Meaning, too great to contain,

swirls through violent clouds

in an intricate tango with

untapped emotions.

Interjections and adjectives

burst forth, joining letters

with intensity, combining

together as they hurtle earthward.

Words pour down on illiterate

soil, pounding a cacophony of

sounds and syllables into

parched dust and dirt.

Excess vocabulary overwhelms

the ground, flooding acres

of untouched land and pushing

water over its banks.

Whatever sense, if there

ever was, is lost in the

chaos of letters and punctuation,

or if and or and otherwise.

When emotions have exhausted

themselves, rage extinguished,

the storm clouds pass and

the sun returns.

In those first rays of sunlight,

the right words sparkle and

rise out of the tumult and

show the truth.

Brydon Caldwell is a long time teacher and emerging writer from the western edge of the Canadian Shield. A lifetime of creativity and flirtation with the written word has finally coalesced into writing that he is proud to put out into the world. He was recently named the winner of the 2026 Icelandic Festival of Manitoba Short Story Contest. His writing can be found in Boudin, The Ekphrastic Review, New Verse News, and the upcoming Fear Dealer, Opolis 2026, Soul Cleanse, and Still From Somewhere anthologies. You can follow along on his publishing journey at Bluesky using brydonauthor.bsky.social