crypticbard (Remove filter)
outstaring a blank wall
outstaring a blank wall
You stand before a wall.
It waits, blank as withheld breath.
What hovers over you?
Drafts unpinned,
stories unspoken,
videos sealed,
pages chasing horizons
that never arrive.
Perfection dithers—
a mask for delay.
What if you placed
one imperfect mark?
What if you let motion
carve its shape?
The wall gathers:
crooked sketches,
half-born concepts...
Monday 1st December 2025 10:26 am
Wynken, Blynken, and Nod (reprise)
Wynken, Blynken, and Nod (reprise)
They set forth again, the fishermen three,
their chair of seasoned steel, rolling free,
their wheels carrying stories gathered
from seas where frolic once travelled.
Gold in their hair, not from youth’s frame
but from the long sun’s patient flame,
they cast their nets not for silver schools
but for recollection’s wispy spool...
Sunday 30th November 2025 6:56 am
Ink on the Savannah
The poem bares its teeth: a hyena,
laughter breaking in jagged bursts,
circling the margins,
menace felt in scuffling shadows.
Then it rises upright: a meerkat,
eyes darting across horizons,
paws quick in sudden scurry,
a hesitant vigil before burrowing.
Between circling and scurry,
menace and play entwine,
scarfing fragments into chorus
more than jotted lines on a page.
Thursday 27th November 2025 11:49 am
the river's ardent flame
the river’s ardent flame
the river bends into dark corners
Argand lamps gleam across its skin
each flame a question
each ripple an answer folded away
the bridge waits in shadow
stone pressed against stone
listening to every footfall
holding the weight of crossings
the Argand light steadies
not words but fragments
a laughter broken into dust...
Monday 24th November 2025 10:56 am
hello poetry
hello poetry
Beneath the rustling of an unwritten page,
a quiver begins—soft as rain on glass.
Words lean toward each other,
testing the air between syllables,
like strangers exchanging glances
before they dare to speak.
Here, the ink is not just ink—
it is breath, the slow unfurling of a thought
that has waited years for its own voice.
Every line a b...
Tuesday 18th November 2025 10:56 am
random inaccess
"random inaccess"
Letters describe a moment
where time stretches—
stairs growing longer
with each season,
yet the house doesn’t change.
Names slip—
spoken and lost,
like coins lost in a torn pocket—
clinking faintly in empty halls.
Mornings are misplaced,
slipped into tired afternoons.
The calendar lies blank,
scraped raw,
its edges powdered with erased plans.
...
Sunday 16th November 2025 4:43 am
empty nest
Stairs lengthen
with the seasons,
names slip like
coins in torn cloth.
A calendar lies scraped,
its edges powdered with absence.
Looking‑glass memory fogs,
reflections scatter into hollow rooms.
Between heartbeats—
quiet nestles within its cage.
.
Saturday 15th November 2025 12:48 am
signals
Signals
You said call me —
a door left ajar,
a hand extended into the silence,
trusting the echo to return.
I said I’ll call you —
a promise folded in my pocket,
a coin that may never be spent,
control disguised as care.
Between us hangs the dial tone,
a wire strung tight with longing,
where one waits in quiet hope,
and the other drifts i...
Thursday 13th November 2025 9:46 pm
iolite, wayfarer's stone
iolite, wayfinder’s stone
Blue as twilight,
a shard of horizon in stone.
Vikings held it to the sun,
a lens against indifference.
The sea was a silence without measure,
clouds erased the line of travel.
Yet in the fracture of crystal,
direction flickered—
not myth, but light bent into clarity.
No consolations,
no gentle voice.
On...
Wednesday 12th November 2025 1:02 pm
farcical bloomery
In the meadow of impossible mornings,
the daisies exhale in a trumpet’s blush,
petals fluttering like embarrassed fans as
the air fills with laughter disguised as wind.
Rosehip hiccups, clouds of lavender smoke,
their thorns rattling like spoons in a drawer.
Lilies bow low, releasing secret choruses,
a brass band hidden in their stems.
Children chase the gusts,
...Monday 10th November 2025 3:53 am
after-image
Rain streaks the window of the late‑night tram,
and I catch my reflection—
half‑lit, half‑blurred,
a passenger caught in between:
Cinema lights sputter,
half the bulbs gone,
yet the pavement glows enough
to draw shadows forward,
figures drifting past
like fragments of a reel
spliced mid‑story.
The fairground stalls linger,
shutters ratt...
Saturday 8th November 2025 2:09 pm
a moment turning
"A Slow Turning"
The stairs lengthen each season,
though the house remains the same.
Names slip from my tongue—
like coins through a frayed pocket,
clinking faintly in corridors I no longer patrol.
I misplace mornings,
folding them into afternoons
that arrive already weary.
The calendar stares back blank,
its squares scraped clean,
eraser dust gathering at the margins.
Onc...
Friday 7th November 2025 1:08 am
in the end
In the End
I carried the shape you traced,
a vessel cut to your measure,
but the grain ran otherwise—
knots where you wanted polish,
splinters where you asked for sheen.
I bent, yes,
but the bend was fracture,
and the fracture sang its own line.
You looked for a mirror,
I offered a window.
You asked for a key,
I was only a door left ajar.
...
Wednesday 5th November 2025 10:50 am
the masked 'reader'
It comes with warmth, a friendly tone,
a note that seems to stand alone.
But read between the lines, beware—
not every praise is truly care.
“Beautifully done!” the words repeat,
yet nothing named, no detail sweet.
A hollow cheer, a practiced song,
a script that feels rehearsed, not strong.
The tale soon bends, the mask slips fast,
f...
Monday 3rd November 2025 7:04 am
when we thought ourselves lost
So stain—
as marks that remain longer than intent,
and hesitation pressed into the grain.
Second guess,
doubt’s small fracture widening,
as though the Voice were drowned,
as though we mistook the silence
for absence.
But sustain is not the clean note held—
it is the rough edge,
the falter carried forward,
the scar that steadies the hand.
And then—
awareness r...
Tuesday 28th October 2025 11:19 am
dusk
"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...
Sunday 26th October 2025 9:34 am
the corkscrew
In the cellar,
greenglass vessels lean
against one another,
their shoulders dustpadded,
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 ...
Friday 24th October 2025 11:18 pm
boy with a flute
Boy with a Flute
Ankles in sand,
goats nose the salt air,
bells stumble against
the thin breath of reed.
A woman wheels past—
hair a sudden banner,
refusal swift as wind.
The goats turn too.
Desire rehearses itself:
first glance,
first quickening,
beauty always ahead.
Still he plays,
as if breath could bind
what wheels carry away.
Sea steady,
trail empty,
music l...
Thursday 23rd October 2025 5:57 am
in the waning light
The streetlight flickers,
its circle thinning and swelling
like a tired breath.
A man drags a cart of bottles—
they strike and scatter
against each other,
a bright clatter
that almost arranges itself,
as if you could lean in
and hear the fragments
choose their own song.
.
Wednesday 22nd October 2025 5:33 am
consolation in the kitchen
The knife rests,
its silver edge carrying
a small sun across the crust.
You wanted the impossible—
to butter your toast and eat it too,
to keep the sheen intact
while tasting its warmth.
Isn’t that the old wish,
to hold the thing and spend it,
to keep the flame unbroken
while leaning into its light?
So we practice the art of vanish...
Saturday 18th October 2025 5:26 am
words keep rising
I promised
to keep quiet
but the words keep rising—
worthless
weak
a chorus I never chose.
So I write them down,
then strike them through,
as if crossing out
could silence the echo
worthless
weak
.
Thursday 16th October 2025 9:58 pm
_underscore_
"_underscore_"
the line does not end
it waits — a low bar,
a held breath _ not yet
beneath the sentence
the underscore drags its quiet spine,
pulling the eye forward,
asking the voice to stumble.
not in capitals,
but in undersong —
the half‑said,
the word leaning into tomorrow.
today’s poems fracture,
splinter on enjambment;
but th...
Tuesday 14th October 2025 2:09 pm
gather your fragments
“Gather up the fragments,
that nothing be lost”—
so even crumbs
become a silo of abundance.
The night keeps count
of every restless turning,
each tear stoppered
in an unseen flask,
as if sorrow itself
were vintage,
kept for the day of pouring.
What we labour for,
though hidden,
is never in vain—
the soil remembers
every hand that tills it,
every seed pressed down
...
Monday 13th October 2025 10:20 am
a sigh, verbally-breathed
There was a time
when you used to confide in me
shared the innermost stirring of your heart;
when you used to feel safe in me,
entrusted what others couldn't hear out loud.
There was a time
when we were close enough,
nourished a friendship pure and free;
when nothing outside bothered,
heard the fellowship of the soul.
There was a ti...
Friday 18th July 2025 11:47 am

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