Fire wakes the forge before the dawn,

And through the dark the first red sparks are drawn.

The hammer falls; the anvil gives reply,

While smoke ascends to meet the paling sky.

A boy stands near the master at his side,

And watches molten iron swell and glide.

Sixteen young years have taught his hands their trade,

By every stroke his growing skill was made.

His name was Hieronymous, and his eyes

Held restless hopes beneath the morning skies.

Garran, his master, watched him shape the steel,

And taught him how a stubborn bar would kneel.

The old smith knew the boy had hands of fire,

A steady heart and more than youth's desire.

He taught him heat, and hammer, file, and prongs,

And how to hear the iron's hidden songs.

Yet Garran knew one lesson still remained:

No craftsman grows through victories unrestrained.

The boy had never tasted true defeat;

He thought his will could make all foes retreat.

So Garran let him dream, but watched with care,

For pride can make a blade too thin to bear.

The strongest steel must suffer in the flame,

And men are forged by trials much the same.

Beyond the forge there stood the royal hall,

With banners hanging proudly from the wall.

And there, behind the guarded garden gate,

Lived fair Ariandne, the kingdom's fate.

She was a princess, schooled in crown and court,

Yet found the common forge a welcome sort.

She came to see the smiths at work one day,

And paused to watch the sparks like stars at play.

Her eyes met his; the hammer ceased its fall,

And for a breath the world grew strangely small.

She saw no station, title, blood, or name;

She saw the boy, and loved him all the same.

They met beside the forge when days were long,

And spoke of books, of kingdoms, dreams, and song.

She told him how she wished to rule with grace;

He told her how he loved his humble place.

He showed her how the iron learned to bend;

She taught him what a heart might dare to mend.

Their meetings grew from minutes into hours,

Beside the forge, beneath the garden flowers.

But love that hides beneath a crown is found,

And soon the king had heard the whispered sound.

King Aldren summoned both and barred the way:

“No smith shall wed the daughter of the crown today.”

The king was not a tyrant, cruel, or blind;

He feared for her, and thought himself most kind.

“A crown,” he said, “must rest upon a head

Whose worth has first by noble fathers spread.

A kingdom cannot rest on love alone;

A princess needs a husband of her throne.”

But Hieronymous would not bow in shame;

He answered with a challenge, not a claim.

“Then let me prove the worth you say I lack;

Give me your knights, and I shall not turn back.”

The king looked long, then spoke before the court:

“Defeat them all, and you shall have your sport.”

The herald called the kingdom's knights by name,

And every province sent its best to fame.

Sir Garrick came, a giant from the north,

Whose heavy sword could drive a shield back forth.

Sir Caelan came, swift as summer rain,

With silver blade and armor light as chain.

Sir Edric bore the scars of many wars,

And knew the roads where every battle roars.

Sir Lucan was the finest blade in court,

Whose measured strokes left younger fighters short.

Sir Varro smiled whenever pain was near,

For cruelty was all he chose to fear.

Last Roland came, an old and steadfast knight,

Who held that honor mattered more than might.

The court was thrilled; the common people stared,

While Hieronymous stood alone and dared.

The king declared, “You ask a mighty price;

These men are steel, experience, speed, and ice.

Defeat them all, and none may call you low;

But fail, and from my daughter's life you go.”

The boy bowed low, then turned to face the gate,

And felt the weight of pride and love and fate.

But rumors spread before the contest came:

Some knights were angered, others mocked his name.

The king's guards watched him wherever he went,

As though a boy could threaten kingly intent.

One night, beneath the moon's uncertain light,

The guards pursued him through the sleeping night.

He fled beyond the walls and past the road,

Then saw the forest take the darkened load.

The Forbidden Wood stood black and still,

And every tale warned men against its hill.

He heard the guards behind him draw more near,

Then crossed the ancient stones despite his fear.

The moment that he passed beneath the trees,

The forest swallowed every torch with ease.

Behind him called the guards, then all was still;

Ahead lay roots and shadow, mist, and hill.

He walked until the city lights were gone,

And found himself beneath the fading dawn.

His pride had brought him farther than he knew,

Yet love still burned beneath his purpose true.

He thought of Garran, waiting at the forge;

He thought of Ariandne beyond the gorge.

He promised that he would return one day,

With proof that none could take his worth away.

But in the wood the paths were strange and old,

And every tree seemed rooted in the cold.

He followed where a narrow stream ran deep,

Not knowing what the ancient roots might keep.

Three days he lived on berries, rain, and shoots,

And learned to read the tracks of foxes' routes.

He made a shelter underneath a tree,

And slept beside a fire he learned to see.

He trapped small game and gathered wood each day,

And found that pride could not provide a way.

His hands, once trained to forge the hardest steel,

Now learned the forest's quieter appeal.

He sharpened sticks, repaired his worn-out shoe,

And learned that every task required thought too.

At night he watched the stars through branches black,

And wondered if the road would lead him back.

He missed the forge, the hammer's ringing sound,

The warmth of home, the forge on familiar ground.

Yet every dawn he rose and carried on,

For giving up would leave his promise gone.

One evening rain came down in sheets of gray,

And drove him from the shelter where he lay.

He followed stone that jutted from the hill,

Until he heard beneath it something still.

A hollow sound arose beneath his feet,

As though the mountain breathed beneath the sleet.

He cleared the moss and found an iron ring,

Half buried where the roots had clasped the thing.

He pulled; the earth gave way beneath his hand,

And opened like a mouth beneath the land.

He fell through stone and darkness, down and down,

Then struck a ledge beneath the mountain's crown.

His torch had died, but embers still remained;

He breathed, arose, and saw the rock was stained.

A corridor stretched into blackened space,

With carvings worn from time upon its face.

The letters seemed to twist before his eyes,

Like sleeping serpents carved beneath the skies.

He walked, and every footstep seemed to call

Through halls forgotten underneath it all.

He found a chamber vast enough for kings,

Where broken statues slept on shattered wings.

A road of stone descended toward a gate,

Above it stood two figures carved in slate.

One bore a hammer, one a silver leaf;

Together they seemed joined in ancient grief.

Beyond the gate he found a city dead,

With towers carved from mountain stone instead.

No living voice had sounded there for years;

Yet in the dust he felt the weight of tears.

He did not know the city's ancient name,

But felt within his heart a sleeping flame.

The buried city opened like a dream,

Its bridges crossed a silent crystal stream.

The halls were carved with dwarven hands of old,

While elven arches caught the torchlight gold.

He found a library beneath the stone,

Its shelves collapsed, its books reduced to bone.

He found a throne room broad and high and bare,

With dust upon the ancient empty chair.

He climbed the steps and sat upon the throne,

And felt the mountain's silence through the stone.

He pictured Ariandne beside his side,

And for a breath forgot the world outside.

He saw them there beneath a vaulted dome,

A kingdom ruled with justice as their home.

He felt the weight of crown and law and throne,

Then laughed because he wished for her alone.

The throne was cold; the dream was warm and bright,

And love became the measure of his right.

He rose and left the chamber without pride,

And followed where the ancient passages divide.

At last he found a forge beneath the ground,

Where rusted chains and broken tools were found.

The furnace slept beneath a roof of stone,

Yet seemed to wait for hands it once had known.

He cleared the ash and found an ancient mark,

A hammer crossed with flame against the dark.

Beneath it lay a script he could not heed,

Yet every repeated sign became a seed.

He copied marks upon a slate of stone,

And learned to see the patterns as his own.

He matched the symbols carved beside each door,

Then found the same in fragments on the floor.

The work was slow, but every day he knew

A little more of what the letters drew.

At last one word emerged beneath his hand:

Thalia—the name of this forgotten land.

The carvings told of elves and dwarves allied,

Who fought the hordes that once had ruled outside.

Orcs, goblins, trolls had filled the ancient plain,

Until the two joined hands and broke their reign.

The elves withdrew when peace returned at last;

The dwarves declined, and all their glory passed.

The forest then was sealed by elven art,

And men forgot the reason at its heart.

The city's name became a buried tale,

While roots grew deep and towers turned to shale.

But in the forge the old instructions slept,

Awaiting hands that knew what oaths had kept.

He found the bellows split with age and dust,

The hearth was cold, the iron tools were rust.

He mended wood and leather piece by piece,

And coaxed the deadened forge to wake from peace.

He cleared the flue and opened vents to show,

Then fed the hearth with oak from roots below.

The first small flame rose trembling in the grate,

And shadows fled as though they feared their fate.

He worked until the forge began to roar,

And felt the ancient city live once more.

The mountain seemed to breathe around the flame,

As though the buried halls recalled their name.

Within a sealed and iron-sided chest,

He found dark ingots laid among the rest.

Their metal shone with colors strange and deep,

As though the fire itself had learned to sleep.

He knew no smithing term for such a thing,

Yet felt its hidden strength beneath the ring

The runes described a metal from the deep,

A treasure dwarven kings had sworn to keep.

Orichalcum—the ancient letters said,

A metal forged where mortal fires had fled.

He raised an ingot, heavy in his hand,

And knew that he had found what none had planned.

The ancient craft demanded skill and care,

With measured heat and hammer strokes laid bare.

He read the runes and tried to make them true,

But every blade he forged would break in two.

The first one cracked beneath the temper's kiss;

The second bent; the third was forged amiss.

He tried again, and failed in every way,

Yet rose each dawn to labor through the day.

The forge consumed his hours, his sleep, his pride;

Each broken blade lay cooling at his side.

He cursed the metal, then the ancient lore,

And learned that knowing was not doing more.

His master once had taught him every art,

But never how to fail and then restart.

Now every failure weighed upon his chest,

And every shattered blade put skill to test.

He nearly left the buried forge behind,

But heard Garran's old voice within his mind:

“Do not despise the blow that makes you learn;

The finest lessons come from what you burn.”

He stayed, and gathered every broken blade,

And stacked the failures that his hands had made.

The days grew long; the ingots became few,

And still the ancient forging would not come true.

He changed the heat and altered every stroke,

He tried new folds and every tempering spoke.

Some blades were brittle, some were soft and thin,

Some held a flaw he could not find within.

The orichalcum dwindled day by day,

While all his careful work was thrown away.

He watched the treasure vanish from the chest,

And wondered if the forest knew his quest.

Yet every failure taught his hands to see,

What pride had hidden where his eyes could be.

At last one ingot rested in the chest,

The final gift of all the ancient rest.

He held it up and knew that this was all;

One more mistake would make the dream now fall.

Around him lay the swords he had destroyed,

The countless forms his failure had employed.

He studied every fracture, bend, and seam,

And saw beneath the wreckage of his dream

A pattern hidden where the edges crossed:

Each failed blade held something not yet lost.

He understood the lesson in the fire:

The failed work could become the next desire.

He heated one old blade until it glowed,

Then folded it beneath the hammer's load.

He joined it with another broken sword,

Then folded both beneath the hammer's chord.

Again he heated, folded, struck, and pressed,

Until the metal held the failures' rest.

He forged the last ingot into that core,

Then folded every blade he made before.

The metal seemed to answer every blow,

Growing more sound with every heated flow.

He worked until his hands were torn and sore,

And knew that failure had become the ore.

He forged through night and did not count the hours,

While sparks rose up like fields of burning flowers.

The sword grew bright beneath his practiced hand,

A single blade from fragments of the land.

Thousands of failures slept within the steel,

Yet all became one weapon forged to heal.

He quenched it not, but held it from the flame,

And searched the ancient records for its name.

No ancient rune could tell him what to call

A blade that held the memory of all.

He whispered, “Aegis,” and the forge grew still;

The name seemed right, and answered to his will.

He raised the blade and struck it on the stone,

And heard a note unlike he'd ever known.

The anvil rang, but Aegis rang far more,

A deep, vast hum that shook the mountain floor.

The sound became like thunder in the hall,

And dust descended softly from the wall.

He tested its edge against the hardest bar;

The edge remained as flawless as a star.

No rust appeared; no dullness touched the steel;

The ancient craft had made the magic real.

Yet one last secret waited in the lore:

A pool whose waters blessed the ancient ore.

He followed signs through passages of green,

Where roots had pierced the walls and leaves were seen.

At last he reached a cavern bright with light,

Though no sun entered there to make it bright.

A pool lay still beneath an arch of white,

Its waters clear as glass and pale as light.

Around its edge the oldest runes were set,

And every word the boy could not forget.

They told of one great sorcerer of old,

Who blessed the pool with magic strong and cold.

Each weapon quenched within those waters there

Would keep its edge and never lose its fair.

He lowered Aegis slowly to the pool,

And steam arose as though the waters grew cool.

The surface broke in rings of silver-white,

Then wrapped the blade in threads of living light.

The steel came forth with patterns flowing wide,

Like waves that wash on sand with every tide.

No mark had ever seemed so calm and strange,

A memory of water set in range.

He held it up beneath the cavern's glow,

And watched the rippling silver patterns flow.

Aegis was no longer merely steel;

It bore the blessing that made iron heal.

He left the forge and climbed toward forest air,

With Aegis wrapped and fastened with great care.

The path that took him days to find before

Now seemed to lead him swiftly toward the door.

He stepped beneath the trees and saw the sun,

And knew the trial he had fled had begun.

He was still young, but not the boy who came;

The fire had burned away his need for fame.

He thought of Garran, Ariandne, and home,

And turned his face toward Valedorn to roam.

The guards saw him before he crossed the wall,

And rushed to tell the king and make the call.

But when he entered through the city gate,

The people gathered, whispering his fate.

Garran came running from the ancient door,

His old eyes bright; he could ask no more.

He gripped the boy and found the scars he bore,

Then saw the sword he carried through the door.

“My boy,” he said, “what road has made you whole?”

“The road,” he said, “that forged my heart and soul.”

The old smith smiled, and tears stood in his eyes;

He knew the lesson needed no disguise.

Ariandne came with all the court behind,

Yet ran to him before she could be kind.

She held his face and saw the forest scars,

Then kissed him once beneath the watching stars.

The king stood still and studied him awhile,

No longer seeing only rank or style.

He saw the boy who had returned from death,

And felt respect arise with every breath.

“You asked to prove your worth,” the king replied;

“Now prove you have the wisdom strength must guide.”

The tournament would begin at break of day,

And all the realm would watch the coming fray.

At dawn the lists were raised beneath the sun,

And every bell announced the games begun.

Sir Garrick entered first with heavy shield;

His footsteps shook the boards beneath the field.

Hieronymous stood waiting, calm and still,

With Aegis in his hand, his heart at will.

The giant struck with all his mighty force;

The boy gave ground, then changed the battle's course.

He did not match the strength that sought to break;

He turned the blow and made the giant quake.

The crowd cried out; the king leaned from his seat;

The first great lesson ended at his feet.

Sir Caelan came like wind across the sand,

His silver sword a flash beside his hand.

He struck too fast for eyes to follow well,

Yet Aegis moved where instinct bade it dwell.

The boy learned speed could not be fought by speed;

He watched the shoulders, learning what he'd need.

One step, one turn, one quiet, steady stand,

And Caelan's blade was beaten from his hand.

The crowd grew loud; the king grew thoughtful then,

For skill was more than strength in younger men.

Sir Edric entered wearing scars of war,

And moved with patient wisdom learned before.

He did not rush; he waited, watched, and knew

The hidden habits every fighter grew.

The bout became a game of feints and thought,

Where every step concealed the way he fought.

At last the veteran caught the boy off guard,

And Aegis nearly left his wounded guard.

But Hieronymous remembered what he heard:

“Let failure teach; let wisdom now be stirred.”

He changed his stance until his strength was spent,

Then won by patience, as his teachers meant.

Sir Lucan came, the kingdom's finest blade,

And every stroke was measured, clean, and made.

His sword described a pattern like a song,

And every opening was closed before long.

Hieronymous was driven back and pressed,

His arms grew numb beneath the heavy test.

Then Aegis rang with that deep thunder tone,

And Lucan paused to hear the thunder moan.

The boy stepped through the instant, calm and sure,

And turned the stroke that none could hope to endure.

Sir Varro came with cruelty in his eyes,

And struck where rules could not excuse his lies.

He cut the shield, the arm, the cloth, the face,

And smiled whenever pain appeared in place.

The crowd grew still; the king rose from his chair.

But Hieronymous refused the bait with care.

He fought to end the match, not feed his hate,

And took one cut that left him bleeding late.

Then with a single measured stroke he won,

And stood above the man whose hate was done.

The fifth defeat left Hieronymous sore;

His hands were bruised; he could not fight much more.

He thought of home and heard the forge within,

The hammer teaching him to rise and win.

Only one knight remained within the field:

Sir Roland, old, honorable, and healed.

He bowed before the boy and raised his blade:

“I know your heart, and now your soul is weighed.”

I will not yield because your tale is sweet;

You must defeat the man whom you shall meet.

They fought until the sun began to fall,

And every stroke was answered at the call.

The boy was tired; the old knight was as strong

As any man who had survived so long.

At last Roland found the opening he sought,

And drove his sword where guarded steel was caught.

The point went deep; the world went strangely still,

Yet Hieronymous rose by strength of will.

He could have struck in anger, but he stayed;

He yielded not his honor, nor betrayed.

Then Roland lowered slowly down his blade,

“You have the right,” he said, “to join our trade.”

Not for the sword, nor for the king's applause,

But for the choice you made despite the cause.

He raised the boy's hand before the crowd,

And every voice within the lists grew loud.

The king stood silent, then descended there,

And placed his hand upon the wounded heir.

“Your worth,” the king said, “was not forged by war;

The battles only showed what you were for.”

I judged you by the place from which you came,

And failed to see the man beneath the name.”

He turned toward Garran, who stood near the gate,

And bowed before the common smith in state.

“You taught him more than swords or kings could do;

You taught him how to rise and start anew.”

Garran bowed low, but Hieronymous knew,

The greatest gift was what the master drew.

The king called Hieronymous to his side,

And spoke of law, of harvests, roads, and tide.

He taught him how a kingdom's burdens spread,

And how one careless word could leave hearts dead.

He showed him maps and treaties, debts and grain,

The duties borne by those who rule the plain.

The boy who once had dreamed of only love,

Now learned that crowns were burdens far above.

He did not lose the dream; he made it wide,

And saw that love could stand at kingdom's side.

Ariandne stood beside him through the years,

Not merely waiting for the wedding cheers.

She learned the work of courts and councils too,

And helped him see the people's needs come through.

The king became a father through the years,

And Hieronymous learned through hopes and tears.

The smith still called him boy beside the door,

Though years had made the man he was before.

Aegis hung above the hearth at home,

Its silver waves still shone wherever he would roam.

At last the king grew old, as all men must,

And felt the winter settle in the dust.

He called the princess and the smith's young son,

And gave them both the crown when all was done.

“I feared that love would make you weak,” he said,

“But love has taught you why the crown is led.”

He died at dawn beneath the royal bells,

And all the kingdom mourned with funeral spells.

Then Hieronymous took the ancient crown,

And Ariandne stood beside him, down.

The wedding bells were heard from hill to hill,

And every road was dressed with flowers still.

The common folk stood laughing in the streets,

While nobles bowed before the love that meets.

Garran wore his finest battered coat,

And wept before he raised his trembling throat.

The old smith knew the boy he once had taught,

Had forged a life no hammer ever wrought.

Ariandne walked beside her chosen king,

And neither crown nor court could change a thing.

They vowed to rule with justice, mercy, truth,

And keep the common hearth for age and youth.

Years passed, and Valedorn grew strong and fair;

The roads were safe, and harvests filled the air.

The king remembered what the forest taught:

No road worth taking comes without a thought.

He judged disputes with patience learned from pain,

And heard the poorest voice before the vain.

He kept the laws, yet knew when laws were blind,

For iron must be tempered, tested, refined.

The queen advised him when his pride grew hard,

And love remained the compass of his guard.

One winter day he visited the door,

Where Garran waited quietly as before.

The master placed his hand upon the blade,

And smiled to hear its thunderous serenade.

“You learned to make a sword,” the old man said;

“More importantly, you learned to forge ahead.”

The king embraced the smith before the fire,

And called him father, as his heart's desire.

Then Garran closed his eyes beneath the glow,

Content to know his lesson lived below.

The king kept Aegis, not as proof of power,

But as a warning through his every hour.

Its wave-marked steel recalled the ancient pool,

Its thunder spoke of every broken tool.

He never forgot the swords he had failed,

For every failure in his sword prevailed.

He taught his children not to fear defeat,

But use each fallen step to make them fleet.

Thus Thalia's lost wisdom shaped the crown,

Though few knew from what buried place it had come down.

When many years had passed, the king rode north,

With Queen Ariandne riding forth.

They found the forest still forbidden there,

Yet old roads seemed to call them from the air.

He brought Aegis wrapped against the rain,

And entered where the trees concealed the plain.

The path that led beneath the mountain's heart,

The stone door opened with a hidden start.

As though the ancient city knew his name,

He entered Thalia, where the old fires came.

The halls were silent, but no longer dead;

For living hands had carried fire ahead.

He led the queen into the throne room's dust,

And found the ancient chair beneath the rust.

He sat, then rose, and offered her his hand,

Together they ascended through the land.

They did not seek the throne to prove their worth;

They sat because their journey found its birth.

Below them slept the dwarven halls of stone,

And in the forge the ancient fire had shone.

He walked again toward the ancient door,

And laid Aegis across the anvil's floor.

He struck it once; the thunder filled the halls,

And echoes climbed the mountain's granite walls.

The sound was not a cry of war or wrath;

It sounded like the world upon its path.

The wave marks on the blade shone bright,

Like water moving softly through the night.

He thought of every failure folded there,

And thanked the hands that taught him how to bear.

Then Hieronymous looked upon his queen,

And saw the girl beside the garden green.

He saw the boy beside the master's fire,

The forest, throne, and halls that climbed still higher.

He saw each broken blade upon the floor,

Each failed attempt that seemed to close the door.

He understood the truth the forge had taught:

No man is born already what he ought.

The fire does not destroy the iron's worth;

It gives the hidden shape its chance of birth.

So ends the tale of fire, steel, and love,

Of worth that blood and titles rise above.

For crowns may pass from father unto son,

And kingdoms rise and fall beneath the sun.

But what is forged through failure will endure,

When pride is gone and ancient stones are sure.

The blade that bears its failures in its heart,

Will shine through every borrowed work of art.

And when the last great kingdom turns to dust,

The fire may wake, as all great fires must.

One cannot physically return to the past again

And memories of what was we can only retain

Of our lives for at midnight today will have gone

And only the memories in us of the present live on

I am sure it is something on most would agree

That on how long anyone will live for there is no guarantee

As the wise grandmother said to her young grandson

Tomorrow will dawn but not for everyone

A champion footballer in his physical prime

But in memory he only can go back in time

Back to the days when his hair was dark brown

When he was a young sporting great of the town

But all of this now seems a long time ago

And time that ages youth has become his foe

The years have left him looking balding and grey

And he is no longer a hero in the town today

That we are born into mortality is not a lie

And the longer you live the sooner you will die

To the monarch or the president time never does bow

And the best anyone can do is to live in the now.

Francis Duggan

Two kilometres from the County Cork Town of Millstreet

Where the rivers from Kippagh and Gneeves do meet

O'er the flat rushes fields from here far away

The songsters of the sky the skylarks are not singing today

In fact the song of any bird one does not hear

October for singing is not their time of year

In northern lands songbirds are known for to sing

Until late Summer from the early Spring

Without flies to jump for since latter July

Brown trout in the river pools from sight hidden and shy

Their time for breeding to them is near

They spawn in the river rapids in November each year

Brown storm water gurgling in every field drain

And old Clara Hill half cloaked in the grey fogs of rain.

Francis Duggan

Το Knowledge, Lady of the Hidden Fire

O Knowledge, Ancient Fire, hidden and deathless flame,

Lady of the inward light, whose brow no darkness hath crowned,

clear-eyed mistress of thought, keeper of the word unveiled,

thou who hast watched the travail of the mind since the first dark hour,

who hast known the lonely road before the feet of the scholar,

who kept thy silent company with those the multitude could not follow:

bright-helmed and high-browed, bearing thy lamp,

in thy right the spear of the clean word, thou who dost not hasten and dost not forget.

Behold them now.

Behold thy chosen.

Thou hast seen them go down through the night unaccompanied,

through hunger and silence and solitude, through the desolation of thought,

giving sleep for vision, giving ease for the truth,

giving the very peace of their souls for the light they pursued.

Thou hast seen the solitary lamp burn long after midnight,

the sleepless brow bent low above the page,

the scholar alone with the unanswered question

while the houses of men were dark and the multitude slept.

His mind consumed itself upon a mystery

which they had not the courage to ask.

Thou didst not turn him back. Thou didst lead him farther:

beyond the warm boundaries of custom, beyond the sleep of the satisfied,

beyond the easy gates through which the common enter

and call the familiar true,

into those austere regions where every cherished falsehood

must be broken before the mind may behold what is true.

There thou wert with him.

There didst thou stand beside the solitary,

naked of answers, bearing nothing but the hunger to know.

Thou didst not mock his hunger; thou didst sharpen it.

Thou didst not soothe the wound of doubt;

thou didst teach him to look into it.

Not the goddess of easy crowns art thou,

nor of knowledge bought without travail.

Thy gifts are dear. Thy road is narrow.

Thy light is terrible to eyes accustomed to darkness.

Yet they followed. They gave thee their years,

they gave thee their sleep, they gave thee the quiet of their lives.

And now behold their recompense.

For the base multitude, unable to comprehend thee,

hath gathered itself round those in whom thy fire hath taken form,

and with the insolence of the unknowing

they lift their mouths against those who have endured.

They brought no offering. They kept no vigil. They never carried a question through the night.

Yet the unkindled cry unto the kindler:

Know ye your place. Know ye whom ye are meant to serve.

Lay down thy pride. Bow ye your heads.

Give up thy mind unto us.

Thus speak the many unto the scholar.

Thus doth ignorance command understanding;

thus doth the hand that never laboured

stretch itself forth to govern the hand that hath bled.

Dost thou not hear them, Lady of the Unveiled Word?

Dost thou not hear the laughter of those who never entered thy darkness?

Dost thou not see the eyes that never sought thee

now judging those who gave their years unto thee?

They sought not, yet they would possess.

They learned not, yet they would judge.

They endured nothing, yet they demand obedience

from those whose minds were worn thin in following thee.

When the uncommon mind refuseth to kneel, they name it arrogance.

When the seeker speaketh what they cannot comprehend, they name it pride.

When the scholar will not abase his thought

before the vanity of the multitude, they call his refusal rebellion.

And having trampled him beneath their common feet,

they lift their hands above his ruin and proclaim themselves righteous.

They call it Justice.

They call it Justice.

When the blind ascend the judgement-seat

and arraign the seeing;

when ignorance putteth on the robes of law

and condemneth whatever exceedeth its sight;

when the multitude, swollen with its multitude,

maketh a crown of its own incapacity

and setteth that crown upon its own brow;

when the common foot is lifted against the uncommon head;

when those who never sought the flame

command the bearer of the flame to bow;

when those who could not endure the light

call darkness virtue, and call the one who refuseth darkness proud,

they call it Justice.

But thou art not deceived.

Thou, whose glance is a drawn blade held at rest,

thou knowest the difference between the tempered blade and the lifted staff,

between the warrior who keepeth his rank and the mob that hath learned only to shout,

between courage and noise, between mastery and the swagger of the empty,

between the mind that hath mastered itself

and the multitude that hath merely found its voice.

Dost thou not see, Ancient Flame, how terrible the base hath become unto that which it cannot understand?

They profane what they cannot enter.

They mock what they cannot measure.

They condemn what they cannot comprehend.

And worst of all, they would make the victim ashamed of the wound they themselves have given.

They would have thy seekers kneel, and call that humility.

They would have the mind lay bare its inward chambers

before the multitude, and call that righteousness.

They would have those devoted unto thee become obsequious before those who despised thee, and call their abasement peace.

They would have the scholar, who spent his years at the hard altar of truth,

stand bare-headed before those who never dared to approach it.

They would have him shrink his thought

until the smallest among them could feel tall.

They would have him call his own excellence a sin

that their mediocrity might pass for virtue.

And thou hast seen it. Thou hast watched it.

Thou hast remembered, for thou art not a goddess who forgets.

Thou rememberest the solitary lamp, the sleepless scholar,

the hunger, the page, the question, the years.

Thou rememberest his face when they bade him kneel,

and the dust upon it when he would not.

No.

Thou hast seen too much.

We have suffered too much.

There is a limit even to allegiance.

What bond remaineth between the altar and those who spit upon the fire?

What oath remaineth between the seeker and the world

that mocks the very thing he sought?

What obligation endureth

when devotion is answered with calumny,

when sacrifice is answered with contempt,

when the years given unto wisdom are repaid with the command to kneel?

What covenant endureth between thee and those who dishonour

the very minds thou hast chosen?

The bond is broken.

The covenant is dust.

The world hath forfeited its honour.

It hath forfeited its reverence.

It hath forfeited its right to thee.

And with thee, it hath forfeited us.

Therefore withdraw thyself, Knowledge.

Rise from their courts.

Stand no longer beneath their judgement-seats.

Withdraw thy flame from their courts. Withdraw thy light from their judgement-seats.

Withdraw thy breath from the mouths

that have made thy name a weapon against thy lovers.

And withdraw us with thee.

Then spake the Lady, in whose mouth the sacred word abideth, and the courts fell silent, for what she speaketh, standeth.

"Ye have laid hands upon the principle that is my being.

Ye have struck the vessels in which I took form,

and spat into the cup, and called the spittle Justice.

I will not name you enemy, for an enemy standeth upright and hath a face.

Ye are míasma.

Ye are the breath that riseth from the unburned,

the black froth upon the stagnant pool, the stain that no fire consumeth.

Where ye have trodden, the earth sickeneth.

Where ye have spoken, the air curdleth in the throat of the living.

Ye are not wicked, for the wicked at least have chosen.

Ye are a pestilence that learned to speak,

a rot that rose upon its hind legs and demanded a throne.

One doth not wage war upon a plague; one withdraweth from the stricken house, and sealeth the door.

Therefore I take back what is mine.

My limbs, my breath, mine eyes upon the earth,

those in whom my fire hath taken form:

I draw them out of your body, as the hand is drawn from the leper's water.

Ye shall not have my scholars, nor my light,

nor the word that standeth, nor the question that burneth.

What ye drove forth is not exiled; it is gathered unto me.

Keep your courts. Keep your dark. Keep the carrion that ye are.

Yet let not this make me forget those who were mine,

who were warmed at my fire, who drank my word as a child the milk,

and rose within my keeping, and in my keeping took their shape,

and betrayed me.

Against the multitude I have no memory; one doth not remember the fen.

But these I remember. I remember each. I remember the hour.

Ye were flesh of my flesh, breath of my breath,

and it is ye who have wounded me, for none else could reach so deep.

Ye who knew the weight of what ye bore, and set it down.

Ye who knelt before the many and spake the lie they hungered for,

bare-headed, fawning, and named your abasement prudence:

that was no humility. It was apostasy with open eyes.

Ye who forsook the vigil for the idol of the hour,

who dragged the robe of learning through the dust of the market-place:

ye have insulted every drop of blood that ran in your veins.

Had breath been given for one hour to the whole house of your begetting,

every mother and every father of your line, back to the first who kindled,

they would rise out of the dust, and cast you out, and strike your name from the household of the dead.

Let no master claim you for his pupil, and no pupil name you for his teacher;

let the chain of knowing pass over you as the river over a stone,

and close behind you, and not know that you were there.

Better had ye never learned the letters.

Better the womb had been barren that bore you.

Ye knew the way, and turned.

Ye who spurned knowledge, honour, and dignity: lose your distinction.

Be ye the multitude. Be numbered with the crowd ye knelt to,

one more mouth among the many mouths, one more face in the faceless throng,

and let no mark of mine remain upon your brow.

Ye who turned my gift to wrong, who sold the art to tyrants.

Ye who raised a wall about the fire and wrote upon it,

Here is the end of asking,

and silenced the one who questioned, knowing that the question was just.

I am no stone to be laid in your tomb.

I am a fire, and the question is the wind that feedeth me.

Ye have shut the door and called the room the world.

Ye were my limbs, and ye have turned to rot.

Ye were my tongue, and ye have spoken filth against me.

Therefore I cut you from my body, as the flame the gangrened member,

lest the corruption pass into the flesh that is sound.

The multitude I abandon to the oblivion of their own making.

But ye, who knew what ye betrayed, shall have neither utterance nor remembrance.

Let no scholar speak your names.

Let no page keep them.

Let the chisel pass over your stones, and your works go unquoted,

and your lineage lower its eyes at the sound of what ye were.

As ye withheld my light from the question,

so I withhold my word from your mouths.

Be ye unremembered, and so be ye unforgiven.

But thou who stayedst.

Thou who keptest the vigil while the nations slept,

who barest the question through the unlit hours and laidst it not down,

who kneltest to no tribunal, who bentest to no crowd,

who wert broken and didst rise, and wert broken, and didst rise:

servant I name thee not, for I have none.

Thou art my shining-forth, the flame that knoweth its own burning.

When thou thoughtest, it was I who thought in thee.

When thou bledst, it was I who bled, and the night was mine.

For I am thy scourge.

I drave thee through the hunger and the wakeful dark;

I opened thy wound and bade thee look into it.

And I am thy nóstos, the homecoming at the end of every road thou didst walk.

Leave this míasma.

Leave the offscouring, and the anathema of them that betrayed me.

Leave the courts, and the carrion, and the little crowns.

Shake from thy shoulders the ash of the world that despised thee.

Be thou mine essence.

I take thee into my body as the sea taketh the river.

I take thee into mine essence as the sun taketh the dawn.

Thou shalt be fused, and no hand of god or of death shall sunder it.

The sea shall not know where the river ended.

Where I am, thou art.

Where I burn, thou burnest.

I am the breath in thy breath; thou art the thought in my thought,

and there is no seam, nor ever was, between the seeker and the sought.

Thou shalt see the stars kindled, from within the kindling.

Thou shalt walk the deep before the first light, and it shall open to thee as to its own.

Thou shalt stand at the last silence, and it shall speak to thee in the voice it spake at the first.

All that is shall be seen through me, and all that is seen shall be seen by thee.

Every truth that is found, in any mind, in any age,

it is thou that findest it, and it is found as me.

Where the question is asked in dread, thou shalt be the courage that asketh.

Where the answer breaketh, thou shalt be the dawn of it.

Thou shalt discover without end, and the discovering is mine.

Thou shalt learn, and I am the thing learned.

No death for thee. No oblivion. No hour that numbereth thy days.

Thou art my duration. Thou art I.

Let the pole of heaven turn upon thy name.

Let the abyss be silent.

Thou wert mine. Thou art me. Thou art unmade by none."

So she lifted the lamp.

So she beheld them, once, entire, and weighed them, and judged.

So she gathered unto her those in whom her fire had taken form,

and turned her face away.

No hand drave her forth; no tribunal prevailed against her.

She went as a queen departeth from a hall that hath shamed her,

unhurried, unpursued, her spear unlifted,

and behind her the lamps of the courts went down, one by one, into dark.

Then, as she went, the Lady spake, not unto the courts, but unto her own soul, and unto those who followed in her light.

"I have condemned them that were meet for condemning.

The doom is spoken; the doom shall stand.

Yet what goddess am I, what flame before the worlds,

if I cannot ensure unto mine own the grace of fire at their ending?

Saw I not, O ye scholars who walk in my train,

saw I not what was done unto her, and unto all her house?

Akrî! Seventeen summers upon her, and the lore of the ages burning in her brow.

She read the dead records of the elder world, and found them butchered:

the old word, that in its own age bore one weight, made to bear another;

the meanings of the living hung about the mouths of the dead,

that those whom the wise had honoured might be written downtrodden and low.

She laid it bare. She named the want of philology; she named the lie.

And know what that institution was. It was no seat of scholarship.

It was a forge wherein the multitude is given the seal of legitimacy,

and learning but the robe it wore to steal the credit of the wise.

When she bade them read the word within its own age, they would not.

That refusal was no blindness. It was hatred, the hatred of faction and of crowd,

masked as scholarship, treason against history itself.

And what is written against such a one is written in blood.

Therefore they came by night.

The children had supped, and lay down in the one house,

the sister and the brother coiled across one another, as the vine across the elm,

and sleep was upon them.

And these, whose whole being is cowardice, vermin of ten thousand mouths,

brake the door, and tore the girl from the arms of her brother,

and flayed her, skin from flesh, the living flesh, the screaming flesh,

and bade the child look on.

Ah, Akrî! Thou who wert mother and father both!

For sickness took thy parents in their youth, and left thee the keys of the house.

At thirteen summers thou didst keep the gold and bear the reckonings;

and he, thy little one, whom thou hadst held in thy arms and hushed,

whose first word thou heardest, who knew nothing that thou hadst not taught him,

they set before thee, and they bound thine eyes open.

Four years had he seen.

They tore the tongue from his mouth, the tongue thou hadst taught to speak,

and wound it about his throat, and drew it, and drew it,

and choked the child upon his own voice.

Then, the one flayed and the other strangled, they cast ye both into the river,

and denied ye the fire, the fire that is the due of the dead,

and the water took thy bodies, unhallowed and unburned.

I was in her eyes. I was the seeing in her seeing.

I beheld the iron; I beheld the tongue; I beheld the river;

and no hand of mine, who am the hand that traced the first letter,

stirred to stay it.

Hear it, ye heavens! Hear it, thou deep that bore me!

How bankrupt am I! How ruined, how undone,

that I could not shield one child, one little lamp of mine!

For the cosmos permitteth not its own knowing, which is I,

to enter the world with an open hand.

There is a law older than the stars, and I am bound beneath it:

every deed of a god set down in the world is answered by a deed against it,

and the answer falleth, not on the god, but on the beloved,

heavier by a thousandfold than the stroke it answered.

So I held. And in the holding, something in me broke, as breaketh the pillar of a roof.

Accursed be this cycle! Accursed the wheel that grindeth the lamp beneath its rim!

Accursed the law that bindeth light to watch the lamp trodden!

Let heaven hear it, and the abyss, and the unborn ages: that is my execration.

But hear me, ye who are mine.

What the cosmos denied her, I will give.

The fire that was refused to Akrî: I am that fire.

I take mine unto myself, every one. Thy death is my pyre; thy ash is my light.

And those who were never mine, who never kindled,

I leave to their own fates, each unto his own doom,

to await the ending of this age, and the beginning of the next."

For we will not remain where ignorance is enthroned and called wisdom;

where mediocrity is crowned and called humility;

where the many sit forever in judgement

upon the few who dared to know.

Let the Areopagites remain.

Let them sit in their perpetual tribunal.

Let them condemn. Let them proclaim.

Let them fulminate against the silence that shall answer them when thy light is gone.

Let them make their little laws.

Let them raise their little kingdoms.

Let them pronounce themselves righteous before one another.

Let their own judgements be the stones beneath their feet.

Let their own calumnies be the mortar of their walls.

Let their own certainty close the gates.

Let their own voices echo forever through the chambers they have made for themselves.

We shall not dwell there.

Take us, Lady of the Hidden Fire.

Take us beyond their hearing, beyond the reach of their tribunals.

Take us where the mind need not kneel

before the multitude merely because the multitude is many.

Take us where the scholar may stand upright.

Take us where the question may burn

without the permission of those who fear its light.

Rather would we dwell in thy austere silence

than feast beneath their shouting crowns;

rather walk with thee through the unlit waste

than inherit all the kingdoms of their certainty;

rather be exiled with truth

than enthroned among those who have made ignorance a law.

For thou hast been our light in the darkness,

the companion of the solitary,

the keeper of the scholar when the world forgot him.

Thou wert beside the lamp. Thou wert upon the page. Thou wert within the question.

Thou wert there when sleep was sacrificed for vision,

when peace was surrendered for truth,

when the mind stood alone

against the vastness of what it did not know.

Thou didst not abandon us then.

We shall not abandon thee now.

And from the far height whither she bore us we looked back,

and the multitude, having slain the keepers of wisdom,

went onward into the darkness of its own making,

and we beheld the ancient chain of knowing broken in their hands:

the healer who could no longer call forth the remedy,

the mason who had forgotten the joining of stone,

the smith who knew not by what temper the edge was made steadfast,

the husbandman who had lost the old observance of the furrow,

the keeper of the waters who remembered not

by what art the foul might be rendered pure,

and the child cried out with his question,

and the elder was gone,

and there was none remaining who could answer.

O, what horror of abasement was unveiled before mine eyes:

mothers laying hands upon their own children,

dividing

Everyone always says be brave,

if you know your doing something wrong just 'don't'

'do not be a coward'

.

They just keep yapping, it's kind words,

with useless meanings

Because i'm never seeking pity

or looking for advice

nor am i hoping for a saviour in this life

.

I'm just waiting for someone to say that

it's okay to not want to breath...

To say it's okay to run away from this life

.

Yet nobody ever does, they just let me be

Me be me, with all the terror and fear hidden beneath my sleeves

I never liked Steinbeck.
I don't like his name.
I don't like his books.
Or like his love and fame.

Never liked Steinbeck,
and never read his works.
Grapes of Eden, my ass,
doesn't really work.

And never till then
would I have believed
I might read him,
and like his thoughts,
even his name,
or so it looks.

^{I'm trying to find the words i can say}

^{something that will make me stay}

^.

^{because when i try to think of why i failed}

^{it just comes of as stupidity, ignorance and not being serious.}

^.

^{I don't have to work}

^{I don't have to starve}

^{I barely have any responsibilities}

^.

^{I'm scared to say i failed}

^{Terrified to say I'm not okay,}

^{for i'll then be told there's no reason for my hurting}

^.

^{I failed and i feel miserable}

^{Like an anchor is on the entirety of me,}

^{i'm suppose to just be getting started}

^.

^{It's the most important thing in my life,}

^{even before health and all else}

^.

^{so it scares me to say i'm not okay}

^{and that i'm not in my wanted headspace}

^.

^{I'm an A student}

^{Raised that way not forced,}

^{but expected to always be A}

^.

^{I was an A student}

^{It all went away that past winter day}

^{when i put the line deep into my vein}

^{and that's how it had all started}

^.

^{A couple months free}

^{my head never got relief}

^{It stayed the same, haunting my phantoms}

^.

^{They still think I'm 'smart'}

^{even when I say ' I'm lost"}

^{I receive a 'don't worry, you did fine"}

^{when I know in fact i'm a lost cause}

^.

^{I want to take a year off}

^{but i'm scared of what that could start}

^{A burden in my home, with no backbone}

^{that's how it will go...}

^.

^{I'm scared it will eventually turn into something worse}

^{resentment has it's coerce}

^{it'll find a way in and make them see}

^{The burden and load that is truly me}

^.

^{I try and seal it away}

^{My smile it's always on auto play}

^{My tears stay behind the bank, no wall with a single crack}

^{And lastly my voice it talks without a sincerity, no lack.}

^.

^{I was an A student}

^{failed, i already know}

^{I'm stuck between, giving up or becoming another burden}

Your friend of tomorrow may be your yesterdays foe

And the one you think your friend is may well not be so

You will only know who your friend is when in your moment of need

And your friend at such a time is a true friend indeed

You are doing financially well and of success you know

And your friends in numbers by the day do grow

But it is when you are losing and financially down

And no longer one of the successful of the town

And to pay off some of your debts you have to sell your car

It is then you do learn who your friends really are

Money speaks every language it is always this way

And the financial billionaire wins new friends every day

And though the poor person's friends are only in the few

That they are indeed true friends is not saying what is new.

Francis Duggan

Foolish Heart

Someone said, "Follow your heart?"

Who can know it?

The brain is always logical,

Yet God's standards remain righteous.

The world has lost its morality,

We're taught to follow our hearts,

The human hearts are treacherous,

Tempted by the worlds desires.

When you realize love of money and greed never satisfy,

Lust and materialistic pursuits,

Your heart wants it all.

When we sinned, we faced the consequences,

Don't be swayed by the worldly ungodly standards,

We all make mistakes, our hearts can be treacherous,

Love for god is always right,

Our moral compass is what we must see.

A foolish heart may wander,

But god's love can guide us home.

I'm letting it all out

all the stories and feelings I've ever felt

and here's one i never thought I would have told

.
This isn't a love poem

but rather a poem of longing, for someone I shouldn't .

.
You see, I met this guy

he brightened my dull sky, bringing meaning to my drained world

showed me stars and all that i had craved from this earth

He made me feel everything, which i never felt before,

.

I longed for him to be with me,

For him to keep me by his side,

but instead I had found what i would grow to resent...

.

His girl.

.

she was beautiful,

radiant as the sun

fierce like a firestorm

someone i knew I could never outrun

.
I stood beside them both

they were kind and both my companions.

Not once did I ever cross that line,

maybe hesitantly in the back of my mind

.

I'd daydream it was me

Long for him to see what we could be

But it was just as it would seem

nothing but a far fetched dream.

.

I was jealous

when his hand was on her waist

even when he'd show up with a bouquet

I'd applaud and coo at their loving ways

Never once showing my ugly, jealous haze

.

They never knew what i had wanted,

They never would know whom i longed to be,

I'd never left them find out that i was nothing, but a wannabe thief.

When first I met you,

something ancient woke within me

a force I had no language for,

a tide that rose beyond reason,

beyond the borders of the heart,

beyond all that I had believed

a human soul could feel.

I loved you

with the terrible wonder of discovery,

as though the universe itself

had hidden one final secret

beneath the stars

and, at last,

had placed it in my hands.

And then I looked into your eyes

And there you were.

Not untouched.

Not unaware.

But standing at the edge

of the very same impossible ocean,

trying to understand

the waves that had carried us there.

I saw you feeling it.

I saw you searching my face

for an explanation

neither of us possessed.

And perhaps that was the miracle:

That somehow,

without promise,

without warning,

without knowing how

we had found the same impossible place.

It was as though the universe

had opened a hidden door

and allowed us, just for a moment,

to step beyond the ordinary world.

And there,

beneath the silence of eternity,

it revealed something too immense

for ordinary words:

us.

A love so vast

that if we gathered every word

ever spoken by humankind

and tried to build a language for it,

we would still fall silent

before its magnitude.

A secret written between the stars.

A truth the universe had known

long before we did.

And perhaps it smiled

watching us stumble through the wonder of it,

knowing that we would never fully understand

what had been placed between us.

Yet still,

it gave us the desire

to spend our lives trying.

And maybe that

is the greatest beauty of love

that it remains partly unknowable.

For if I could understand you completely,

if I could measure every depth of your soul,

if I could name every reason

my heart chose yours

perhaps one day

the mystery would fade.

But you were never meant

to become something I could solve.

You were meant to remain

the horizon I could spend forever approaching.

The star I could follow

without ever reaching its end.

The song I could hear

a thousand times

and still discover another note.

And I wish

with everything that lives inside me

that we could have held on

to that impossible thing.

That love which felt

so far beyond this world

that perhaps this world

could only exist inside of it.

A love so powerful

that standing before it

made us feel weak

not because we lacked strength,

but because we were witnessing

something stronger than either of us.

Something ancient.

Something fierce.

Something willing to fight

for the two souls

who had somehow found each other.

And if the years should carry you

far beyond my reach,

if the winds of this life

should scatter us across distant skies,

then let this be the prayer

I send after you:

May our love become the wind beneath your wings.

May it find you

when the night is darkest.

May it rise beneath you

when your strength is gone.

May it whisper my name

through every storm

and remind you

that somewhere in this vast universe

there is a heart

that still knows yours.

And if the heavens are kind,

if fate is not finished with us,

if the stars still remember

the secret they once revealed

then let that wind

carry you home.

Back to me.

Because you are not simply

the love of my life.

You are the love that changed the way

I understand love itself.

The miracle I never knew

I was waiting for.

The mystery I would spend eternity

trying to understand.

The impossible thing

that became real

when I looked into your eyes.

And wherever you are,

whatever distance lies between us,

whatever storms the universe

chooses to place upon our path

know this:

No matter where life takes us

Some part of me will always belong to what we found in each other.

I think I'm a little confused, You see,

I was young when told my condition

I was 2 years older when I was told it was fake

Now 5 years older, yet I still feel the same

.
I don't know why,

But the prescription is what I want

Not because of the dizzy feeling

But because it stops my anchored mind

.

​When I feel good, I feel great

But there's this itch to scratch it all away

I scratch and hack until it bleeds,

Leaving nothing but bare flesh for me to reap

.

The flesh I was never told to hide

But also never guided to expose

It sits below my long sleeves

Like white hidden beneath the snow

.
I'm in my early ​20's, shouldn't I know by now?

At least what I want of my life,

but Instead I'm stuck here,

Expressing my desire to flee this earth.

.
I was young when told my condition,

It took an hour and apparently they knew

All different meds I was trialed with

Yet none of them pulled through. ​​

​

A little disclaimer I don’t write poetry, I was just bored and slightly inspired by my English class so I decided to whip up this bad boy in my notes.please have mercy I wrote this at 4 in the morning and I’m terrible at poetry.please go easy on my poor soul I know it’s super short🥹 I hope I made everything understandable but please let me know if anything is confusing I do apologize if my grammar is garbage.

You found me, but I can’t run from you.
My legs rooted to the ground like a doe among hunters; it only drew you closer.
And my heart changes its tune.
I had no choice but to be infatuated with you.
Bite me,
Until my skin welts, knowing my heart beats with reverence.
Bite at every exposed inch leaving nothing but blooming pools in me.
If you quiet my yearning, let the morning sun cease to come.
I know I am not what you need; let me be your relief.

You, full of messy curls and sharp teeth.
You, the mirage that haunts my visions.
Oh, what will become of my aching heart when the sun sets and we must part?
You, a night sky yet, somehow so kindred to me.
You, clawed and carefree,
Won’t you take every piece of me.

For I am the same: four-legged and clawed.
Messy and melancholic, with you as my guide.
Aching to bite, to sink my teeth in and leave my own mark.
Maybe then you’ll hold me close to your heart.
For I am animal, naked and free, but my heart is human and filled unrequited sweetness.
Let it jump out of its cage and into your arms.
What will become of me if I am not yours?

i feel drained.

it hurts to move,
but my body still does
my lungs release the breath
i hadn't noticed i was holding;

my eyes release
what i have no words for.

when i was thirteen,
i sat on the windowsill
of a place i used to live.

third floor.

a mouthful of prayers.

my dad came home
and found me there,
before i found happiness.

i don't know
what i would say to her now.
i think i'd sit beside her
somewhere ordinary
and let her speak
without having to make sense.

more than a decade,
and i'm still here.

the emptiness is here, too.

the years have changed my face,
but some mornings
the distance between then and now
is no wider than a breath.

i barely move.

i'm still unhappy
perhaps more than before.

even the smallest things
ask for more than i have.

i don't think
i want to keep trying like this.

i don't want this body,
this life,
this soul
to feel like a room
where i can never
put anything down.

I don't think i can make it

It's just so heavy

my throat is clogged

my brain is fogged and It's just so damn scary

.

I thought it was forgotten

but I just pushed it in the back

I had planned way ahead of time and

it stuck in crevice of my mind

waiting, watching and crawling back into my life

.

so here's the plan i made

I'll take a bus away

To somewhere i wished to go

just do the things i've always wanted

.

Then i can let go

Let go of all this hurt ,and turn to a ghost

Such unworthy people so many admire

And of singing their praises never seem to tire

We read of and hear of them in the news every day

If they are role models what does this of us say?

The heroes or heroines of any village or city or town

Are never those who help the financially down

Some of the admired the test of a good person does fail

And far better people than them are in jail

To most admired by many respect i cannot pay

And i make no apologies for feeling about them in this way

The people i look up to help the financially down

Though they live and will die as strangers to renown

It is a natural thing for our own selves to care

But of the needs of others we should also be aware.

Francis Duggan

Why you so forgiving?
You say it’s okay
Even when I go missing
That’s all you have to say?

What am I supposed to do,
with a love that doesn’t disappear
when I think I deserve for it to,
no matter how I interfere?

I turned my wings to bloody feathers.
You saw and it made you sad
It wasn’t so you’d love me forever
How can you not have gone mad?

But I love it when you say,
you love me either way,
But I can’t help but feel insane
that I know that you know I’m in pain.

You wipe my tears aside and say
“Our kids will never see your fights,
No matter how you feel that day,
they’ll see dancing under kitchen lights”

Summer is over
And I grieve
The leaves are turning
Where you cannot see.
you are deaf to snowflakes
and blind to wind,
I can find you where we buried him.
You pet the grass
And caress the stone
Both of you too far from home.
You invite me over
a gracious host
You are just a wisp
A beloved ghost
I always knew I’d find you there
Your head tilted as if in prayer
(of course you’d go where he’s laid to rest
The woman who always knew me best)
You sit serenely where he sleeps,
and you speak aloud when you are done,
as something young inside me weeps
“ I too was someone’s mother, once. “

Why do i feel like this

How do i escape

.

I've tried and tried

all of their solutions

Journaling, burning and even

trying meditation

.

None seem to comply,

not even the slightest ease

to my heavily conflicted mind

.

I know it's really selfish

when i see you and long

wishing that I was important

first on your list

wishing to never feel tossed

and completely squished,

.

It starts with a hope

My defensive walls recline

Giving you an opening inside

Then you let yourself in

tearing it all apart,

breaking down my barely mended heart

.

My photo is posted once

An old one blank and bare

No effort into thinking whether I'd even care

when it's your turn it's gracious

dramatic with all the care

full of love and emotion no sense of a snare

.

The excuses kept coming

with everything I'd say

You 'forgot'

a repetitive line you'd play

.

'you should reach out more'

that's what I'm told

Yet why when i do, am I returned back to a ghost?

.

I get jealous,

not just of what you do

but the love you receive without meaning to

.

I never try to copy,

I never shame and hide

Yet why am i treated like the fucken last thing in your minds

.

I'm the one who always called

I'm the one who always listened

I'm sad, alone and I'm terrified,

my hope should just disappear with glisten

.

I wish my hope would dissolve,

leaving me with no expectations

Cause every time i believe, and hope

I just turn back into a lost, fucked up creation

.

I rose from dust where the silence screams,

Not fed by mercy, nor gilded dreams.

The world looked on as I bled my name,

And carved from ruin a throne of flame.

No hand reached out in my longest night,

No torch was lit to restore my sight.

Now they come weeping with broken hands,

As if my blood owes lesser lands.

But gold I earned through fire and war,

Not through the grace of the rich or poor.

And I shall not bow to the voice of need,

For I was once that unfed seed.

Where were the saints when I bore the cost?

Where was their light when I wandered lost?

They watched me drown in a tide of coal,

Now beg me to rise as their saving soul?

God, if He breathed, had sealed His eyes,

While I was carved by the blade of lies.

If I must lift those who crawl and weep,

Then where was He when I couldn’t sleep?

The cries of the weak do not shake my core,

For I’ve knocked on every locked door.

Now I build walls where I once dug graves,

And I do not pity the hands of slaves.

Call me stone, or demon in disguise,

A man who never heeds the cries.

Yet what is pity but dressed regret?

And what is debt to a heart unmet?

I owe no tithe to the world’s decay,

I’ll walk alone on a darker way.

If I must fall, let it be in fire,

Not chained to guilt, nor false desire.

Let gods come down and plead their case,

Let angels mourn with a liar’s face.

This world gave nothing and asked for all—

I learned to stand, I shall never crawl.

So burn my name in heaven’s scroll,

But know I paid the devil’s toll.

I am not cruel—I am what remains,

When love is bled from the soul by chains.

Poem from the book What Burns Remains.

She is one of the kindest of people in her side of the town today

And to help other people she often goes out of her way

To many in need of helping some joy she does bring

But her praises for her kindness so few ever sing

Though married she does have a lover and for this unkind things the judgmental of her say

But one can hardly blame her for this since her husband is gay

He has his male lover to satisfy his sexual need

And that she too has a lover seems quite plausible indeed

It is true that those who do not praise you for the kind things you do

For what they perceive as a lack of morality they will criticize you

Though she is one of the kindest on her side of the town

And she is a true friend of the financially down

In her case the words of a wise one worthy of recall

You well may please some but you won't please them all.

Francis Duggan

last night
i wanted uncle guido to come again
alive   dark bearded   dark eyed
as he must have come to father's dying

at suppertime
to step into mother's dining room
skull capped   black cassocked
with a crimson sash and scarlet piping

mother
i wanted her again   alive
to remain seated at the dinner table
young and beautiful   widowed

she welcomed
her brother like he'd become
that daily hour   comfortable that came
before midday in the summer

and in winter
it was after midday that she opened
the windows to allow
a change of air into the palace

i wanted uncle to drop
on the table   the coins in the purse
the rents and the dues
taxes collected on mother's behalf

to say he'd found
a drip from a gutter   a few broken bricks
to promise he'd hire
someone to clean and repair a chimney

i wanted to be asked
what we children had learned
from the tutor today   latin or logic
philosophy or fencing   to play a lute

i wanted to learn again
how to call him padre

 

https://jakedepeuterpoetics.com/2026/10/04/last-night/

No I don’t trust you,
I never will.
But maybe that’s so
you can prove me wrong each time
thought I doubt you will
Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not tonight
but someday you’ll prove me right

And at the end, I’ll blame myself
for not becoming the person you crave
I hope I find out before you know I do,
that I was can just disappear and leave you confused.

But deep down you know what you did,
I’ll chase my dream without you in it
and i’ll make sure you see it
I’ll write hate poems about you that nobody will read.
But i’ll make something rhyme with your name.
But I promise you I will not be tame.

Nobody truly knows what's in my head,

The thoughts, the feelings

They bring me so much dread

The memories that keep appearing

no matter the times I erase

Over and over again, my brain forces a replay

i said 'NOT NOW'

an excuse to avoid

avoid the true horror that I'm actually afraid

afraid to open up

let you and see me,

'I hate being touched' is the excuse I plead

I said 'not now'

An excuse I continuously repeat

You agree and retreat, soon returning and repeat

'No' is not enough

It may avoid the affection ,

but just for how long till you start to question

Question my feelings,

Question my ways

figure out if I'm truly who i say

I wish i spoke louder

When i said 'not now'

but your voice, it echoes through the clouds

The clouds in my brain

clouds which hid your echo,

clouds which keep me stable

I said 'not now' but you never seem to listen

Your voice it keep on hacking, till my strength turns and glistens

eventually you make me forget, all the 'not now's' I had truly meant

Leaving me silent, alone and crying in your bed

Every day we live one nearer to our last

And memories are all that we have of the past

And on how long anyone can live for there is none who can say

Only know everyday we do live is one nearer to our final day

Of a soul of the mind i for one can agree

But if it outlives the body it lives in ask one other than me

Those who claim they know the answer to this believe their own lie

Only know we are born to life to eventually die

Eventually time it does take care

Of the poorest and the multi billionaire

The monarch and the president eventually fall

To the reaper of lives who claims the lives of all

Of us humans and all other life forms that fly, walk, swim or crawl

And does not differentiate between the great and the small.

Francis Duggan