Category Archives: Common Meter

Grasp Reflex [Common Meter]

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Der Untergang der Titanic
A white-knuckled grip on the rail,
  though the ship is sinking.
 The brain insists one hold tightly;
   there's no mind for thinking.

A samaritan pries at your
  fist, but it will not budge.
 In giving up, he feels guilty --
   conscience jury and judge.

You couldn't wedge just a single breath
  to crack a space for thought.
 A simple thing it is to let go,
   but look what fear has wrought.

A quarter million tons now drags
  you to the cold, dark depths.
 Until the body's unthinking 
   gasp of watery breath.

The hand lets go, but still you sink
  trapped by your last mistake.
 The tragedy of a grasp reflex 
   that you could not break.

Cave Monster [Common Meter]

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I sit within an empty cave.
   It's empty, that's for sure.
 It's dark, so dark that nothing shines.
   What sound is that? A purr?

I'm in this cave, and not alone,
   but with what I can't say.
 It's in the back where it's jet black --
   a predator? Or prey?

I'm walking now; I don't dare run.
   the ground is all cockeyed
 with stalagmites and stalactites.
   I grope, in need of guide.

And feeling through Stygian space,
   I bust open my head.
 Warm blood, I feel, run down my face.
   I'm squeezed by rising dread.

I hear a squeak, a mouse strolls through;
   then silence is restored.
 If only my mind were so rid
   of its outsized horrors.

Bliss / Comfort [Common Meter]

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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]

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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]

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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]

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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]

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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]

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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]

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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]

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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?