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Theo Apr 10
To die is to be free,
As to be free is to set sail.
Set sail on no man's trail,
And becoming but a tale.

Peace leads to chaos,
As tyranny contructs order.
Harmony can be forced,
As long as the music moves further.

To dream is to hallucinate,
As to hallucinate is to run.
Running across the hazy field,
Chasing the setting sun.

To sleep is to die,
As to die is to rest.
Rest from the tiring task of living,
Laying laxed in respite.
Pavel Rup Mar 28
Hormones in youth are ticking bombs—
and Freud’s just chuckling in his grave.
Love’s eyes still gleam like polished guns,
but necks? Oh necks won’t misbehave.

Eyes lock—a beauty storms the scene!
Neck, don’t you dare! (It dares. Of course.)
She floats like anarchist’s dream—
same then. Same now. Same deadly force.

Women’s sly smiles? Just primers set.
Men’s chests? Just trenches, soft and weak.
Love is a blaze! (Doubt? Just regret.)
Youth—dear friend—pray, don’t speak.

But age? A ceasefire, calm, profound.
Hormones now sleep—no more unrest.
Eyes see the truth (it’s bleak, I’ve found):
that beauty walks… still bombshell-dressed.

Ah! Pavlov’s mutts just drool and stare.
Neck—why still twist? The threat’s long gone!
Terror? Exes? Just hot air.
You look. They look. The script reads on.

Women—eternal partisan,
from Mars? From hell? Who even knows?
They’re strange. They’re sharp. They’ve got a plan.
Hormones? Asleep. War’s on freeze.

Ivan Pavlov, a Nobel Prize laureate, was a renowned Russian physiologist best known for his work on classical conditioning, famously demonstrated in his experiments with dogs.
Eve Mar 21
i am afraid that
if i were to perish in a car accident
and they see that
i am an ***** donor
and a doctor examines
the vessel i call a body,
he might say;
"none of this is any good"

i would be too dead
to be devastated
Malcolm Mar 11
Sometimes Irony and Murphy’s Law
lend to each other.

The blind man leads the deaf man,
they debate honest politics
one can’t see, the other can’t hear,
while they are nicely seated
at the corners of the round table,
which has no corners but still divides.
The preacher damns the sinners
between paid confessions and rented beds,
his sermon reeks of whiskey and perfume.
He calls it redemption; she calls it a Tuesday.

The poet bleeds words,
the painter stains canvas,
the ***** does both, but she’s still a *****.
If she starved, she’d be a muse.
If she overdosed, she’d be a legend.
But she lived,
just another body in the gallery of wasted virtue.

The doctor dies in the waiting room.
The fire truck burns before reaching the fire.
The cop gets robbed at gunpoint.
The beggar wins the lottery,
gets hit by a bus cashing the check.
A man buys a gun for protection,
the burglar uses it against him.
The city floods after a decade-long drought,
the farmer's crops drown before the harvest.

We wage war in search of peace.
We bomb cities to set them free.
The soldier fights for his country,
dies nameless in foreign soil.
The treaty is signed,
and the killing begins again.

You save your whole life to retire,
then die before the check clears.
You pray for strength,
but your bones grow brittle.
You wait for love,
but when it comes, your hands forget how to hold.
You ask for honesty,
and they call you cruel,
when the only truth you find
is in between all the stale, day-old lies.

And when the show ends,
they’ll bury you in a suit you never chose,
in a box you paid for but never wanted,
under dirt you’ll never see
and they’ll say you’re at peace.

Isn’t that ironic?
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
March 2025
IRONIC isn't it
Ego
Oh, my dearest Egooooo!
When you can’t squeeze through the door,
so immense and entitled,
I tell myself,
“That’s enough!”
No more confetti and fireworks!
Haunting me over a lost chance.

The Magnificence of Doubt—
what if I were…
Soundless compliments
only to be pinched and ignored later.

From now on,
I celebrate my mediocre greatness
with a crown of fool’s gold on my head…
yet throne-less.

Some falls, invisible success,
and unfulfilled hopes,
which, surprisingly,
made me stronger.

Oh, the Irony of fate!
All these sleepless nights
for this Wisdom?!
Vianne Lior Feb 16
Ruins hold the ivy,
Beauty grows where cracks divide,
Love blooms in decay.
Manx Pragna Feb 10
Betting on plays
And whether teams could pull it through;
Factoring rates given to the risks
Versus stats, records, and rankings,
Of losses, successes, et cetera.
Whether physical or digital,
These playful monetary mediums
Like domestic feline & bengal tiger.
Like dog as like cat,
It's a different reaction to them
And connection with them
Having grown up around them.
These paper jaguars & plush lions,
So much for the fear of adversity
When you're trying to crunch everything.
If you're always in the middle
Of working through or thinking about something,
Punching an equation,
Then how can anyone hope
To knock you off kilter?
It's just another component-
Another addition & subtraction,
Division & multiplication,
To calculate & sum.

You've gotta be in it to win it,
And you're always just one bet away
From winning it big.
Making it good
Sometimes takes all it can take,
And even then you might not
Break even.

I sense disturbance,
See some malign figure,
In your line of reason.
Yet, through our conversations,
No appeal can be made to logic.
The calculations offer a grime visage.

Play with your heart, play with your gut,
As your head will steer you wrong.
If you're thinking about it,
You're thinking too much.
Just lay it on the line,
Bet it all,
But don't bet too much.
Listen, it'll be fine.
Tomorrow we can
Recoup your loss.

The contradictions are lost,
The irony was over
And you took the under.
The spread accomplished
Chose the given
And you were taking.
If something flew
You were beneath it.
owls at dawn Feb 5
don't try to say too much
clarity breeds disappointment
Jon Feb 2
"Avast," he spoke,
and fell to the ground.
Bullet through his back neck,
collapsed without a sound.

The song of the hero,
such a lovely thing.
So perfect and pristine—
ultimately nothing.
stress Jan 21
the people of loss
have nothing on us,
pillows of unravelling floss.

only the pillow knows,
a pedestal for weakness,
our shared bygones.
'avoir le cafard', or 'to have the cockroach' , is a french expression for feeling depressed, a sense of malady.
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