Poems by Jordan A. Leturgez

Between the chandelier and the bare bulb
a rumor of light moves like a thief --
it spills in crystal and puddles on pavement,
it learns the shape of silver spoons
and the hollowness of tin.

The Haves dine on calendars of plenty,
their plates are maps with no borders,
their laughter spins like coins
and settles soft on linen.
Outside, another door breathes on cold hinges,
a radio counts the hours in static,
a child folds an empty hand into a small fist
and names the wind for company.

Glass towers mirror the sky and keep their secrets;
cardboard dreams stack like low-rise constellations,
and in the alley the have-nots stitch dusk into blankets,
each thread a story of what was carried and lost.
The rich lawn keeps its shoes clean of mud,
while other shoes memorize the cracks in the pavement,
learn the language of soles.

They measure time differently:
one house counts gold as proof,
the other marks it by the patience of waiting.
But both feel the same late hour,
the same moon--thin as a promise--rising.
Both lovers press the same thin light to their faces,
both mothers name their children aloud
as if names could keep the cold from knowing them.

Sometimes the Haves grow small from too many doors,
and sometimes the Have Nots walk like kings, crownless but upright.
Compassion is a room nobody owns,
a table that will not seat just one kind.
When hunger is spoken into a bowl, when coin is split into care,
the wall that divided softens into a threshold.

If all the world's wealth were only weather,
we would still need umbrellas and hands to hold them.
So let the sun be shared in ledger and sky:
let no one wake to an empty cup while another's overflows,
let us remember we are not islands of profit,
but a single, breathing sea, rising and falling together.

The road to code is a ribbon of midnight and coffee,
a map sketched in semicolons and small, stubborn lights.
You step onto it barefoot, sleeves rolled against the cold,
and the first keystroke is a heartbeat -- tentative, alive.

There are forks named Syntax and Patience, loops that fold back on themselves,
and signs that read: Compile Here, Then Leap.
Errors bloom like dark flowers in the grass,
each one a riddle with teeth, a door that will not open until you learn to listen.

At first the world feels binary -- right and wrong, green and red --
but soon you meet the grey: the elegant hack, the honest bug,
the midnight mentor in forums who sends a lantern through the screen.
You learn that failure is an instrument, not a verdict,
and that debugging is a quiet kind of archaeology,
dusting away assumptions to find the fragile architecture beneath.

There are nights when the cursor looks like a metronome counting out patience,
and mornings when "Hello, World" arrives like a sunrise, small and miraculous.
You carry fragments -- an algorithm learned on a bus, a snippet remembered at dawn --
and stitch them into scaffolds that hold ideas up against doubt.

Version control is a compass; comments are the chalk on the cave wall.
Stack traces become constellations you can read,
guiding you to where your logic unhinged itself.
The community is a roadside diner, voices overlapping, recipes traded,
and sometimes a stranger's pull request is the exact hand you needed.

On this road, you build ladders from problems, bridges from repetition,
and sometimes a simple script opens a city of possibility.
Progress is measured in tiny triumphs: a test passed, a refactor that sings,
a user smiling because your lines of thought finally learned to speak.

Keep going. There will be storms named Obsolescence and Imposter,
and there will be plains of steady work where no glory passes by.
But each commit, each question asked aloud, lays a stone.
The road to code is not a line to finish but a path that teaches you how to walk,
and in walking you become both cartographer and traveler, maker and home.

The numbers tremble on the board,
small stars beneath a judge's eye;
a whisper shifts one guarded chord,
and second place learns how to fly.

A pencil pauses, then rewrites
the weight of every earned refrain--
turning losses into silver lights,
and doubt into a measured gain.

But scores are doors, not walls of stone;
they mark the path, not where it ends.
The truest tally, kept alone,
is how we rise, and rise again.

So change the numbers if you must,
let old conclusions lose their claim--
for hearts that practice, strive, and trust
can redraw the meaning of the game.

A hand can move a shadow
without touching the light,
turning truth to folded paper,
day to counterfeit night.

A whisper dressed as thunder
can rattle every door,
while careful eyes keep smiling
and ask for something more.

The mirror learns to flatter,
the chain pretends to shine;
a choice becomes a corridor
with walls that call it mine.

But even buried instincts
remember how to rise--
the heart can name the pressure,
the mouth can unlearn lies.

So let the strings fall silent,
let borrowed masks descend;
what bends beneath manipulation
can break--and still transcend.