A man stands bound on a shifting stage,
A turning wheel, his timeless cage.
Each spin unveils a mask anew,
Each face a fragment he once knew.
The world around him, neither night nor day,
A fractured mirror, skies drained gray.
The ground reflects like liquid glass,
An endless echo of his past.
He made the choices, played the parts,
Wore their masks, ignored his heart.
Laughter crowned him, false and bright,
A fire that dimmed all other light.
In anger’s grip, he raged, destroyed,
His fists struck out, his joy deployed.
Apathy left his soul to freeze,
A king who turned his back with ease.
Now here he spins, their chosen one,
Bound to the wheel for what he’s done.
The crowd surrounds, a shadowed throng,
A tide of faces, right and wrong.
They cheer, they cry, they jeer, they call,
Demanding he embody all.
“Be rage! Be joy! Be all we crave!”
Their shouts rebound, both loud and grave.
A painter cries, “Your tears will stain
My canvas bright—a masterpiece of pain!”
A singer wails, “Oh, roar for me!
A symphony in agony!”
A priest commands, “Turn grief to stone,
I’ll build my church with it alone.”
Among the throng, the child appears,
Her eyes unclouded by their fears.
She steps ahead, her voice cuts clear,
“Do you know why they’ve brought you here?
You wore their masks, you played their game,
You fed their fires, ignored the flame.
But here you spin because they chose—
Their lives, your stage, their fears imposed.”
The man grows still; the wheel slows down,
He looks past masks, beyond the crown.
“I see it now,” he softly speaks,
“But who will stand when I grow weak?”
The child lifts her hand, her gaze unbroken,
Her touch a balm, her words unspoken.
“You must choose, though the choice will bind—
A price paid forward, a life assigned.”
The crowd erupts, their chaos wild,
A wave of faces, jagged, riled.
One name! One voice! One step! One fall!
They clamor loud, they crave it all.
The man surveys the thrumming tide,
A thousand masks, no truths to bide.
And in their midst, he finds one face,
A mirror of his own disgrace.
He speaks the name, the wheel resets,
The chosen one pays unpaid debts.
The man steps down, his chains undone,
The trial ends; his curse is spun.
The crowd dissolves; the child remains,
Her steady gaze a quiet flame.
“Walk now,” she whispers, “but beware,
The masks may call; their weight is there.”
He nods, he breathes, his first, his own,
And learns, at last, to stand alone.
Inside the Flame
A spark, unseen, dances in the wind,
A Murmur turned roar,
Devouring the earth with feral hunger.
Its touch is molten,
A force born of heat and drought,
Fueled by the breath of a unrelenting sky.
Forest once stood as sentinels,
Roots deep in ancient soil,
But now the bow,
Brittle and blackened,
As ash rises to meet the heavens.
The map foretells a grim symphony—
Weeks where the air vibrated with fire’s rage,
Where seasons stretch longer,
And the earth cracks beneath the weight of embers,
Fires, some birthed by lighting’s sudden strike,
Others by careless hands tear through the fabric of life.
A single spark become a mega fire,
Swallowing 100,000 acres,
Turning landscapes to memory.
Smoke seeps into every corner—
The soil, the rivers,
The fragile lungs of the living.
It stings the eyes of watchers,
A bitter veil over the skies, with no promise of rain.
Bridges crumble as flames lick the undersides,
Valleys resound with a rush of waters
Unmoored by rots now gone.
Cities fall silent, their air thick,
Their power lines crackle no more,
The toll is counted in billions.
But how do you measure the cost of breath lost,
Of a home erased,
Of the last oak burning,
We are told to prepare:
To build stronger,
To plan smarter,
To embrace the inevitable.
But what of the scars left behind,
Scored deep in land and soul?
Smoke stains long after the flames have fled.
Its silhouette a reminder
Of what burned away.
Yet in the ash
A question rises—
What do we build from ruin?
Wired and Wandering
My mind is a hummingbird,
Darting from flower to flower,
Never pausing long enough
To sip the nectar
Thoughts twist like smoke
From a snuffed-out candle—
Delicate tendrils rising,
Only to dissolve into the air.
Instructions are riddles,
Half-heard, half-lost,
Vanishing in the space
Between word and action.
I try to hold them,
But they slip through my fingers
Like water through a sieve.
My body is a drumbeat,
A rhythm I cannot still.
Feet tapping, fingers twitching,
Energy buzzing through my veins—
A wildfire in quiet rooms.
“Sit still?” I try.
But the world feels too loud,
Too soft,
Too much.
I speak before thinking,
Words tumbling out
Like marbles from a jar,
Clinking against silence,
Sometimes shattering it.
“My turn?”
It’s always now.
Waiting feels like holding my breath
Beneath an endless sea.
And danger—
What is danger?
The edge of a rooftop,
The sharp thrill of running too fast.
It doesn’t whisper warnings—
It only dares.
But there is beauty in this chaos,
A spark lighting the dark corners.
I see the world in flashes:
Colors brighter, sounds sharper,
Every second alive
With possibility.
Though my hands lose pencils
And my mind loses time,
I don’t lose dreams.
They soar like kites
In a wide-open sky—
Dipping, diving,
Always out of reach,
Yet always pulling me forward.
This is my rhythm,
My wandering flame,
My wired and wondering brain.
I am a whirlwind.
Hello, My name is Michael Boss. I am a Special Education teacher at a local High school for the last 25 years. I write on and off but never really thought about publishing my work. With the persuasion of friends and family, I decided to give it a try. I hope these poems meet you criteria.