nights.
I want to cling to laughters that veil all the cracks I try to hide.

I want to stuff the silence—
as if only the noise could save me from myself.

Yet—no matter how hard I try to escape, the silence keeps coming back.

And every now and then,
Life punctuates itself with tiny bubbles of quiet.

…

Like this one.

…

But not all silences feel the same.

There are the ones I share with her…
the wordless seconds lost in her gaze.
The silent glances.
This all feels… different.

These silences make me whole.
Whole, and yet somehow… incomplete.

Incomplete because I often dream of chiseling
from the marble of these silences—
from the air that hangs between us—
all the words, all the promises,
everything I feel for her…

This small yet enormous statue
waiting to emerge from within—
from the rhythm of my heartbeat,
from the waves,
from the storms,
from every crack…

From this silence—
where everything begins.

And there I stand,
fingers trembling, mouth dry,
a chasm yawning between us.

And all I yearn for is to set it free—
This simple

“I love you”.

Love is a river, a sliver of light,
Curling and swirling in the silk of night.
It slips like whispers through canyon walls,
Echoing soft where the moonlight falls.

A clock with no hands, it bends and it breaks,
Ticking in rhythms that the heart remakes.
It’s a thread in the loom, weaving shadows and fire,
A stitch in the storm of untamed desire.

It’s the taste of rain on a tongue of stone,
The scent of a garden where wild things have grown.
A flame that shivers but never dies,
A flicker that burns beneath winter skies.

It’s the ache of the shore as the waves retreat,
A dance unfinished, yet bittersweet.
The hum of a chord that hangs in the air,
A note unresolved, yet painfully rare.

It’s a trap, it’s a freedom, a tangle in the tide,
A ghost on the shoulder, a force you can’t guide.
Both prisoner and prince in its velvet cage,
An eternal story on a fleeting page.

So sail it, inhale it, let it bury your fears,
Let it carve your soul through laughter and tears.
For love is a river, unruly and deep,
A current that carries what you vow to keep.

(Three voices, one truth)

I

You laugh like silver bells,
(Or is it a siren's call?)
You hold the door with grace,
(Or push them down the hall?)
They call you cruel, a storm of spite—
But I see sunlight.
You remember little things,
ask about my day,
make me feel like I matter.
(Do they not matter? Do they not exist?)

They

We whisper, we warn—
(You never listen.)
We've seen the mask slip,
(You never glisten.)
A shadow moves beneath your praise,
But you still chase.
We’ve watched you excuse, rewrite,
pretend you didn’t see.
What will it take?
(Does it have to happen to you?)

You

I am the sum of all they see,
(Yet less than half of what I seem.)
I am the echo, sharp and sweet,
(A kindness dressed in quiet teeth.)
Do I love, or do I take?
It’s not my choice—
(It’s yours to make.)
And you have made it.
Again and again.
So why ask what I am,
when you've already answered?

Conflict

They carve your name into curses
You wear their spite like silk
I stand at the altar of your shadow,
offering silence,
wondering if I am blessing a saint
or kneeling before a sinner.