Month: March 2024

Of natUre

It is far too vast to ever grasp meaning or purpose. There are only questions that we may ask. what is its function? We speculate, pontificate its existence. Is it beneficent or other? We wander through life wondering what we will discover. For who can say, why sound is found or darkness lights the way. Who gave the snake a rattle as bait, to fill his belly with rabbit’s fate. And why does water sustain all order, in life and death? Would it be odd if water was God and we were he or her? Is death a thing and what does it bring, that disguise it from the living? Why is the weakness of one the strength of another, for both predator and prey – and is it good to end a life to feed another day? Or does it matter in a dream, whether we scream or obey?  Where does existence end or begin? What is infinite or finite, why does nothing not exist, yet everything does? Why does dark appear in light or light appear in light? What is dark about the night? 

by K. Osei

the CaRdinal

in the ground i found the cardinal in every step. like roots from the butternut tree it satiated me as i wept. in my blood i felt the flood of every cell, rushing to my head, arterial red, on the wings of a bird, like the word – reduced within from the sludge of sin. I am well.

by K. Osei 

fRee the SeeD

a kernel yields the corn
from a sperm man is born.

amidst the dark, underground—
not the grave; life is found.
in the black silent night
essence reaches for the light.

yet the urge to hold control
reaches body, seed, and soul.
in the ovary waits the egg,
possibility yet unnamed;
what begins and what may end—
who decides and who can claim?

man attempts to shape creation,
in a lab, cross-pollination;
hybrid seed, selected breed—
what is want, and what is need?

who owns the fruit?
who owns the seed?
who owns abundance,
who owns need?

Free the seed.

are we the damned or the doomed?
corporations consuming consumers
who love to consume.

hoarding provisions,
feeding desire—
how much is a enoug
when enough still aspires

victuals of death
attempt to capture life,
but can’t catch the breath.

nature’s creed
places life beyond the seed:
what withers feeds,
what falls may rise,
what disappears
returns disguised.

no beginning,
without end

the seed

a string of things
looping again


by K. Osei



firePit taleS

fire in a pit 
on a cool fall night,
shadows of things
dance in the light.

what demons hide 
beneath the flame,
the deeper I stare
radiate ashes of shame.

lurking the annals 
are horror’s untold
tales of a time  
dark and cold.

deep in the pit
the past unfolds
festering the fears
of a nine year old.

though deeds have past
yet they remain,
as figments bask
within the flame.

by K. Osei