Exile [Common Meter]

I'm banished from the world I know,
and cast into darkness.
And I sit within a lonely 
room, accepting starkness.

The plain and empty walls and floors
have nothing left to say.
I'll venture any way I want,
but must remain a stray.

I'm not expecting sympathy.
I know that hour is gone.
I only want it to be known 
I've wandered all along.

Sacrifice Play [Common Meter]

A prayer was made at the altar --
a prayer no one could hear.
A sacrifice had been promised
of someone all held dear.

But not one soul would take the knife,
and do the wicked deed:
to take that life, an unearned life
and speak the evil creed.

They dragged the victim to the rim
of an old volcano.
Just one kick would be all it took;
still, they all said, "Hell no!"

What kind of beastly deity
could fault them for failing?
The kind whose sense of right and wrong
is fucked beyond ailing.

Stormy Shore [Common Meter]

Sitting on cold, volcanic rock
upon a stormy shore,
Watching waves crash, hearing naught but
wind, and crying for more
in a scream that cannot be heard
over nature's harsh din
as I feel the snap of gusty 
wind, through cloth so thin
that it can't hold back nature's force
to draw the heat from bone,
and, feeling under this black sky,
I am now all alone. 

The Shimmer Space [Common Meter]

I fell into a deep dreamhole
amid the broad daylight,
and tumbled and tumbled, stumbling
out in the dark of night.

I lost so many hours of life
where reflections shimmer.
I could not breathe, nor could I float -
I, the swimless swimmer.

I dropped, lost in those reflections.
They were my mind's great curse,
luring me to a shimmer space
that I could not traverse. 

Floods [Common Meter]

The waters rise slowly, at first -
like a cool tease or flirt.
But soon there's not one single inch
of dry or exposed dirt.

It's knee-high seas for as far as
the naked eye can see.
The shrubs are drowned, and there're no trunks
on any of the trees.

I'm sick of being soaked, and hope
the world will quickly drain,
and restore what was once a vast
expanse of fruitful plains.

The Keeper’s Conundrum [Common Meter]

Living like a lighthouse keeper -
alone beyond nowhere.
Out of sight and out of one's mind,
beyond the range of prayer.

One's loss unnoticed until there's
a wreck upon the rocks.
Counted on to prevent chaos
from out in the boondocks.

A world that doesn't want, or know, you
begs your best attention,
but will forget to give all but
its stern reprehension 

should you fail or should you falter
and catastrophe strikes,
they will find your long dead body
with their pitchforks and their pikes.

Deep Dive [Common Meter]

To those who cling tenaciously
to their own sanity:
How much freedom can the sane have?
How much humanity?

Where's the freedom in not shouting
your truth when/where you can?
In pretending that the uni-
verse has some sort of plan?

Freedom lies in learning to ride
the chaos to the depths,
and learning how one can breathe
denied the air for breaths.

Stone Guardians [Common Meter]

A stone dog guards the temple gate
with dead, but bulging, eyes.
And gargoyles mount a stern defense
from the cathedral spires.

But what's a mounted mask to do
to keep evil at bay?
And what's the flash of fu dog teeth
to end a vicious fray?

And what would lead me to assume
that evil lies outside,
when your greeter is pure ugliness
with wild and crazy eyes?

Bucktoothed Monkey Mastermind [Common Meter]

I saw a bucktoothed monkey sit
on the ground all alone.
It looked the doofus - its dental-
mental shortfall shone,
but is the size of incisors
a measure of one's smarts?
Has anyone done the study,
gathered data, made the charts?

What if that dentally-outsized
primate is a dreamer-
a mastermind, a supervillain,
or just a first-rate schemer?
What if it just wants us to think
that it's a huge dimwit?
So, it doesn't show its erudition,
or its razor-keen wit.

Instead, it waits for us to be
lulled to a false repose,
so that it can show us we're all
a bunch of biased schmoes.

March of the Myna [Common Meter]

A Myna bird comes marching in;
it'll soon rule the roost.
It seldom fails to have its way
anyplace it's introduced.

The goggle shapes around its eyes
make its stare more intense,
but compare it to a raven;
you'll see it's pure pretense.

Like kudzu and cockroaches,
they can't help but run amok.
Should they come to your neighborhood -
well, that's just your luck.