Where Poetry Still Sings.
“The Belliad is the epic reborn: 99 lines to carry the wars of the soul.”
— Al Konda, The Mythical Poet
The Belliad is a new 99-line epic form created to carry narratives of struggle and resolution.
Structured in four phases — The Gathering Storm, The Confrontation, The Spiral, and The Integration — it transforms intimate battles into journeys of poetic dignity. [Citeşte mai departe…] despreThe Belliad: A New Epic Form
By Al Konda
From the upcoming book: Rising from Ashes – A Journey Through Pain to Redemption
Some scars don’t scream—they sing.
They hum low, like distant drums in the soul, echoing pain we tried to bury. Ashes on My Skin is a song for the scarred—for the firewalkers who came through the blaze not untouched, but undefeated.
This poem was born out of reckoning. I looked at my past—charred bridges, smoldering choices—and instead of turning away, I touched the ash. It didn’t kill me. It told me I was still here.
I imagined this piece with a reggae heartbeat because I wanted something deeper than sorrow. I wanted movement. Something that could carry pain on its back and sway with it under a healing sun. Reggae gives grief a rhythm. It lets sorrow dance its way into freedom.
“Ashes on my skin—yeah, they tell the tale,
Of bridges burned and winds gone stale.”
These lines open the song with honesty. They say: I’ve made mistakes. But they also say: I’m not afraid to face them anymore. There’s something sacred in that kind of strength—not shiny or triumphant, but earned in the dark, carved into the body like truth.
As the poem flows, it moves through silence, scars, trembling hands—and then, the climb. The quiet strength. The phoenix without glitter, but with gravity. A being who knows what it costs to rise.
This is not a song of perfection.
This is a song of survival.
And it belongs to anyone who ever tried to build a life from ashes.
Thank you for listening.
Thank you for dancing with me in the flame.
— Al Konda
📺 Ashes on My Skin – Official Poem/Song/Video
Rising from Ashes – A Journey Through Pain to Redemption
🔗 Learn more or join the waitlist: https://alkonda.com
Have you ever worn ashes that told your story?
Share your “scar that sings” moment in the comments—I’d love to hear it.
Al Konda – Multilingual Poet & Storyteller
📧 Email: densartist@gmail.com
🌐 Website: https://alkonda.com
🎵 YouTube: youtube.com/@artistden2836
📸 Instagram: @autoralkonda
🕊️ X (Twitter): @konda_al
📘 Facebook: facebook.com/alexalkonda
🎵 TikTok: @al.konda
🌅 A Parade for the Quiet Brave: Honoring the Quiet Warriors Among Us
In a world obsessed with grand gestures and polished success stories, there exists a quieter kind of courage-one not often televised or celebrated with trophies. It’s the strength of those who get out of bed despite the weight of sadness, fear, or trauma. It’s the steady breath taken after a night of unrest. It’s the decision to rise, again, in spite of everything.
My latest poem, “A Parade for the Quiet Brave,” is a tribute to these unsung heroes.
We all know someone-perhaps we are that someone-who continues forward through shadows, guided only by a flicker of hope. They don’t wear armor. They don’t ask for recognition. And yet, every step they take against the gravity of despair is an act of revolution.
“The sun their guide, the shadows their foe,
A silent march to where they go.”
This poem was born from the simple idea that survival itself can be an act of defiance-and that thriving, even in fragments, is a radical thing. I wanted to imagine a world where such endurance isn’t invisible. Where we throw a parade, not for the loudest or most decorated, but for the persistent. The vulnerable. The beautifully stubborn.
A marching band for those who chose light even when shadow whispered lies.
Confetti for the hearts that beat through the ache.
Applause for the mornings that felt impossible until they weren’t.
“I want a standing ovation tonight,
Not just for those we see on high,
But every heart that dares to try.”
In writing this poem, I imagined not just individuals but a collective-a “parade of hope” that moves in rhythm, bound by shared struggle and mutual respect. It’s a vision of solidarity, not pity. Admiration, not sympathy.
This is for:
•The friend who shows up even when it hurts
•The parent holding it together one more day
•The artist creating beauty from chaos
•The soul who dares to live authentically
“We see the light they refuse to meet.”
There’s a quiet paradox in that final line. It speaks to the humble nature of resilience-those who shine the brightest often don’t even realize their glow.
So today, this post is my virtual confetti. My small digital parade. If this poem finds you in a quiet battle, know this: I see you. And your steps are worth celebrating.
⸻
💬 I’d love to hear from you:
Have you known someone who embodies this quiet strength? Do you feel the world makes space for emotional endurance?
Let’s celebrate them-let’s celebrate you.
⸻
#SingThePoem #PoetryCommunity #MentalHealthAwareness #KaraokePoetry #SpokenWord #IndiePoet #PoetryVideo #CreativeVoices #QuietStrength
Am început o nouă serie. FECIOARELE este o serie care vreau să rămână deschisă.
Fragment din primul Volumul 1 – Sfințirea
Când păși pragul ușii și soarele însuși păru că o ocolește. Sofia întoarse privirea și văzu două enoriașe stând de vorbă în curtea bisericii. Fata dădu din cap dar se opri în loc să asculte la acestea.
Ce o zice lumea despre Simion? se întrebă ea, însă neașteptând ceva bun din conversațiile acestora trecu pe lângă ele fără să le dea prea multă atenție.
– Bună ziua! zise fără să se uite.
– Bună ziua, măicuță! i se răspunse.
– E un mare adevăr în ziua de azi. Aventurile sexuale sunt simple activități întreprinse în scopuri recreative. zise una dintre femeile prezente în fața bisericii.
Recreative? se întrebă ea și duse o mână la gură.
– Nu că nu ar fi fost întotdeauna așa. chicoti o alta, uitându-se cu apropo spre ea.
Că de altfel cum? Nu suntem oameni?
Nu avem cu toții nevoi și necesități?
Că de ce, bunul nostru părinte care ne păstorește biserica zi de zi și care în condiții vitrege ne-a scos întotdeauna la liman, de ce, spune-mi, de ce să-și interzică o așa de mică plăcere.
Ce, el nu e om?
Și ce, nu Însuși Dumnezeul cel Mare, nu a iertat-o El pe Maria Magdalena?
Nu era ea cea mai rea dintre păcătoșii pământului?
Cum ar putea să nu îl ierte Domnul Dumnezeul nostru Cel Mare?
Și dacă El îl iartă, cine am fi noi să îl judecăm pe părinte?
Și ce dacă fata era…
„FECIOARELE” este o serie care sper să vă placă!
Stăm în casă și citim. Este probabil cea mai utilă îndeletnicire cu care ne putem ocupa timpul, zilele astea. Pe lângă scris, desigur. Dar în principal, cititul face parte din rutina zilnică a majorității oamenilor, sau cel puțin, așa sper eu…
A raven called, as if to name the night,
And darkness rang like glass, cracked yet still clear;
The infant moon, a thin light,
Looked back at him and drew the distance near.
He set his heel where vanished footfalls dwell,
And heard tomorrow breathing in a shell.
The forest kept its counsel, old and stern,
With hush stitched into bark and buried bone;
There grief and glory braided root and fern,
And every leaf remembered it was stone.
What once was shouted softened into loam,
Yet did not die—only changed its home.
He touched the air; it tasted like a psalm,
Not sung by throats, but by the turning spheres;
The world lay warm beneath a patient palm,
And carried centuries in silent years.
He felt the pulse that under all things runs,
A river dark with constellated suns.
No altar stood, yet sacrifice was there:
A breath, a doubt, a promise not yet made;
He watched his shadow kneel upon the bare,
And heard the price that light itself has paid.
For even gods—if gods know sorrow—know
How love makes thunder humble, stone made slow.
So when the raven faded into dawn,
He did not chase the omen as before;
He let the newborn crescent carry on,
A narrow boat from shore to nameless shore.
And in that wood—where silence learns to speak—
He walked as time’s deep vessel, full yet meek.
When night speaks, and something listens
There are nights that do not arrive to cover the world—
but to reveal it.
Not in light.
But in tone.
In the subtle register where things are no longer seen
as they are during the day.
The raven does not call to frighten.
It calls to name.
And when it does, something in us recognizes the sound.
Not as omen.
But as memory.
This poem walks through that space—
where forest, time, and silence begin to speak in the same voice.
Where the past is not gone, but transformed.
Where grief and glory no longer oppose each other,
but root themselves into the same ground.
And where the human figure, standing at the center of it all,
does not conquer, does not flee—
but listens.
There is no altar here.
No ritual as we know it.
And yet, everything carries the shape of sacrifice.
Because to hear clearly
is already to give something up.
The world in this poem is not broken.
It is not healed either.
It is aware.
And in that awareness, something changes:
The need to chase meaning disappears.
The need to interpret signs dissolves.
What remains is presence.
And a quiet acceptance that:
not everything that speaks
needs to be answered.
🎬 Watch it on YouTube: https://youtu.be/m2k7ADs6iIw
© Al Konda · The Poetry Elite
There are moments when everything continues—
and nothing changes.
Not because it cannot.
But because it no longer needs to.
The structure holds.
Not as something fixed.
But as something complete.
Each path proceeds.
Each line remains.
And nothing within it seeks to become anything else.
There is no return.
No progression.
No further variation.
Only continuation—
as it is.
And in that condition, there is no question left.
🎬 Watch it on YouTube: https://youtu.be/XlIavJnK67E
© Al Konda · The Poetry Elite
The room remained, yet something changed within,
No line extended past its given frame;
Each course still held the bounds it moved within,
Yet held its shape in ways no longer the same.
The measure stayed, yet measure fell askew,
A silence deepened, changeless and unseen;
The very air no longer wandered through
The spaces it had always wandered through.
No shift appeared beyond the bounded line,
No sign arose to mark what had been changed;
The form remained, yet not as it had been,
Though all within it stayed as it was ranged.
It did not break, nor open to transform—
Yet held within a difference in its form.
When change occurs without opening
There are moments when nothing opens—
and still, something shifts.
The structure holds.
The boundaries remain.
No line extends beyond its limit.
And yet, what moves within it
no longer holds in quite the same way.
There is no cause.
No signal.
No point at which change can be seen entering.
But the measure is no longer exact.
The air does not pass in quite the same manner.
The space remains—
but not in equal form.
Nothing breaks.
Nothing arrives.
Nothing leaves.
And still, within the closed system,
difference begins to exist.
Not as movement outward—
but as variation within.
🎬 Watch it on YouTube: https://youtu.be/51Bt2u4aCSQ
© Al Konda · The Poetry Elite
The room remained, yet each world closed its frame,
No line extended past what it contained;
Each course proceeded, constant in the same,
And held within what it alone sustained.
Each path moved on within its bounded line,
No step went past the course it came to trace;
What formed did so, contained within its line,
And held its place within its given space.
No change arrived from anything beyond,
No sign appeared to alter what was set;
The room remained, and nothing passed beyond,
And nothing entered what was bounded yet.
It did not open, nor extend its frame—
Each world remained complete within the same.
When nothing enters and nothing leaves
There are moments when everything continues—
but nothing crosses the boundary.
Each path remains.
Each line holds.
But what exists within it
no longer extends beyond.
Nothing enters.
Nothing leaves.
Nothing alters what has formed.
Each structure sustains itself completely—
not in isolation,
but in completion.
There is no exchange.
No influence.
No movement beyond the limit it defines.
And within that limit,
everything continues—
fully contained.
🎬 Watch it on YouTube: https://youtu.be/BE6-4iWUsXo
© Al Konda · The Poetry Elite
Emergent WorldsThe room remained, yet each path shaped its field,
No line extended past what it defined;
Each course produced what only it could yield,
And held a world contained within its line.
Each motion carried form within its span,
No step referred beyond the course it traced;
What moved did so according to its plan,
And held its structure, fully self-emplaced.
No change arose from anything outside,
No sign appeared to alter what was formed;
Each system held, complete within its stride,
And moved within the world that it had borne.
It did not turn, nor seek to be made more—
Each world remained what it had been before.
When structure begins to generate its own reality
There are moments when structure no longer simply holds—
it begins to produce.
Each path continues.
Each line remains.
But what moves within it
no longer exists only as motion.
It becomes field.
Contained.
Self-sufficient.
Nothing reaches outward.
Nothing extends beyond its boundary.
And yet, within that boundary, something forms.
Not visible.
Not declared.
But present.
Each system now carries its own internal coherence—
not just as direction,
but as reality.
Nothing interacts.
Nothing overlaps.
And still, something has expanded—
not outward,
but inward.
🎬 Watch it on YouTube: https://youtu.be/PO3vTfohOKk
© Al Konda · The Poetry Elite
The room remained, yet each path held its own,
No line aligned with where another ran;
Each course proceeded as if set alone,
And moved within a separate, measured span.
Each path continued forward, set in place,
Unfolding strictly by a fixed design,
Advancing through the stillness in its line,
And tracing distance along its own line.
No change appeared to alter what was set,
No sign arose to mark a shift in course;
The space remained, and did not intersect,
And held each line within its proper force.
Each system moved, complete within its stride,
Self-drawn, self-held, and wholly self-applied.
When nothing depends on anything else
There are moments when everything continues—
without reference.
Each path holds.
Each line moves.
Not apart.
Not together.
But entirely within itself.
Nothing reaches outward.
Nothing returns.
Nothing requires alignment.
The structure remains—
but no longer as something shared.
Each system proceeds according to its own rule.
Each motion follows its own course.
And within that condition, there is no tension.
No distance.
No comparison.
Only continuation—
complete,
self-contained,
and sufficient.
🎬 Watch it on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Wy4XFBjwp98
© Al Konda · The Poetry Elite
The Raven’s Nocturne By Al Konda A raven called, as if to name the night, And darkness rang like glass, cracked yet still clear; The infant moon, a thin light, Looked back at him and drew the distance near. He set his heel where vanished footfalls dwell, And heard tomorrow breathing in a shell. The […]
