The Peace Prize

If I'm quiet now -

On my own a lot,

Ink under plants

Tree trunk by water,

Bare feet -

It's because

I'm done with chaos.

My own mind tortured me 

With tangled noise -

Distress signals screaming,

Siren doubts, singing louder

Over each other

For the sanity trophy

In a soup bowl.

Silence

Once was to me 

An unreachable precious prayer,

The ghostlike glitter water

The thirsting throat imagines

In the desert.

I dipped disbelieving, grateful hands 

Into this stream

And here I swim.

Here I swim.

LJ Ireton

2023