In the Thread No One Replies To

In the Thread No One Replies To
(A Monologue)

Ah—you've clicked, at last. I saw the name,
Familiar? No—but still, it stirred the flame.
The count is four. You make it five. That's new.
I wonder—was it pity brought you through?

Look here—my post (pinned neat atop the board,
Though none protested, none had praise or sword),
Laid out my thoughts—a theory, fine and brave—
On why the admins left, and what we crave.

You smile, perhaps? No need to hide the sneer.
They laughed as well, the few that lingered here.
Some bots, some ghosts with handles long forgot,
One man who types in Latin—drunk or not.

Once, mind you, this place hummed like morning bees:
Debates, long chains, emojis—GIFs with ease.
You'd press refresh, and lo! the screen would bloom.
Now silence clings like mildew in a room.

I stayed. Why not? The words still seemed to burn,
And echoes have a way to make thoughts turn.
I'd post at dusk, and sometimes at the dawn—
Like prayers cast upward long after faith has gone.

You see, it's not the crowd that makes the speech,
Nor praise that grants a thought its right to reach.
Some truths are said where none may chance to hear—
Yet still, they breathe, defiant and sincere.

Ah, but you scroll. I see—the bounce is near.
You'll vanish too, like wind that brushed an ear.
No matter. One more view—the number grows.
The thread remains. I water it like rose.

Should traffic swell again—unlikely grace—
They'll find my words, half-buried in this place.
And think: "A man once spoke here, undeterred,
Where no one listened—yet he sought the Word."

By Their Fruits You Shall Know Them

By Their Fruits You Shall Know Them

Not by the bloom of silver speech,
Nor robes of power worn with grace,
But by the roots they plant beneath—
The quiet truths that time will trace.

The orchard does not boast or plead,
Its branches heavy speak instead;
A life once sown in silent deed
Will bear the fruit that long was fed.

The tongue may charm, the mask may shine,
But storms will strip the branches bare;
And when the harvest shows the spine,
The soul is seen in what grew there.

One tree will give a bitter yield,
Though cloaked in blossoms sweet and wide,
Another, though in rocky field,
Will bear with love its truth inside.

So walk not by the gleam alone,
Nor trust the words that pass like wind—
For what is reaped is what was sown,
And fruit reveals the root within.

Glass Houses

Glass Houses

In valleys bright where silence grows,
Stand houses made of tempered prose—
Each pane a truth, each wall a name,
So clear, so thin, and yet... the same.

They sparkle in the morning light,
So open, bare, and seeming right.
But fragile walls can't bear the weight
Of judgment clothed in scorn or hate.

One lifts a stone with fingers bold,
Forgetting tales that glass has told.
The crack begins—a whispered shame—
And all the rooms recall her name.

What folly, then, to cast a blow,
When every soul has scars to show?
What wisdom lies in holding still,
And seeing faults with gentler will?

So let your stones sleep in the dust,
For mercy grows where there is trust.
And those in homes of glass and air
Should tread with kindness, soft and fair.

The Tragic Tale of Terrence Troll

 The Tragic Tale of Terrence Troll

(Who Mocked the Web and Lost His Soul)

Young Terrence Troll, a spiteful brute,
Would mock and jeer in harsh dispute.
He'd type out taunts with poisoned glee,
Then sit and giggle wickedly.

He wasn't brave, he wasn't smart—
Just venom wrapped in pixel art.
He'd strike at folks he'd never met,
And call it fun upon the Net.

"Your poem's trash!" he'd blurt to Jane,
(Though spelling errors filled his bane.)
To Marcus, he would smugly write,
"You're wrong. You're dumb. Now cry. Good night."

He'd haunt the forums late and long,
Pretending might made baseless strong.
And when folks tried to talk things through,
He'd simply post: "Your mom is too."

His mother begged him, "Please, be kind—
You're rotting out your very mind!"
But Terrence sneered and rolled his eyes:
"She's triggered by a few hard tries."

And thus he trolled for many moons,
Oblivious to coming dooms.
Until one day, with eyes blood-red,
He slumped across his keyboard... dead.

The doctors gasped. "It's plain," they said,
"His brain was starved. His heart misled.
His soul, it seems, was worn quite thin—
There's nothing but hot takes within."

They buried him with no great fuss—
A Wi-Fi wreath, a broken bus.
His tombstone read in Comic Sans:
"Here lies a troll with no real plans."

So children, learn from Terrence T.—
The Net's no place for cruelty.
If you must post, then post with care,
And think before you flame or swear.

For trolls, like Terrence, always find
They lose the thing they thought was mind.

Ode to the Man at the Terminal

 Ode to the Man at the Terminal

By the humming screen, where soft blue glows,
A withered hand still taps the keys;
His days are numbered by the rows
Of code, and faint, fluorescent breeze.

Four decades deep in data's thrall,
A servant to the server's call—
Yet in his eyes, where quiet dwells,
The bramble speaks in sweeter spells.

Each morn he mounts his rusted steed,
A cycle old as time and toil,
And winds through lanes where briars feed
On sun-warmed dew and ancient soil.
The blackberries—his yearly gauge—
Return in youth, retreat in age.
He plucks their sweetness once again,
And ponders life's recursive chain.

"Oh fleeting fruit!" he oft exclaims,
"Ye grow and die as thoughts do pass,
Returning under different names,
But mirrored still in selfsame glass.
As I in circuits, caught and spun,
Repeat the task not yet undone,
So do ye rise, and fall, and climb—
Your code is Nature's run-time rhyme."

Oft has he watched, through tinted panes,
The memos bloom, the emails spread—
While colleagues rose like April rains,
Then vanished, whispered, lost, or dead.
Yet he remained, steadfast, unseen,
Like moss upon the fax machine.
His lunch the same, his coat threadbare,
His soul grown quiet in the chair.

And still, each August's solemn turn,
The berry swells with purple pride,
To teach, to mock, or to discern
What dreams lie dormant deep inside.
"O cruel design," he writes one day,
"That men should loop and fade away—
But still within your thorned delight,
I glimpse the Infinite at night."

So now he types, yet less in haste,
His code a kind of prayer or song;
Each line a thread, serene and chaste,
That knows both what is short and long.
No fear of crashes, time, or rust,
For all must digitize to dust—
But he, the watcher of the vine,
Has tasted something nigh divine.

Upon Reading Michael Davies

 Upon Reading Michael Davies
In the Manner of Wordsworth

Amidst the quiet of a cloistered glade,
Where time with gentle hush the soul would bind,
I found a voice that through the shadow played—
A steadfast guardian of the ancient mind.
No trumpet blared, no crowd with garlands came,
Yet still his truth endured, a living flame.

Oft have I wandered through the modern din,
Where altars shift and sacred song is torn,
Where once the Church stood firm, now ghosts begin
To dance where saints had knelt in grace, forlorn.
Yet there, amid the silence of the page,
His pen became a prophet to our age.

Not for acclaim he wrote, nor fleeting praise,
But for the Mass, the Bride, the holy rite—
That age-old tongue, those sacrificial days,
Now veiled in man's presumptive, tampered light.
With scholar's eye and heart that dared to grieve,
He pled for Rome not yet inclined to leave.

O Michael, pilgrim bold yet soft of tread,
You walked the way where truth and love converge;
While others slept, your lamp of reason shed
A holy gleam against the swelling surge.
Though winds of change may sweep the Churchly floor,
Your voice shall echo on her marble shore.

Let others chase the trend, the novel bloom—
You sought the bloom that flowered from the Cross.
Though labeled stern, your joy no one could doom,
For joy is born through reverence, not through loss.
And as I close your book with quiet grace,
I see again the calm of Peter's face.