Poems by Jordan A. Leturgez

Neon hum, a quarter moon over green--
chalk dust like dry snow on the tip of fingers,
the felt a small country of its own,
pocketed with hungry, round promises.

A glass catches the light: amber, forgiving.
One swallow, and shoulders dissolve,
tongue loosens the little verbs that hold you tight.
Confidence arrives on soft feet,
a borrowed shape of courage that smells like citrus and oak.

You stand over the table and the world rearranges.
Angles grow generous, the cue feels longer,
your elbow unbolts, your breath slows to candlelight.
The cue ball answers like an old friend,
the break sings and for a heartbeat you are brilliant.

Then the second shot comes with tremor.
The world tips. Distances swell like mirrors.
Your eye that once read geometry now reads ghosts.
A straight line becomes a rumor,
a bank shot a superstition--what was sure is suddenly slippery.

Alcohol is a kindly thief and a cruel teacher:
it hands you a mask of fearlessness,
and behind it your hands may forget the lessons
paid for by practice, patience, repetition.
It smooths the edge of doubt and the edge of judgment alike.

Some nights it polishes the ordinary into art;
some nights it muffles the clue-scent of precision.
It can quiet the critic that stops your cue,
but it also quiets the small, precise voice that measures distance.

So ask the table, ask the felt: does it help?
The table answers in clacks and silences,
in the luck of a roll, the mercy of a pocket.
It tells you this--sometimes the drink is a lullaby
that lets skill awake for a while; sometimes it is a fog.

At last the cue lays down. The glass breathes its last.
You tally wins that taste like someone else's name,
and losses that feel like old weather returning.
Better? --for a night, perhaps. For a life at the table, rarely.

Aim, they say, is more than courage: it is steadiness of hand,
the long apprenticeship of counting angles, of falling and rising.
If you must bring a spirit to the game, let it be the spirit of practice,
of patience, clear eyes, and a hand that remembers the geometry of truth.

But when the neon is soft and the pool hall hums,
there is a kind of grace in the first, warm sip--
a temporary truce with your own doubt.
Just be careful which you pocket: the ball, or the bottle.

In the town of Springfield, mischief stirs,
Where Bart Simpson's pranks, his legacy reoccurs.
With a twinkle in his eye, and mischief in his tone,
He dials the phone, in his realm, he's never alone.

"Is Mr. I.P. Freely present?" he asks with a giggle,
His voice mischievous, his spirit never too little.
A master of disguise, his pranks unfold,
Leaving everyone in laughter, the truth untold.

From "Seymour Butz" to "Mike Rotch",
Bart's creativity knows no blotch.
With each call, a new character born,
In the world of his making, the rules are torn.

His laughter echoes through the night,
A prankster's delight, a mischievous sight.
In every call, a tale to tell,
Bart Simpson's pranks, a comedic spell.

So raise a toast to this mischievous lad,
Whose antics make us smile, never sad.
In Springfield's world, he reigns supreme,
Bart Simpson's prank calls, a humorous dream.

In the city streets where silence weeps,

There roam the gents without a cent,

Their weary eyes hold tales untold,

In their hearts, a resilient lament.

Their shoes worn thin, their pockets bare,

Yet dignity stands tall and true,

Amidst the chaos and despair,

A quiet strength shines through.

They navigate a world unkind,

Yet dignity they still uphold,

In every step, a silent prayer,

In every breath, a story yet untold.

For in their faces, you may perceive,

A beauty that transcends the pain,

A spirit that refuses to grieve,

A hope that dares to remain.

So let us see beyond the lack,

And recognize the wealth within,

For in these gents without a cent,

Resides a treasure, pure and keen.

It cracks the night like glass--an animal, a bell,
a throat unzipping to pour out a sky.
It spills, a red river down the face of the moment,
flashing teeth at the steady, indifferent stars.

NOOOOOOO!!!!! echoes in the ribs of buildings,
boomerangs off distant, sleeping houses,
finds the small room where hope had been folded,
unfolds it roughly, leaves the paper thin and trembling.

It is the sound of a hand pulled from another's,
of a light blown out in mid-sentence,
of a name that will not be buried politely.
It overturns the tea, it topples the faith
you had arranged like trophies on a shelf.

But listen: the scream is not only ruin.
It is also a beacon, raw and incandescent,
a flaring refusal that clears the fog.
In its wake the air tastes new--sharp, honest,
like rain after fire, like breath after being held.

NOOOOOOO!!!!! breaks open the sealed things inside,
lets you see the hands you thought were steady--
trembling. It forces the dress to the floor,
reveals the wound that was meant to be contained.

And from the jagged heart of that sound
a quieter music is born: a no that is a wall,
a no that is a door slammed shut against harm,
a no that makes room for the yes you might not yet know.

So scream it if you must--let it peel the paint,
let the neighbors think the world has ended.
Gather the pieces, count the cost, and choose:
not every NO is loss; some are the very shape
of the life you are still building.

NOOOOOOO!!!!!--a thunder that finally clears the sky.

Not when the sky is perfect,
not when fear has folded,
but in the half-light of trembling hands
you strike the first small sound.
A single nail into the wall
holds up a future--quiet, stubborn--
and the room remembers how to echo.

Make it happen: whisper it to the marrow,
to the hollow places that learned to stay small.
Feed it with plain tools: coffee at dawn,
a list, two breaths, the courage to begin again.
Build like someone who knows how to heal--
one careful stitch, one stubborn seam,
until the garment fits your living skin.

There will be storms that practice drowning,
voices that map the route of retreat.
Let them pass like weather. Plant your feet
in the soil you've chosen; let roots answer the rain.
Remember the river does not wait for permission;
its insistence carves mountains into maps.

Make it happen not by grandness alone
but by the patient geometry of doing:
small acts, fierce as sunlight through blinds,
pieces gathered until a shape is formed.
Call your fear by name and set it to work;
teach your doubt to carry stones.

When the night asks if you are tired,
say yes--and then say still--go on.
Because making is a kind of mercy:
to yourself, to the people who will warm themselves
at the fire you started with trembling hands.
Make it happen. Let your life be proof
that a single, certain step can become a road.

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.

Everybody dance now --
not as escape but as answer,
feet translating grief into rhythm,
shoulders learning how to hold light.

We gather like scattered sparks
along cracked sidewalks and subway turns,
ancient and newborn moves colliding
until the pavement remembers how to sing.
A child teaches a weathered pair of hands
a step that melts the years away;
an old dancer shows a shy body
how to let its edges blur.

Hands split the air into constellations,
hips become small rebellions,
and laughter, sudden and furious,
wakes the corners that had given up hope.
The city exhales in syncopated breaths;
lamplight taps a steady beat on wet asphalt.
Neighbors inch closer, then closer still,
and language shrinks to the size of a smile.

Every stumble is forgiven by the music of feet,
every breath a tiny revolution.
We are a hundred different kinds of brave
learning, mid-spin, how to begin again.
So move -- wildly, gently, anything true --
until sorrow folds like paper and becomes warmth.
Everybody dance now:
let the world forget for one perfect song
that it was ever anything but this communal pulse.

In the hush of twilight's gentle sigh,

Where shadows linger, and dreams dare to fly,

Whispers of valor weave through the air,

Tales of the unyielding, cloaked in despair.

Beneath the stars, in the depths of night,

Heroes awaken, igniting the fight.

With every heartbeat etched bold on the skin,

They carry the burdens where hope has been thin.

Through valleys of sorrow, where anguish has roamed,

In the face of the tempest, their spirits have combed,

They rise like the dawn, fierce and unbroken,

Voices that tremble with words left unspoken.

From rocky encampments where spirits may stray,

To cities adorned with memories frayed,

Each echo tells stories of courage and grace,

Of hands that have lifted the fallen from grace.

In the flicker of flame, their shadows appear,

Guardians of spirit, the brave and the dear.

Every struggle a testament carved into time,

Their legacy hums, a resounding rhyme.

For in the heart of the storm, when the world seems to fade,

The unyielding stand firm, unbowed and displayed.

They write with their actions, in blood, sweat, and tears,

Crafting a saga that conquers our fears.

So listen, dear soul, to the echoes that call,

In unity's strength, let us rise and not fall.

For the tales of the steadfast, in whispers or shouts,

Remind us of courage, of what life's about.

Let valor's embrace be our guiding light,

As we march through the shadows, unyielding, in sight.

For the echoes of valor, forever will soar,

A tapestry woven where spirits restore.

We meet in the small porch of a screen,
where sentences arrive like evening light --
soft, immediate, folding into the lap
of whatever day we carry home.

Your laugh is a kettle I can hear boiling
across the distance; my silence a warm shawl
you drape without asking. Names and weather
turn into meaning: a shared slice of sky.

There is no grand reveal, only the slow work
of two hands drafting a bridge from ordinary words.
We patch the loneliness with small kindnesses --
a recipe, a memory, a condolence sent like bread.

Sometimes the chat is a river: quick, bright,
skipping stones of gossip and dreams.
Sometimes it is a hearth, low and patient,
where we roast our fears until they're tender.

No prophecy here, only presence -- the steady light
that makes the margins of our days readable.
A friendly chat: a light left on in the window,
an invitation that says, Come as you are.