The headline read, "The World 's at War!" It turns out "with halitosis." I couldn't bring myself to read more. I don't need no bad breath gnosis.
Misleading Lines [Lyric Poem]
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Category Archives: Lyric
The Golden Age Mythos [Common Meter]
There never was a Golden Age,
a time much better than right now.
But playing martyr 's all the rage:
to think our world the garbage scow --
whose stinking mass forever grows.
Lest you think that I'm saying these
are times of pure and sweet repose,
Please, let me put your mind at ease:
These times are best. These times are worst.
(To blatantly steal from Dickens.)
This twist is just how we are cursed
to shriek like that sky fall chicken.
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Grasp Reflex [Common Meter]
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.
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Cave Monster [Common Meter]
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.
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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.
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Leaf Enlightened [Common Meter]
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.
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Dogs of War [Lyric Poem]
The dogs of war are slipping. The ropes they are a ripping. The palms they are a bleeding, as citizens are reading of risks that led to slippage: of quips and of equipage, and how it wasn't expected, and courses were corrected, but still it all goes wrong.
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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.
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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.
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Devourers [Lyric Poem]
We were classed: Consumer.
And that became our task.
The stores grew like tumors,
and in stuff piles we basked.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 