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
is 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 drumbeat I can hear,
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.

Old crippled man, charcoal burnt and ashen,
a thousand days debauchery molded you in this fashion.
Haggard and stiff, you can barely walk across the stage--
no one ever thought that you would make it to this age.
Your girth has expanded (although it’s covered well),
but still your piercing voice summons demons up from hell.
Not as strong as it was once, but eerie just the same,
calling those who’ve followed you, who now chant your name,
to assemble in our legions, gathered in this shrine,
where we repeat the catechism, in throbbing metered rhymes.

Are you a madman? Or just a troubadour
who lends melodic shimmer to verses dark and dour.
Whose singing slides and skims along the edge of sanity,
but who never surrendered to the true evil of vanity.
Recovered from drunken, dissolute despair,
to call the faithful masses back, never mind the wear and tear--
to plod the journey of your craft, to sing before the crowd
whose loyalty, to your band, forever is avowed.

it’s scary
you scare us

you promise a free world, a loving country, but you’re separating them
families, generations, legacies,
all ripped from them

it’s scary,
you scare us

you tell us you’ll protect us,
defend us
but invade and steal, then
point at us and scream “NOW YIELD”

it’s scary you scare us
how can we grow strong when
we’re so divided ,nightmarish

you’ve made innocents your victim,
now declaring hell on your people

you scare us, you scare me
no kings

mercy on me baby, have mercy on me
hurtin’ badly, can you see we’re hurtin’ badly

Imagine 💭
  
I had a dream where my mother  mustered the courage to own her truth; unabashedly and unapologetically. In that parallel universe, she owned her own identity, and not being defined as someone's wife or daughter. She never fell for anyone where she was obliged to stay, rather she dared to leave. Pursuing her dreams and travels to places she has never been before, chasing sunsets and dreams. Like the Phoenix from the ashes, she rebuilds her life from the scratch.
In another life, I don't wish to be born so that my mother can reap the benefit to live, laugh and love.
~RitzWrites 🥀

Prehistoric fingerprints
amazing requiems
the song still in them
med evil number magic
all the time in the world

Healing heartbeats bottled up
prepare ye saving drafts
question the faint of heart
the first and last beat
when poets die

Keeper of morning prayers
a needful message
goodby again
words of love forgive
pure and pretty bouquets

The sifting eye of the poet
the thief of untold heartache
muse-ing Denah’s equation
a more beautiful question

Butterflies and deaths dark divide
seeking the bright light
pointless immolations
the autopsy paid in full
crisp or extinguished.
Will you burn with me now?

For Joel M Frye

Flickering little flame,
guttering in your final moments,
what was once some great blaze,
now gasping your final breaths.

Lower and lower now,
blinking some kind of morse code into the Aether,
telling those out beyond the dark of your tale,
of your victories and defeats.

Of where you were and what you did,
the sights you saw and the things you heard,
whisper some more now,
little flame.

Tell them of how you started out as this little spark,
brought forth from material energy,
whose trip was a tale all its own,
summoned from the heavens to bear down,
and claim your terrestrial throne.

And oh, what a throne you held,
little flame,
rising up to conquer this world,
beautiful yet terrifying,
horrifying and baroque,
a destructive force that would sweep the board,
and set up the pieces anew.

You smolder out,
little flame,
accompanied by a little whisp of smoke,
a sad but appropriate epitaph,
to mark the end of your reign,
a glowing ember all that remains,
which disappears soon after you.

Oil on the water

Gentle spilling colours

Tumbled greens and inky blues

Fade to yellow and pinky hues

Filling the puddle

A requiem for rainbows

On the issue
Of mental stability,
I do not
Have mental
Stability