Morning unfurls—
thin gold draped over the terrace rim,
the world still dream-fed, undecided.

She moves through it—
wild-crowned in bramble and gold,
a flower skewed in her hair—
stem fractured, wind-touched
but worn as if it could never be
anything less than perfect.

Something in her
the way her chin tilts to the sky,
the way sunlight spills across
the same high cheekbones,
the same quiet brow—
pulls at something nameless
beneath my ribs,
a longing too tender to name.

Her laughter
windstruck — a ripple in the skin of dawn,
spins loose, untethered,
a sound without edges,
without destination—
just the raw, impossible ache
of something alive
for no other reason
than because.

The air folds around her
soft, golden-bellied
as if the whole world
was holding its own
watching, waiting—
for a beauty
too wild to know itself.

I watch too,
not out of wonder,
but out of fear—
that something so fleeting
could slip through this hour
without ever being written down.

She will grow
the flower will fall,
the wind will learn her name,
and the sky will no longer
be enough to hold her.

But for now,
she blooms only for the sun,
for the hush,
for the wild, unmeasured ache
of simply being.

And I swear—
if I could stretch this hour
into forever,
I would—
just to watch her run
one breath longer.

Some joys bloom for nothing—
not for the gaze, not for the name—
but simply because the sun is warm,
simply because they can.

I did not smile at her.
I smiled at the hush—
the unbearable miracle
of something wild
that does not know
it is precious.

The hush lingers,
the morning folds—
soft gold cradling a face
that no longer lifts toward the sun.

The air no longer waits.
Only I do.

And beneath my fingertips,
the photo trembles—
thin, timeworn—
edges curled like petals,
as if the years have tried
to fold her back into a bloom.

now, in this hush,
I turn to her—
and I smile.

She was my mother.
She was a girl once,
unwritten.

And I—
I have spent my whole life
trying to read her.

I watched "Judgment at Nuremberg" last
night, I have seen that film many times.
However, in light of our nation's current
chaotic political direction, that theme and
topic have taken on a new unsettling and
dire significance. The implied specter of
the term "National Socialism" is all too
ominous.

73 million people died or were murdered in
WWII when a nation of otherwise normal
rational people were ****** in by listening to
a homely, little possibly insane former German
army Corporal rant and rave their nation into
a frenzy of cultism, and "National Socialism".
Through lies and deceptions, Adolf ******
plunged the entire world into a chaotic and
destructive war.

I can't be the only one to see and be deeply
concerned by the undeniable significance and
similarities of our current parallel direction
towards a National Socialism agenda?
Inspired and led by the newly appointed wonky
cult of administrative dimwits and their newly
self-anointed unstable KING, that appear not
to give a **** about our laws, our Constitution
or any of us as individual free citizens.

Our US government watchdogs the Congress
and Senate seem to have lost their direction and
patriotism, grown spineless and mute under the
spell or fear of King Trump.

Wake up America!
We are headed in a very bad direction.

This thought has always haunted me.

People you meet once
and never again in your life.

You have a static picture in your mind
of their face
the small conversation
their little story they tell you
the place you met them
in a bus, a shop, on the road
interactions not long
but meaningfully small
yet leaving a memory in you.

I think of all those people
I stopped by to ask for time
seek direction of my destination
or asking where I might find
food or a resting place
in an unfamiliar area.

Once and just once you meet them.

On a summer trip, I was looking for icecream
in a strange place off the highway
walked ten minutes to find a shop
where for that brief encounter
the seller made me feel like
he had known me for long
shared the history of that area
the migration and culture of the residents
before helping me with the right icecream.

Sometimes I wonder
if they would have enriched my life
were they part of my association.

Not scholars, not rich, but simple men
who bring you down to earth
and carve a space in your mindscape.

Sadly you meet them once in your life.

I feel it's so designed.

I was always turning around to see
who was behind  me
and there in lies the danger
and so the past holds me in its arms...

...the tip of your cigarette glows in the dark.
(the light without a flame)

you are sitting in a chair.
I m sitting in a chair.
we don't speak.

that is my everlasting memory of you.

the fire had taken flight.

you bought books and never read them.
you always used too much perfume.

I had no time for you, lonesome dove.
my heart of sand,
but thunder now follows my heart,
with the perfume of things lost.

I was thinking that If we create an all-knowing, all-wise and all powerful AI, we should probably pay someone to sit next to its electrical plug.

You who are slaves to the small glowing screen
Have to scramble to do just the usual things
Like brushing your teeth and taking a shower.
The lure is stronger than Hash or *******
And it is the lover you sleep with.
ljm

They will tell you there is a right way.
They will hand you a torch and call it the sun.
They will roll their words in raw linen and whisper:
"This is what poetry is meant to be."

And you will nod.
Because they have made it so that not nodding feels like blasphemy.

But listen—
the ink does not check your credentials.
The meter does not ask if your suffering is organic.
A line does not collapse because it was crafted instead of bled.

They will tell you a poem must be naked, barefoot, aching—
as if there is no beauty in a well-cut suit.
They will decry the temple and build a pulpit in its ruins,
preaching freedom in a voice that allows no dissent.

Good poets are cult leaders,
and the first rule of the cult
is that they are not one.

So write the sonnet, carve the sestina,
sculpt the page in iambic steel.
Or break it, shatter it, scatter its bones—
but let no one call your wreckage untrue.

And if they do,
smile.
Because poetry does not kneel to priests.