This bone-tired body is a battlefield
where I keep returning
to bury the same soldier,
over and over.

His face shifts like seasons—
familiar and foreign,
the line between my lines,
fading into fable,
floating into folklore.

He’s died here a hundred times,
and I survived every one.
But I keep coming back,
thinking I might unearth
something softer.

My hands tremble from holding too much—
soliloquies, symptoms, scapegoats,
saltshakers, semicolons, starry-eyed sighs.
My knees buckle under the weight
of a history I can’t rewrite.

No matter how many poems erupt
from my shell-shock,
how many mornings I crawl from trenches,
listening to the sound of birdsong—
I always return, ***** in hand.

He stares up from the dirt,
his mouth unmoving but full of accusations.
"You never let me go,"
he whispers without sound,
"and I’ll keep rising until you do.
Don’t you get it?
You buried yourself here too."

How many deaths does it take
to make a ghost let go?
I’m running out of shovels,
but never out of wishes.

Some wounds are wars,
and some wars never surrender.
If I stop digging, will the war finally end—
or will it bloom
in the silence I leave behind?

Tolling hungrily the hollow bell
High in pious belfry hung.

Lofty words as pride dictates
From deep in cavernous dwellings
To keep a doctrine as one
Keeps hope of the future
Locked in a chest --
The ritual of past and present notions.

Receding line at edge of seaboard
Feeding on dry land the watery grave
Filled with borrowed sentiments adrift.
The open sea -- open sores of prejudice

Cut off from inlets of vision and reason.
Preserved as Lenin's body under glass.

Emily, Emily, called back,
But not set free,
By those who worship
and study thee!

Summers see the young ones
Gather on your lonely grave.
Kissing with immortal tongues,
To desire they are slaves;

But you forgive them blithely,
tell them to proceed,
In your name and memory,
The one thing you knew not was greed.

-Sharon Talbot

Treading upon the fragile shards of time;
moments cascade into oblivion, as the echoes
of my bones resonate with the agony of existence.
I seldom boast of my worth, yet my lips dared to speak
with courage. I sought my place among the stars, wandering
the glassy avenues where the imprint of your steps lingers
upon the meticulously laid path.

My mind, burdened by the weight of stony tears,
contemplates the thoughtless utterances that birthed
yet another futile verse. At times, I find myself gasping beneath
the suffocating pillow of my own uncertainties, surviving on
the fragile threads of hope, faith, and fleeting joy that last but
a week; still, I feel like an intruder in my own sanctuary.

Dreams drown in the merciless shadows;
the dawn's light offers them a glimmer of hope – a sanctuary
for the spirit among the awakened. I drift in a half-sleep,
daydreaming amidst a throng of fellow dreamers, our youthful
skins too tender to fade, a heart yearning to be filled with cherished
memories.

These sins bind humanity in shackles,
desperately seeking an escape from the labyrinth of their minds.
Oh, is existence truly madness? Yet, in spite of the suffering,
we pray to live another day. And so this fragment of life is
my grace, a testament to the fact that I have yet to meet the grave.

Today
I visited a cemetery
For a geocache
But I found
Something else
I visited the Italian section
Hoping to find some of my culture
But I found
A small grave
Sticking out of the ground
Labeled
”Alice”
It had her parents names
And nothing but her date of birth
And death
She was seven months old.
Her poor parents
She never got to speak
To walk
To wonder
To make friends
To go to school
To get a job
I wonder
If her parents still think about her
If they're even still alive

Poor baby Alice…

the world rejects sorrows
for happiness can be sold

whereas sorrows lead to life
happiness naturally believed

even within mortals' reach
hurrying to seize is thus life

with wits, strength, and help—
willing or not—for time is short

if death undefiable, it'll be mocked
for you shall go smiling to the grave