Category Archives: Free Verse

“Gitanjali 35” by Rabindranath Tagore [w/ Audio]

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Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
 Where knowledge is free;
 Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
 Where words come out from the depth of truth;
 Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
 Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
 Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action
  Into that heave of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

NOTE: This poem is often entitled “Let My Country Awake,” particularly when it is anthologized independently of the larger Gitanjali poem.

Diabolical [Free Verse]

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I don’t mind one crow,
     on a rail or curb,
   by its lonesome.

Nor am I troubled by
     a large number of the birds.
   (The group designation “murder,”
     notwithstanding.)

But where two or three 
     are gathered, facing 
    each other…

That’s when I get the
     heebie-jeebies.

Blindspot [Free Verse]

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A culture is a vehicle
     we use to move
       through 
     this world.

And like all vehicles -
     be it truck or bus -
          it 
     has blindspots.

Everyone in a given
     vehicle has the same
          blindspots...

That's why we travel.

“Conscientious Objector” by Edna St. Vincent Millay [w/ Audio]

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I shall die, but
   that is all that I shall do for Death.
 I hear him leading his horse out of the stall;
 I hear the clatter on the barn-floor.
 He is in haste; he has business in Cuba,
   business in the Balkans, many calls to make this morning.
 But I will not hold the bridle
   while he clinches the girth.
 And he may mount by himself:
 I will not give him a leg up.

Though he flick my shoulders with his whip,
   I will not tell him which way the fox ran.
 With his hoof on my breast, I will not tell him where
   the black boy hides in the swamp.
 I shall, die, but that is all that I shall do for Death;
  I am not on his pay-roll.

I will not tell him the whereabout of my friends
   nor of my enemies either.
 Though he promise me much,
   I will not map him the route to any man's door.
 Am I a spy in the land of the living,
   that I should deliver men to Death?
Brother, the password and the plans of our city
  are safe with me; never through me Shall you be overcome.

Yielding to the Flow [Free Verse]

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A slender leaf
   floats downstream.

Its tip touches 
   a stouter leaf,
     sending the
     slender leaf 
     spinning.

The leaf continues to 
    twist as it drifts,

Making it seem spastic,
   but it neither rushes
     nor dawdles.

It matches the flow,
   letting gravity &
     currents do all the work.

It races only when it
    plunges through
     a narrow channel,

But it downshifts just as
      effortlessly as the
      stream widens.

The leaf's action is
   unforced, yielding to
     energy imparted upon it.

Killing Bliss [Free Verse]

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I found bliss.

And cooked it on the
   simmer setting 
     of my soul --

That vacant hole that
   I let swell with color 
      and light.

My only worry was that
   it would flash fry all 
      that I am.

But one worry is enough
   to kill the joy, 
     to kill everything vibrant 
     & reckless within.

The bliss was quenched,
    and it steamed & sizzled,
      and all I could hear was its
      deafening sound.

Invisible Fence [Free Verse]

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Where is the line whose crossing
     sends a jolt through your system,
     making you jelly-kneed & breathless?

Where is the line?

Do you know you're stepping over
     before the shock zips through you?

Is anticipation of the shock
     worse than the shock?

Who built this fence?

Who picked the notch to which
      the severity of the shock 
      would be dialed?

Was it you?

Diminished [Free Verse]

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I take a sunrise photo
   And find the glorious orb
 Diminished by poor photography,
   & upstaged by a flaring pigeon.

“In the Desert” by Stephen Crane [w/ Audio]

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In the desert
 I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
 Who, squatting upon the ground,
 Held his heart in his hands,
 And ate of it.
 I said, "Is it good, friend?"
 "It is bitter -- bitter," he answered;

"But I like it
 "Because it is bitter,
 "And because it is my heart."

“The Gardener – 85” by Rabindranath Tagore [w/ Audio]

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Who are you, reader, reading my poems my poems an hundred years hence?
 I cannot send you one single flower from this wealth of the spring, 
  one single streak of gold from yonder clouds.
 Open your doors and look abroad.

From your blossoming garden gather fragrant memories 
  of the vanished flowers of an hundred years before.
 In the joy of your heart may you feel the living joy that sang one spring morning,
  sending its glad voice across an hundred years.