Bliss / Comfort [Common Meter]

There is no breath that's like a breath
   that's taken three miles high.
 And never so deep was a sleep
    after days of light in eye.

And water is the most beloved
    when burning thirst is slaked.
  To starving souls no gourmet meal
     e'er bested bread, fresh baked. 

Escaping the Cave [Common Meter]

Climbing a mountain, I feel like
  I've escaped Plato's cave.
 My senses reel as though they're a
   crew of newly freed slaves.

The sky is bluer, rivers green,
  each grit granule is clear.
 And even at the very edge,
   there's ease in feeling fear.
 By "ease" I mean not frozen stiff,
   but like a friend so dear
 that one can take one's grand peril,
   a gift received with cheer.

Take me to the mountains, I say,
  where it's serene and real,
 and I can open up my sight
   to a world that's ideal.

Jolie Laide [Common Meter]

I've seen in ordinary eyes
  a special twinkling glow.
 In rough and sinewy muscle
  I've seen a grace in throe.

From rotund torsos, I have seen
  a lithesome prance or strut.
 I've seen a thing called character,
  in schnozzes that kink or jut.

If beauty below the surface,
  it finds you splendor-blind.
 Then defect 's not in the object
   but in the viewer's mind.

Fruit Beauty [Common Meter]

The flawless deep green melon rind
houses a pink, bland flesh.
The rind - pitted, yellowed, lumpy -
hides fruit: red, sweet, & fresh.

A World, Too Fast [Common Meter]

I stand upon the cobbled walk
 as scooters whiz on by,
and think this world 's too fast for me,
 and tilt my face to sky.

But there's a contrail gash up there
 made by a hurtling sky-tube
that jets its way to who knows where -
 while I'm the slack-jawed rube.

To match the world to my breath's pace,
 and watch the blur lines form,
and hear each note of music played...
 We'd sync to my waveform. 

Open & Shut [Common Meter]

I pause in woods one winter day 
 when leaves stick to the ground,
and twigs and trunks stand stiff & straight -
 a breeze the only sound.

It's a world without walls or bounds,
 but one can't see a mile.
One's sightline is obscured by trees --
 their trunks not single file.

A world, at once, open & shut
 to eyes and ears and mind.
But I've never felt so at home,
 for i'm no lonesome pine.

Around the Corner [Common Meter]

Around the corner, down the street
 who knows just what you'll find.
I often head on down that way
 when I wish to unwind.

A vendor might set up a cart,
 selling divine munchies,
or philosophers might hold court:
 wannabe Socrates.

Or there are those days of muggers,
 or when painted girls flirt,
or when the somnambulist roams 
 in sleep, sans a nightshirt.

The city never lacks chaos:
 always something to see.
Sometimes it pulls one forward;
 sometimes it makes one flee.

A Madman’s Lament [Common Meter]

Sitting naked beside the road,
stripped of all I'd once owned.
I see a flower stare at me,
and recall being stoned.

The painful thumps upon my flesh,
the cracks internal heard,
the racing breath, the anxious feel
as my sight slowly blurred.

What crime is madness, I wonder?
What is it to be free?
A slap to faces of all those
tied to the old birch tree?

The Melt [Common Meter]

Our lives are blobs that melt away.
You may not sense the drips.
It happens slowly; you may never
hear burbled blips. 

You may not feel that it's lighter,
or that it's lost some girth.
Because you've shed it gently each
and every day since birth.

And when you feel the withering,
will you take it as loss?
A good loss like becoming lean --
a skimming of the dross?

Or like a vicious theft of the
best parts of one's being: 
like time has grabbed the valuables
and taken to fleeing?

The melt will continue onward
until there is no more.
So, think yourself experience rich
though you are time poor.

Rage Monster [Common Meter]

There is an angry beast inside
who shakes at me sometimes.
It gives me mean and violent thoughts.
It draws no moral lines.

It'd kill them all in vicious ways
without heartfelt remorse.
This fever of being must be,
until it's run its course.

Then I can be civil again,
and my blood can cool.
And I can play my normal role:
-n- be done playing the fool.