Collected recent poems

(August–September 2026)

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By Angel.XJ

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The Long Way Home

— Odysseus, Returning to His Name

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Troy keeps burning behind the refrigerator light,

a small domestic sun refusing to go out.

Ithaca waits with one shoe missing at the door.

A son grows inside his father’s absence,

measuring inheritance by the length of shadows.

Odysseus comes back with salt in his coat

and death still drying at the edge of his eyes.

The horses lift their heads; the garden has shifted left.

Penelope pulls one blue thread from the loom,

and twenty years slide quietly beneath the table.

He wants to say, I am home—

but his name arrives later than the birds.

Perhaps identity is not what survives the voyage,

but what still answers when the old gate opens:

a stranger, carrying home inside him.

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Note: Ithaca — Odysseus’s island kingdom and destination of return;

Penelope’s loom — the weaving and unweaving associated with waiting, time,

fidelity, and suspended identity in The Odyssey.

17 Sep 2026

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Countryside

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just this morning, a silver sedan

darting between the hills i mistook

for an ivory giant hurrying. in the

distance & through shrubbery

& window screen, the world

misshapens mischievously. who

do i tell this to? i am new in

an old country. the clouds here

sneeze differently. the cat doesn’t

respond due to language barriers. i sit

odd hours with my devotion

for you, imitating the craning

of your neck in an unacquainted city.

look, the sun is emptying its heat.

the tomatoes are glowing rubies

in the field. when the honeybees

whirl by me, i am hellbent on believing

some of their buzzing is

one long prayer

for me.

21st September 2026

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The Rear Garden

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The boy in orange asks, are we leaving?

the girl points at the silver car: not yet.

the puppy circles his yellow boots,

mistaking departure for another game.

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Is daddy inside? she asks.

the car keeps the sky in its windows.

no one answers.

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the boy throws a stick;

the puppy returns with a leaf.

wrong thing, he says.

maybe not, says the girl.

behind the fence, a door closes.

the grass keeps shining.

for one more minute,

they are still a family.

25th September 2026

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Dark Moon

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It looks so dark.

​The end of the world may be near. 

I believe it’s going to rain. 

​The birds in the park are silent.

Nothing is what it seems to be, Nor are we.

​Under a dark moon

There’s a tree on our street so big

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We can all hide in its leaves.

We won’t need any clothes either.

I feel as old as a cockroach, you said.

In my head, I’m a passenger on a ghost ship.