Line 2 | Thomas Ode
Hanging up
the receiver
A new message
never heard
before
A new voice
I’m already
forgetting.
human nature poems
Us | Chris Byrne
As a species we self-implode
We forsake love for lust
Lost in translation, confused
Feelings awry
Words become meaningless
Love becomes forgotten,
Actions speak volumes
Love becomes seen
Not forgotten
Grazing Cattle | Krushna Chandra Mishra
In peace as they graze
These cattle do never
Stray into other fields
Unless one crossing over to another
Signals about new things
And better ones
And the whole herd in great
Haste fully disturbed jumps
And jostles and rushes out
Erasing all signs of calm
That there prevailed long telling
Nothing had happened
For nothing for good.
Love Sits Alone | Ananya S. Guha
As of now or never
The die is cast
You arrive when it
Happens only
The way things happen
After love
And in a desert love
Sits alone
Secret | Tara Lynn Hawk
Lay before me the questions
The ones without answers
The courage in me to make inquiries
Worthy of a self taught,
cognitive mind
Shared complexity honored
Connected by our differences with
no derision
Alone before the abyss
It’s meaning now dead
Consequences expunged
The Roman device of execution
indelibly marks my being
And pushes me into exile
No redemption promised
Nihilism envelopes us
We are abandoned
This our slap back
And the intolerant will continue to
declare offense
Using suffering to explain away evil
Grey and darker it becomes
For they desire us crawling towards a
form of systematic deception which society mandates
we must obtain to remain part of it
But this context of inclusion
I care not to honor
I shall remain to you unredeemed
Awake and always redrafting
the map of my conscience
The secret mine
For now I know
The transcendent longs for me
Hidden Things | Chris Byrne
Is it one those rare gifts we all have?
Never truly feeling, or is it
One we all have,
Afraid to show,
Knowing what it is
Yet when offered
We run and
Hide.
A Primordial Pact | Michael Kagan
Could it be we’re living in the place
our planet evolving
carved out with us in mind
inside these crevices where people joined the planet
in a primordial pact
with natural disaster
volcanic ash blocks the sun
and the winds howl
as if being forced to blow
everything down
and since we crawled out of the sea
looking for a lover
we’ve had the capacity
to murder
we learned about destruction
watching the cosmos cunning
turn delicate snowflakes into
comets
fire and blood raining down
we cannot blame the cosmos
we are the children of their issue
killing each other
your blood has been permanently insulted
by an unforgivable past
so we kill each other
while the earth quakes
forests burn
and water drowns the land
how clever a design
turning us against each other forever
an alliance with natural disaster
keepers of the flame
grow from life’s rot
the insufferable chaos
has never stopped
a planet and it’s people
in a primordial pact for survival
If You Look | Blanca Alicia Garza
I’m wild and beautiful
A free spirit misunderstood
I sing to the moon
The most beautiful lullabies
But sometimes I tell her
My sorrows as well.
If you look deep into my eyes
You will find I’m not
The heartless monster
Of your nightmares,
I hope someday you can understand
That the beast is not before you
But in your mirror looking back.
The Falsities of Men | Chris Byrne
Plagued by our insecurities
Our ever-growing greed and need
For things we don’t need.
Obsessions with wealth and beauty
Most never see nor realise
The true value of being, socially conditioned
To see and believe without knowing
A society of falsehoods
People are used, abused,
Material possessions are treasured
Life becomes less important
Social media takes over, falsities prevail,
Life takes a back seat,
Real life is being alive
Nothing faked, never for the likes,
Being human, observing with eyes
That see beyond the abyss.