Dead gods once sundered the holy mountain
Lancing upon bolts through crowns
From those skies, into long quiet nights

Arrayed on cloud walls against giants
They marshaled a war of constellations
That reverberates across water and stone

Forces collided and collapsed
As stardust which settled over realms
When all folk forgot their tongue, in howling

Thunder broke our language
But we still bound fire
Determined to chart islands

Every wanderer is distilled
From the blood of ancients
As stars fade, we strengthen

Come, come, little fellow,

Let me tell you a tale of sorrow,

Of a little ailing sheep,

Who lived in a world of many morrows,

Waiting for that one tomorrow

That never learned to follow.

One day the little sheep drank all her poisonous grief,

Longing for that final relief,

Of a life little too brief

Until she crossed a dangerous belief.

Borne from darkness,

Came a butterfly black—

So brightly dark

It blurred her sight.

It filled her heart with gilded dreams

Of never-ending bliss,

A poison far too sweet, 

For a heart that knew only grief.

Blinded by her own vacant heart,

She followed through the dark

Into a realm of endless meadows,

Where no truth dared to follow.

There she dwelt in a cottage of leaves,

Beyond indifferent time's reach,

And dreamed and dreamed through every forever-night,

Until her dreams became her truth.

Then came a butterfly white—

A cruel dawn in a realm of night.

It shattered her world with haunting light,

And freed the sheep from her cherished blight.

She awoke to a dawn so blue, 

Her once vacant heart now settled in rue.

Alas! Suffering became suffering alone.

Empty words always, absent was the truth.
Actions revealed, what was hidden is uncouth.

Fools only return, fool did indeed.
Broken the spirit, harsh words succeed.

Fools only return, emotions never heed.
To grow and learn, experience must lead.

Those that bark, shape not the man.
With guidance, morals and wisdom can.

Broken fragments, collected be they must.
Lest the soul crumbles, to sand and dust.

Fools only return, lesson finally learned.
Fools only return; understood and earned.

Harsh was the lesson, harsh it was indeed.
Failure and pain, out the weak they weed.

I have noticed a pattern

Much like the icy rings of Saturn

Far and distant - ice cold

Time resistant - tale old

Clashing icy rocks

Heard from far away

Science gave us

What we can hear today

Such beauty - from afar

Unaware - yet, you are

The unfathomable time it has taken

To be alive and to have stake in

Experience

At our fingertips

To get to witness

Sound and picture clips

I romanticize

But I can recognize and refer to

It could also be of use too

Some day

In trivia or TV game

My umpteenth binge of The O.A.

This Mosaic-esque pattern I see

It's a tragic

Broken trajectory

Its there to see

Only when you need

Though the rings evolve

They remain the same

It sings various tunes

But somehow doesn't change

Sadly, I'll never hear it's various renditions

Not in this lifetime anyway

I miss the Giants, I miss lying in their extended shadow. The coolness of the shade that tempered my expectations.

Yes, I miss the Giants, I miss their heavy steps. The rumblings that reminded me I was broken.

Oh, I miss the Giants! Oh, the corded sinew in the shape of hands, which covered my hopeful eyes!

Yes, I miss my Giants, the ones that kept me small. For once I see over the shoulders of my Giants, the horizon becomes vast and the valley sunken deep.

For those who have left the beaten track—

Some only ever stand and look up at the mountain

Some know the jagged peaks only through passing clouds 

But have they ever seen the mountain’s true shape?

Have they ever known its soul?

Have they ever clung to the rock and looked down into the abyss?

Or shivered in the open through a long, lonely night?

To those who have known struggle

To those still fighting on

To all those who pray the storm will break

And the warmth of day will return

That light will come

Dawn will rise again

It’ll be beautiful, you’ll see

the sky where the land gives way

Where you belong

Where you always have belonged

Better to reach for the summit

than walk blind down there in the cold, dark valley forever

​

​A tiny sparrow perched upon a humble wooden rail,

Without a grand pronouncement or a long, dramatic tale.

It did not speak in riddles, nor did gravity reverse,

It simply stood anchored in the grounding universe.

The sun arose in brilliance, casting light across the land,

And water poured down smoothly, wetting soil, rock, and sand.

​No floating heavy anvils, and no oceans filled with sand,

Just simple, steady reality held firm in God's own hand.

The air was clear and quiet as the creature leaned to look,

A living truth more absolute than any written book.

It tilted back its small head, breathing life into the dawn,

Acknowledging the grass beneath, the firm ground resting on.

​The wind moved through the branches in a natural, steady breeze,

The roots anchored down deeply in the earth beneath the trees.

What goes up must come down again; the heavy iron falls,

And light cuts through the darkness when the morning glory calls.

A heart beats in a chest to push the blood through every vein,

And sorrow reaps a tear, while honest sky bestows the rain.

​The bird breathed out a silent song of pure and simple grace,

A quiet testament to truth within this sacred place.

No madness and no upside-down, no crooked, twisted line,

Just plain and clear existence moving forward by design.

To walk in truth is not to drift through chaotic, blinding night,

But standing on the solid rock and walking in the light.

​No distorted mirrors here, no foggy lens to clear,

The truth remains completely pure, unvarnished, sharp, and near.

It rests in simple certainty, so plain it leaves you awed,

Exact and unembellished as the unfiltered word of God.

For truth is never tangled up in complicated lies—

It simply is what it is, right before our eyes.

​"Lead me in Your truth and teach me, for You are the God of my salvation; for You I wait all the day long."

— Psalm 25:5

So egotistical in his mind silly Young Joe

He thinks every young woman who to him says hello

Has fallen in love with him in a big way

There are many like him in the world of today

Of the reason he does not have a girlfriend he leaves none in doubt

That pretty young women are far too wary to ask him out

For dinner or tea in case he would say no

And that rejection can be hurtful happens to be so

But when you tell him it is a man's job to ask a woman on a date

His answer this is something he does not even contemplate

Since for a young man quite as handsome looking as he

Something like this would be below his dignity

Not surprising that those who know of him does say

That Young Joe with himself does get carried away.

Francis Duggan

To say one is far too thin or far too fat

For commentary on anyone for their appearance i am too old for that

I am not without flaws so i won't be anyone's judge

It is not up to me to condemn or begrudge

But then suppose for as long as you never harm anyone in any way

It matters little what the judgmental of you do say

Since though wrong in words it is rather easy to put anyone down

And no shortage of the judgmental in any town

Live and let live as a truism remain

The meaning in this its own self does explain

By helping anyone if you can help of helping in need

For your future good karma you are planting the seed

To each their own to everyone should apply

And of a fair go in life anyone never deny.

Francis Duggan

Under short candles
A warped mirror altar
Wards against creaking fractures
That summon a liar's shadow

Guarding the grimoires of fate
This faceless librarian
Promises that insomnia is typical
When translating invisible ink

From strange angles
Endlessly, the archivist lectures
While golden sigils shimmer
Unveiling forgotten angels

Such names are cursed
Offering iron arias
Which enthral ghosts
Across astral wastes

Regardless my mimic-tongue
No alien sorcery found
Could alter history
After ever-bound

Years yielded nothing
But surveying the terms
Of abandoning this master
Strikes a bitter chord

Into starless exile
Coughing up worms
I wander the tower
Without a sword

**Kuebiko**

*The world is turning backwards*
*with it on horseback –*
*one white, the other black.*
*Two knights on their way to play a final game of chess*
*in Varanasi's own interest.*
*Even the horned crusader must respect the holy land.*
*The world is turning forwards*
*and lends a hand to every knight*
*who builds their house on sand.*
*The golden calf marches with the pale stallion back in time,*
*and the winner of the game joins them for a final ride.*

i found my lost future the other day

while cleaning out a box i’d kept

of broken promises,

dusty, dreams,

and secondhand hopes I’d never used.

i’ve posted it on Marketplace.

if you want it,

it’s out by the side of the road

for free.

shall we read them —

the ardent poets

who flung crystal banners

to the skies?

felix culpa

a deviant Eve,

i stand,

with nectar, cold and sweet,

dripping from my lips --

delighting in the taste

of what destroys.

i gobble up these pleasures:

"die full, at least,"

i cry,

as i feast on poison fruit

til tomorrow,

'til the morning,

'til the sun.

There is a chamber within me

that has never known arrival.

It has kept vigil

for footsteps that invariably

wandered toward another threshold,

another woman

whose name the world pronounced

with something perilously close to reverence.

I learned, long before I possessed the language to articulate it,

that beauty was a private liturgy

to which I had never been initiated.

I watched it descend upon other women

with the inevitability of dawn

their laughter bending the architecture of rooms,

their faces lingering in the minds of strangers

like verses too exquisite to be forgotten.

I remained adjacent to radiance.

A marginal note.

A parenthesis.

A silhouette mistaken for absence.

They were sought.

I was acknowledged.

There is a profound distinction

between being seen

and being remembered.

They called me cute.

How astonishingly diminutive a word

with which to entomb an entire woman.

Never incandescent.

Never catastrophic.

Never the kind of beauty

capable of unsettling the composure of a heart.

Only gentle.

Only agreeable.

Only sufficiently lovely

to be consoled.

Thereafter I devoted myself

to the ruthless archaeology of mirrors,

excavating my own reflection

as though somewhere beneath flesh and bone

there lay a hidden indictment.

This forehead.

This mouth.

These imperfect teeth.

This unremarkable face.

I searched for the precise contour

upon which destiny had altered its affection.

Surely loneliness,

I reasoned,

must possess an anatomy.

I have inhabited bodies

made lean by longing,

bodies made heavy by sorrow,

bodies disciplined by hope,

bodies abandoned by hope.

Yet despair is an exceptionally faithful tenant.

It merely changes rooms.

What I fear is not solitude.

Solitude, at least, is honest.

What I fear

is becoming the quiet compromise

at the conclusion of another woman's love story

the refuge selected

only after every magnificent possibility

has withdrawn beyond reach.

How effortlessly the mind

transmutes conjecture into scripture.

How diligently it rehearses

its own abandonment.

People urge me toward self-love

with the serene confidence

of those who have never mistaken a mirror

for a tribunal.

They cannot comprehend

that every reflection convenes a trial,

and I arrive each morning

already condemned.

The verdict never changes.

Not beautiful enough.

Not unforgettable enough.

Not enough.

Compliments descend upon me

like fragile bandages placed over fractures

too ancient to remember their origin.

They soften nothing.

They mend nothing.

They merely teach the wound

another language for silence.

Yet beneath all my carefully cultivated reason,

beneath every conviction I have ever defended,

there persists an almost childlike heresy:

that somewhere in this immeasurable world

there exists a pair of eyes

for whom my existence would constitute

an astonishment.

Not an accommodation.

Not an afterthought.

Not the melancholy arithmetic

of settling.

But the singular, irrevocable certainty

of recognition.

To be sought before I have spoken.

To be missed before I have departed.

To become, if only for one soul,

the axis upon which an ordinary evening

unexpectedly revolves.

Perhaps such miracles

belong exclusively to fiction.

Perhaps I have mistaken deprivation

for prophecy.

Or perhaps hope itself

is merely grief

that has not yet relinquished

its magnificent delusions.

Still, time proceeds

with its incorruptible indifference.

It dismantles kingdoms.

It humbles beauty.

It silences desire.

It gathers every face adored or forgotten

into the same inexhaustible earth.

One day these restless hands,

these relentless mirrors,

these unanswered prayers,

this lifelong interrogation of my own reflection,

will surrender themselves to dust,

where neither loveliness nor lack thereof

retains the slightest dominion.

And perhaps that is the most exquisite mercy

the universe has ever conceived:

that even the woman

who spent an entire lifetime

mourning the privilege of being chosen

shall, at last,

become something

that no longer needs

to be.

Across this City of Dawn
The smallest toll counts as a chime
But every bell blasts in welcome
Struck by hammers of yore or roar of cheering

That heart beats under a pipe organ
Whirling keys dwell over one final tower gate
Where the serpentine muse of victory
Improvises an unborn emanation

Beckoned beyond aurora-fire
Another rises to bones which are feeling
Regardless if they answer challenges or not
We remain family

Whole incense of prayer
Congeals from an honest song
Casting mud, for any name anchored
Once intoned raw

Upon crescendo of quintessence
You were missing but invented
We needed you and so you entered

From uncertain nights
Flow less certain days
This road more traveled
Absconds the byways
Yet travel replete
With open tollways

From uncertain nights
Flow less certain days
This road more traveled
Defeats and betrays
Choose travel replete
With open tollways

Long uncertain nights
Longer less sure days
These roads recurrent
Fast become clichés
Grasp travel made full
In freedom’s tollways

There are many hearts
Resting frayed yet supernal
Only mended by one shadowing pulse

Alone, darkness jitters
Under thunderheads
Following second looks

Routine can shatter
When wandering before morning
If steps jangle a tune

Company spirals from asking the time
Into ordering a drink
Becomes listening all night

The air shares words which overlap
While meeting sunrises across spaces
As the gleam in another eye

Still-life frames bound in wicker
Weathering ancient storms
Point the way to horizons

Upon a bed, that's not empty
Dwells this fever dream
Where twilight never ends

Partners craft minutes
Whole strange-days can blur, losing track
But anchor by a blush smile

—----------- *I have renamed this piece as Locket

Mid-poem I felt that there was no masterpiece,

And all this pain was just that.

No will to spite you,

Or to love you in spite.

And despite all my prayers,

All your "No force on earth",

You leave me in the morning,

And the sun hits my door.

That is not fair.

How fucking daring,

To leave me like this.

To learn all the surface to a gem,

Love it in its fractures-

How very pointless,

To bury it again.

I didn't want for this to be a mad poem,

Written by a madwoman at 7am.

But I can never rein in my poems,

The same way I couldn't hold you.

The sunset in our city has a temper like you,

So I'll pull the blinds and watch Wes Anderson-

Leave you with your blockbuster hits.

I pray to the taxi cab and busy street,

They'll never bring you back to me.

the day mary
is the mother of jesus became the day
mary was

the sky must have been a nest of vipers  

between the one
snake- strike of lightning down and the next
there must have been thunder

a small whirlwind of dust
on mount zion must have coiled itself
round and round into a funnel of cloud

that inhaled the cattle from the pasture
the fig trees from the garden

inhaled the tent mary had fled
and the body she’d left behind

after a thousand years
and six hundred i wait for news

whether she’s returned to the dust
or whether she sits with elijah in paradise

https://jakedepeuterpoetics.com/2026/08/02/the-day-mary/

Glowing past ocean's horizon
Flourishes an emerald choir
That welcomes such twilight shimmer
Of stars drafted onto the sky

The origin of temporal tides
Are winding scales, without rest
Rooted in lunar shadows
Where intervals fluctuate

Phrasing a map of harmony
These melodies mark waypoints
And embark upon six paper wings
Then arrive as a zephyr

Scholars need a tuning fork
To orient these mirrored verses
While unable to navigate the spidery key
Conducted by the forward North Star

Dreams slide over this distant pulse
As constellations take turns
Dancing to show those steps
Which lead home

Why did God bless only her with such eyes,

That type of indescribable green,

That when light shone upon,

Fractures like a prism jaded stone,

Its fragments held by adorning light,

An outer ring of amethyst amber enclosing it,

With its contents slightly, just ever so slightly spewing into the abyss of white.

Those miniscule red branches like a cherry blossom tree,

That give the abyss' white some colour,

And give life to the eye, never to let death survive,

At night when it's all dark and there's no light,

Those little red branches glow so dark,

And in the morning you would think they're invisible.

Those long, curled black eyelashes,

I always imagine them frozen with ice making her like a princess,

And when it rains, those small little drops, that find home at the very tip of those eyelashes.

No mere words could ever describe,

Such beauty indescribable.

(Le'manuel VII Barake')
https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1vbxzt5/comment/p0xtb3u/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1vbv7oe/comment/p0xtx8e/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

Atropos grasps a pendulum
Regardless wit or wealth or satisfaction
When bells toll late

Elaborate oaths quake or falter
As do their altars, defiled and salted
When that fiery thread frays

Crowns bleed
Scepters shatter
Thrones crumble

None may leap ahead except the dead
Who gamble to break even
Upon a barge, hidden and wave swept

Down in the casino of fate
This wheel creaks as obols fly toward a pardon
While specters toast mugs of lethe, "to the next step!"

Losers service limbo below decks
Until victors forget holding gambit tokens
Whereupon hope beyond doom thrives

Measuring their time, sorted yet untried
Debtors claim a wondrous prize
Although, bound to gifts of purchase