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There’s a mist on the water,
When I wake.
It gets thicker every morning,
Creeping a little farther into shore.
I spend my days now,
Moving my house,
Further up.
Trying not to drown,
In the inevitable gray.
It’s one of those things you don’t escape,
It’s one of those things that never goes away.

It rests,
Slumbers for a while.
But never stops,
Creeping up.
So close to me,
I fear that I’ll run out of energy,
To run,
To escape.
I’ll die in this foggy place,
Join the sirens with their frowns,
Dragging more people,
Down.

To the fog.
With half the world ablaze
And the other half under water
                 I gaze at a beautiful sunset
                 And wonder why I am so lucky.

With half of the world now starving
And the other half made newly homeless
                 I sit in my comfy two-story
                 And wonder why I should deserve it.

With half the world hating each other
And the other half crying for peace
                 I sit with my pen and blank paper
                 Hoping somehow to fix it with verse.

I’ll write for the fires to burn themselves out.
I’ll write for the floods to abate.
                I’ll write for the hungry a banquet.
                Write refugees a new home.

I must write an end to the hatred.
  I must write a way to find peace.
   I must write to solve all the problems
    That bleed endless ink to my pen.

It wants to compose lines of beauty
  Not pity for those so abused.
    It wants to paint scenes of agreement
      Outlining tallies of evil.

It wants to share themes that enrich us
  Written in Poetry’s creative blood.
    Will this moment arrive in my lifetime -
      My subscription to miracles sadly expired
                    ljm
Will this show up the way I posted it or be rearranged againNope - it lined them all up to the left.Had to redo it all. Why does it do this. Evil Evil Evil !!
Even something distant
Can give enough light,
Longer than just a while,
Carrying vivid, tender moods,
Rising like green plants,
Despite the cold, acid rain.

A hypnotic, sweet mantra,
A grateful murmur,
Whispered my true name,
Coming on time,
Before I closed the door.

I am at home now.
In a quiet zone,
On my piece of uneven,
Creaky floor,
Grounded by gravitation,
Free from messy thoughts,
Just to save the plumb line,
Not to collapse inward
Into an inner gap
Of what it should mean.

I shift my wardrobe
Of emotional scripts
To clean a tame mess,
Collected into short breaths,
Like colorful, sharp stamps,  
Justifying a fading reason to stay,
rather than give up and go away.

Yes, I know that I can.
So, what am I afraid of?
That I am ready
To drop the weight
Of past attachment,
To feel the lightness
Of being loved?
To accept human warmth,
Enfolding peacefully
A fractured existence.
Reconciling
life’s ledger
hoping
it’s in black

Every deed
and every need
accountable
in fact

Debits
fighting credits
to balance
in the end

The gist of life
through joy and strife
where numbers
— will portend

(Dreamsleep: July, 2025)
the Mothman Cometh in dead of night
who knows his pain
who knows his plight
left unchecked in their faulty haste
born in pools of chemicals and waste
a slip of nature
he roams the skies
with wings of a condor
and red blazing eyes

it is said he had vanished
when the bridge came down
but I believe he remains
at the outskirts of town
I have been to Point Pleasant
and his presence I feel
on the river
on the streets
in the steps of John Keel
I have stories
~ for Paula Poundstone~

brain has its own calendar,
alarms, forget~me~nots, nat-ur-ally,
seeds and scraps of half-breed poems,
even its own junk drawer, with extra
keys, pocket tissues, swiss army knives

call 'em appoint-moments,
random and scheduled,
though not always attentive paid

no longer needy for post-it notes,
reasons why I may I have come to a
particular room in search of a) b) or see

now, I just need to remember to take
my brain with me,
which is much harder than you
'think'

 Jul 30 Carlo C Gomez
BMElla
1
Wise it is to live for a muse!
I know what the myth’s say:
’All about him you’ll obey’.

“For you, darlin’, I’d steal the sun,
Give you its rays for a tan
In the arctic spring.” he vowed.

Have we spoken the same language?
A stranger, familiar in behavior,
Like we were dating,
Each with a different passage.

Only recently,
I saw him pass me in the corridor,
Then it was the rapture,
Of a moment I wish to capture.

I wish we’d talk more,
Like we did before,
“Neglect” became his middle name,
And “Forget” was his pen name.

But darlin'
Have you heard?
I haven’t spoken a word
Ever since you returned
To the beast, I’ve tamed.

“Don’t play with my nerves,
Push me to the edge of a sword!”
I’m just a dried-up corpse,
Forgotten by the undertaker,
In the cemetery of love.

“Nothin’ grows in the bones!” hurled the stones
Then what’s with these flourishing lies,
Stinging my spine like thorns?

“Too sane to give birth to a fool!” he shout,
But my mind was set,
By Achlys* herself!

Honor was lost on you,
And virtue fell out of my lap
Like an aborted child.

2
Beside a martyred virtue
Lies rested and demons nested
Under the tattooed eyelids,
Of a mind sotted by moonlight.

Will my smoke make me loose,
And lose my breath and conscious
Up those cinema rows
Where I watched all of his shows?

It’s just psychodrama!
Baby, don’t worry,
Endless scenes of trauma,
Blurring my eyes to Nirvana.

I see you had it all,
Except a picture of me by your side,
Walking down the aisle.

You crossed my legs in two,
Then blamed it on the shoe
I wore just to please you!

You don’t know the pain
It takes to win this game
And write a name other than ‘Shame’...

As above so below the waters,
Of the lucid swirls
Where his nets cought all the pearls.

Like a parasite entering the cells
He damaged the shells,
Of the nesting oysters.

How gritty it must be!
Wood grain layers
Rubed on glass teeth,
No wonder you’d bleed
Amidst your venomous speech.

In a bluish night,
I lingered in white sweat,
Never loved you… right?
Now it’s turning into a fight.

God, I wish you’d be quiet!
For once, hear my heart as it knocks
On the locked gates of the Heavens’.

“Come'n count the beats
Of a lady turning into a freak,
Lounging seven feet deep

In an ocean of tears, the mermaids chant.
" Just a ghostly ship echoing nonsense!"
I cut my ropes like the braves
And drowned... before the tide turned.

I bled in braille,
Hoping you’d trace me
But " His heart isn't the harbor
To your graceful warship..."
So said the truth its last word.

3
I’ve been dreamin’
Of Paradise screamin’.
As I laid bare my apathy,
And clothed it in defiance.

His name still itches
On the back of my tongue,
I swallowed it down,
With every lie he hung.

Lit a cigarette on his memory
And let my lungs burn
In the mourning smoke.

"Is he still hooked on our story,
Or was I just a line in his diary,"
Crossed, smudged, miswritten?

This is no love poem,
It’s an autopsy,
an anatomy
Of what was never born
But still died inside.

Some moonless nights
I hear his laughter
Echoing in the waves
Of an upcoming disaster.

Foolish it is to die for a scar!
Just another scar in my sails
That never quite blends, with the rest.

© B.M.Ella (2025)
*Achlys:
a figure in Greek mythology, often depicted as a personification of sorrow, misery, and the death-mist that clouds the eyes before death.
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