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"What’s in the Basket"

A shopping basket,
plastic ribs creaking under the weight of
bread, bruised pears,
a receipt already curling like a prophecy.

A picnic basket,
woven willow,
ants rehearsing their procession
before the lid is even lifted.

A laundry basket,
shirts collapsed into themselves,
socks pairing and unpairing
like quarrelsome lovers.

A gift basket,
cellophane taut as a drum,
ribbons rehearsing their unraveling,
the promise of sweetness
before the first hand reaches in.

And the others—
the bicycle basket with its wobbling cargo of letters,
the wastebasket swallowing drafts and
half-thoughts,
the cradle-basket rocking a child
between waking and dream.

Each vessel asks the same question:
what do you carry,
and what will you leave behind
when the handles slip from your hands?

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"waiting in the wings"

I enter from the side door,

no one marks the hinge of my step.

The script gives me three words—

a borrowed coat, a lantern to carry,

then silence.

Others speak in thunder,

their names stitched to the playbill.

I am the pause between their lines,

the stagehand’s shadow mistaken for scenery,

the broom that clears the petals

after the lovers depart.

Yet when the curtain folds,

the boards keep their memory—

grain of wood holding

every unnoticed footfall,

as if the story were stitched

from its smallest threads.

First Light

The roofs are still
but the sky begins to loosen—
a pale seam of rose
threading the horizon.

He sits in the quiet
before the town stirs,
jacket slack on his shoulders,
eyes catching the faintest
silver of daybreak.   

Before bells peal,
no bird in flight—
only the promise
that the dark has thinned,
and the world
is willing to begin again.

.

Dusk

The town exhales—
a soft geometry of roofs and fields
folding into shadow.
He sits where the light
still lingers,
jacket creased like memory,
hands easy on the stone.

The church steeple leans
into the horizon’s stillness,
a single bird
drawn to the vanishing point.

No declarations.
Just the red of his collar
holding warmth
as the sky turns
from blue to bruise.   

He does not rise.
The scene does not end.
It waits—
like a held breath
between frames.

.

The Herd of Words

We move together,

dust rising

from our hooves of ink,

across the wide plain of silence.

The grass bends,

and we bend with it,

feeding on syllables,

grazing on breath.

Each of us carries a fragment,

a line, a rhythm,

but the herd is the poem entire.

We are restless,

never still for long,

seeking fresher pastures of meaning,

waterholes of wonder.

The land needs us,

and we need the land.

Without the field, we starve.

Without the herd, the field lies fallow.

So we thunder on,

poets and poetry,

a single body,

a living chant,

a migration of voices

across the endless plain.

.

So gather the sparks, the tales, the cries,
From treason’s plot to children’s eyes.
A night of folly, fear, and flame,
Each age retells it, much the same.

Between the laughter and the fright,
We crown the dark with borrowed light.
Remember well what fire can cost,
And what is found when power's lost.

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The Corkscrew of Existence

In the cellar,
green‑glass vessels lean

           against one another,
   their shoulders dust‑padded,
        throats sealed tight.

Some wait decades,
stoppered against the tremor of hands
that might one day twist them open.

Others burst early,
foam rushing into the air
as if silence itself were unbearable.

Life, too, is a rack of bottles—
some forgotten in the corner,
                labels blurred,
contents thickening into memory.

Others are restless,
pressing against their corks,
                       uncontainable,
a fizz that refuses to be archived.

And we—
we are the corkscrews,
spiralling into the grain of our own days,
levering against the stubborn seal,
wondering whether release
                      is celebration,
or simply another form of spilling.

.

Unstopped

bottle—
pressed throat,
cork clenched.

inside: fizz,
or nothing.

stopper holds,
stopper fails.

either way—
the glass remembers
pressure.

.

After‑Pop

cork gone—
a white roar,
liquid confetti
            arcing,
the bottle lifted
like a trophy.

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