Category Archives: Free Verse

Everything City [Free Verse]

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Everything is happening 
   somewhere in that city.

Blocks of block buildings
   broken into smaller blocks,
    in turn into smaller ones.

Those blocks -- rooms --
    are the city's unit of interest.

So many rooms,
    so much potential for the:
        -nefarious,
        -virtuous,
        -ill-advised,
        -hideous,
        -hopeful,
        -hilarious...

Someone is hanging 
   from a rafter,
   waiting to be found.

Thousands are masturbating.

AI surveys the porn they surf,
    making new genres in real time
    based on unfulfilled search terms...

In one room, a scientist
    figured out a cure for cancer
    in a burst of inspiration,
    but by the time she'd found a pen,
    she'd lost it -- no trace remaining.

    She then convinced herself
         she'd never really had it...

         but she had. 

Everything that can happen 
   has happened,
   will happen,
   and is happening
   in the city.

Off-Kilter [Free Verse]

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woke up,
   stitched up;
 something growing
   deep within

inside /
   outside
 what strange hell 
    is this?

what's this box i
   built within my brain:
 old ideas keeping
    out the light

i read a story,
   made a movie --
 all within my mind,

but something grew out
   that i couldn't comprehend

Fields of the Dead [Free Verse]

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10 
It's a beautiful day
  in the graveyard.

Blue skies.

Cool, but not cold.
 The ideal temperature
   to be an overdressed military man.

Do ghosts amble among the stones
   on days like these?

I imagine most of these men died
   on quite different kinds of days:

Rainy, cold, muddy days.

Muggy, buggy, malarial days.

The kind of day that just won't end,
   but to fold into a sleepless night.

How many died, 
  not from spall or Minié balls,
    but because they just didn't have the will
      to drag themselves through another day?
        from exhaustion?
        from demoralization?

How many died under beautiful blue skies
   on an idyllic autumn day?

I don't know whether 
  there're good days to die,
    and even less whether 
      there're good days to be dead.

Imperfect World [Free Verse]

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2 
Our plight is craving perfection
     in an imperfect world:
           imperfectly perceived,
           imperfectly performed,
           imperfectly programmed.

To have a mind that can imagine perfection,
     but never attain it
           creates a special hell vehicle.

Leaf Enlightened [Common Meter]

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1 
I stared, and stared, into a leaf
  until my vision changed.
 And I could see the whole, wide world
   so artfully arranged.

The leaf, it mapped my universe
   from atom to the sprawl.
 Compressed, layer-on-layer, there
    was one and, at once, all. 

But before I could grasp all that
   this vision truly meant,
  a gust of wind did catch that leaf,
     and fluttering it went.

Surf [Free Verse]

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2 
so much power
 in a lazy rolling wave
  as it tips into a tube.

a column of
 weighty water
  piledrives:

pressing one down &
 holding one in a 
  back-shaped divot 
  on the sandy bottom,

a forced pour 
 onto face and chest,

flowing & rolling
 over both sides with 
   such easy skill
    as to negate a 
      frantic, thrashing
       attempt to roll free.

Frozen Silence [Free Verse]

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8 
frozen silence.

but for the rustle of breeze
 against dry grass.

snow will come,
 and a crust of snow 
  will settle in crystalline 
   interlock with the brown stalks.

the snow will absorb sound,
 muffling reality,
  until nothing remains but
    frozen silence.

Submerge! [Free Verse]

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2 
a solid, black silhouette
sinks

submerge!
submerge!

it struggles to plunge
&
not be kicked back up --
to not bob like a wine cork
in the dark sea

but it seems to have
no mass to sink

but the right mass
to fly

Coming Up for Air [Free Verse]

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Breaching the surface,
 one's neck craning, stretching,
  one's lips in a wide "O," 
 one gasps,
   sucking air with a monster moan,
   or maybe it's dying-man death-rattle.

The gasped breath
 is insufficient, 
  and the body shoves
  it back out,
    craving more &
    impulsively air packing. 

As one bobs in the water,
 one times another gasp 
  to the rebounding breach.

This one is more satisfying,
  more calming:
   the perfect breath --
    for all intents & purposes.

There may be a time
 when each breath is as precious
  as this one.

Nobodaddy [Free Verse]

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The Nobodaddy rolls 
  like a sunglassed Santa Claus.

He watches things crash
  with bemused satisfaction --
   like a buzzed NASCAR fan.

And people cry out to him,
  and he gives a spiritless wave 
   of vague acknowledgement --
    like a celebrity tired of celebrity.

But the victims all die,
   and Nobodaddy calls it a day,
    a day of seeing life & death play out -
     not in any grand design -
      but puttering about as the living 
       bow to life,
        and the dead play out a demise.