As you trespass along the path of a lighted cigarette
One day later
Outward?
Karma footfalls teach direction
Toward a setting sun?
Over the horizon
Light
Like an egg yoke slipping into a pan
A gooey yellow
Slithers down
Day becomes night
A match burns out
Magics away the fire
Nothing more final
Comes to mind
Just a belief in tomorrow
Rebirth
Continuation
Finger pressed against
The Lip
Holds back a whisper
And bars the truth
I contemplate the word
Quintessence
To describe something/someone
The ultimate embodiment!
Who am I today?
A tinder of the Soul
Snow of Awakening
Mist of thought
Bonfire of the heart
Do I truly know myself?
My Nature is neither solidified Honey
Petrified in a jar
Or an ice cube dissolving
In a warm mouth.
No tear tumbling from the eye
Or diving into space
With a luggage of our despair
Underarm
So to speak
As we know
Language will betray us
As frayed rope snaps
We fall
All seems unreal
As if a vacuum could
Fill with all we wish for and
Yet still offer no fulfilment.
.
Malcolm Paul
.
What is firmly in place also vanishes over time spans beyond what we’re willing to measure or think about in private. Literature, art, taste in music, the politics of the moment, it does not matter, nothing is forever except forever itself. And we won’t be here to witness that , though we prefer to think we will.
Wonderful poem, Malcom. Hit like a left hook.
Comment by Ted Burke on 11 May, 2026 at 8:55 pm