Would I bathe in a better blue
if I flew my window in what is true?
Though more at times a bitter blue
than some times a sweeter hue,
isn’t a bitter blue, yet a better blue,
where the sour sun is sweetly due?

What if
I dipped my window
deep down my heart
into some nectar
a la carte,
then opened my art
all wide apart
for a marinated
brand-new start?

Say, I opened it to a field of dancing daisies
hailing the psyche in sun-kissed curtseys
in glee, calling me to swim in a skeptical sea;
to seek to be free in gold-petalled inquiry?

Hey, lad or lady!

Swim in our skeptical sea!
Join the merry inquiry.
May it be always your maybe!


Beware the sorry old tree!
Pluck the sun-kissed daisy!
To see what —good or not;
Loves me, or loves me not…

Beware the sorry old tree!
Pluck the sun-kissed daisy!
To see what —good or not;
Loves me, or loves me not…

Or,
would I grow a hole in my bole
if I ignored the daisies’ call
and followed all into a hollow's hall,
walked with shadows in Fortune’s Fall
as sad old stories flicked across the wall,
smothering the ruby embers in me and all?


When you can’t see what you should see;
when there is no wind to stir your quay;
Which is more suitably true—
a window or a wall about you?


When you can’t see what’s beyond the eye;
when nowhere's so high for your wings to fly;
Which is more suitably true;
a window or a wall about you?

Betrothed though to the wall,
doesn’t a window -whether coy or small-
like a paramour join in love
with those who know but to look how?

If only
you truly want to see,
swim in this skeptical sea!

If an unchartered ocean
engulfs all out of all proportion
yet begs the eye for a little notion
craving revelation in each situation,
why curl before the wall?

If a quay, short of mooring vessels,
is thirsty for a visitor with questions he nestles,
why get drowned in lakes?

If a night sky aquiver in sprightful stars
whispers to you on the heavens’ spars,
why wade in shadows?

If the whole world you can tweedle
through the keen eye of a needle

into a dance of daisied ripple,


why ******* the human art,
why riddle the heart,
why rip it all apart?

© Hirondelle, June 22, 2025
    Arif Hifzioglu

I believe everything
Happens in a sequence
In an order

I don't need to be
Versed in religion

To understand that
Every test, every sickness

Is moulding me
Into a more concrete form

One with unshakeable foundation

Through every pain
Along my incision side

Made me softer
To other people's pain
And yet I'm grateful for it

The pain yesterday is worse
Than today's pain

And yet with that I still
Don't glorify pain

I just think it's the only way
That I truly learn

A-walking on a wormwood path
that’s paved by age’s cobblestones
on past a palace of distant past
in a Prussian park, a mind unthroned.

He walked, a shadow
through the foggy night,
his pulse beat faint and shallow
as the pale and fitful light.

In the lace of this quicksilver mist,
a fellow shade now walked along.
She emerged from dark, adrift
like him. They hummed the same black song.

In what had been a pitiless pit
of icy fog and stony walks,
she was there as if summoned by fate’s writ.
In whispers, she and he began to talk.

They shared their bleak
and tattered tales
to raise the wreck
of where they’d failed.

And as they talked
their once distant light
began to shine
out in that night.

Here in their pale of desolation,
two kindred shades touch shadowed hands
and in their touch found consolation
to rekindle light in benighted lands.

Do I want to know

your suffering to get some --


idea what mine is?

When you share my pain

you don't know where it ends, you --


suffer limitless.

"I am a victim of circumstance."
Are we not all?
Play not devoid
But freely strum the chords
Of sympathy and even empathy,
Far from pieces which are familiar,
For situations one might sparsely fathom.

When someone's fallen
Reach out a hand to help them up
Even if it slows you down,
Even when it is not expected.
For when is a fall the expectation?
And who among us is the exception?

Reflect, act, remark.
If I am to cross the line which signals finish
It will be knowing you
Have completed the marathon.
Having waded the haze that is "competition,"
In a day & age where that means so little
And should still mean less,
I will have been obscured by nothing.
For in that trek, I won;
In the journey of the sport of love
I went the distance for a companion.
When I knelt,
I chanced a "prize"
But it was you who made me champion.

*******! Predator！Where are you?
Hiding in the dark again, what are you going to do?
Too scared to see the big bad wolf?
Too scared of the big bad wolf blowing down your roof?

I will never stop!
Not even after you learned your lesson!
Till I pounce on you, till you learn I'm on top!
I used to be a ray of sun
That always shines
Now I'm simply just about cloud
No one, anymore, even visits my shrines
Just because of you

You don't care about the way you hurt her
I don't need therapy, I need ******!
I won't be okay until my knife is in your eye!
Maybe cut your tongue out so you can't tell anymore lies!
Lies you tell your friends as if they're mindless puppets!
You always labeled me as your personal pet!
Now I'm going to be the mutt to bury you!
Let people ignore your helpless cries
Making you a feast for flies!
Saying "Sorry!" After every stab!
Pulling out your organs after every grab!
Gouging out your eyes!
Branding my name onto your thighs!
You should've known I'd be back!
Just like a shadow, I always come back!


You're so silly thinking I'd let this slide!
Just like I'd glide
My knife across your throat
The same thing I did to your pet goat!
Then leaving you there for the maggots! ❤️

It starts like a slow leak in the roof,  
a drop here and there, a stain on the ceiling,  
but after a while the whole room is damp.  
The world, once so sharp, begins to soften-  
the faces blur, and the names slip away like  
sand through a sieve, and even the clock  
on the wall seems unsure of itself.  
  
The future, of course, keeps going,  
marching on like an indifferent parade,  
while the past grows quieter, like a radio  
that you never quite manage to turn off.  
You might remember something-
or not-and the line between now and then  
becomes a faint smudge on the horizon.  
  
And then, just as you think you've lost  
your grip on everything, the circle gathers  
and weeps, not knowing whether it is for you  
or for themselves,  
for the person you were or the person  
who is still sitting there, somewhere,  
but has left the room.

no matter the cause
of your tears

whatever the hurt
which bruises your heart

for any terror
that haunts you

it is a grief to me
that you should suffer so