Flames flicker, dancing in the night,
A hungry force, a mesmerizing sight.
It breathes with no lungs, it roars without a mouth,
A blazing fury heading north or south.

It devours the weak, yet warms the soul,
A paradox born from its fiery control.
Tamed in a hearth, or wild in a spree,
Fire's essence burns bright, fierce, and free.

Born of the earth, and a gift from the skies,
It whispers in sparks, and in embers it lies.
Fuelling creation, yet striking with dread,
A force that gives life, or leaves ruins instead.

It shapes the land, leaves ashes behind,
A power of passion both cruel and kind.
Through ancient rituals, it lights the way,
A beacon of hope at the end of the day.

Much like fire, life fiercely burns,
Through joy and pain, it twists and turns.
With warmth it heals, with sparks it ignites,
Fuelling dreams through endless nights.

A fragile balance, a force untamed,
Both life and fire can never be claimed.
They forge ahead, with a ceaseless drive,
Ensuring the world remains alive.

Slow moving day
Staring at peaceful land
Looking around, being grateful
I am blessed
I am blessed
I’m not taking anything  for granted
No, no
Slow moving day

Take time to reflect
Going out in nature
I am grateful
I am grateful
Loving my time
With my fur baby
It’s a slow moving day
I am blessed

Casting a net through life's quiet streams
Reflecting dreams in waters below
Amid whispers where serenity gleams
Pondering truths in the gentle flow

That five-seven-five is a scam,
Just nature plus seasonal spam.
A frog in a bog—
Wow! A leaf! And some fog!
It’s a tweet with a syllable jam.

Now limericks think they’re so sly,
With their jigs and their wink of the eye.
But their punchlines grow stale,
Like a bar yuck from Yale—
It’s the dad joke of poetry. Why?

Oh Shakespeare, forgive what’s been done—
Fourteen lines on a love that won’t run.
With their iambic moans,
And romanticized groans—
They're just Tinder swipes dressed as the sun.

Repetition’s the name of its game,
But by stanza three, it’s all shame.
You repeat and repeat,
Till your brain hits delete—
Was it clever, or just all the same?

Acrostics spell TRY HARD down the side,
A format no critic can abide.
Each line bends and breaks,
Just for symmetry’s sake—
And the message gets lost in the ride.

Free verse gets a pass, but just barely—
Too often it screams “Look, I’m arty!”
With no rhythm or aim,
Just vibes and a name—
Like a drunk giving TED Talks at parties.

---

There once was a muse unconfined,
Who laughed at each rule tightly lined.
When pure thought took flight,
It outshone every rite—
For raw truth outclasses form every time.

I've never written a limerick.
Thinking of it makes me sick.
Better a sonnet
or a woman upon it.
Maybe, I'll just play with my ****.

the girls I danced with
I never wrote songs about

the girls I kissed under bursts of fireworks
I never won carnival prizes for

the girls I entered the sheets with
I never made a deeper connection

the girls who gave me their best
I never understood their motives

and I wondered where they all went and
why we parted ways like cathedral doors
and why they took the hand of other monsters and vanished into the night.

I was too naive to notice
all the red flags waving behind me
and too dense to turn around
and open my eyes.

but now I face this dry vacancy
and I see they’re
intertwined with their domestics
constricted with their marriages
taunting their husbands
commanding their boyfriends
obsessed with their photo albums
cramming belief and guidance into their children

its the same unabridged story
told over and over
and over and over
again.

I too, sit with this adverse outcome:
this one wants me to quit drinking
and that one wants me on a diet
and this one wants me to get a better job
and that one wants me to exercise more.

I’ve never been one to rest on my laurels,
but as I lay down in this bed with this one
like so many buried cold beneath the Earth,
I can’t stop thinking of those angels from my past that have flown off into other heavens.

I was never deserving
of their time nor
their presence

and I am neither
here nor
there.