Tag Archives: Free Verse

Elephantine Baobab [Free Verse]

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It's called 
Hatiyan-ka-Jhad
because it looks like 
a huddled herd of elephants --
not only in its corpulence
but also with its rough, gray skin.

So rotund at its base
that it's hard to figure
how its slowly slimming upward taper 
can come to twiggy ends,
and not be a mile tall.

The branches are overly muscular, 
like a bodybuilder who got carried away,
moving from strong and vigorous 
into the domain of science fiction mishap.

It has its own mythology -- 
multiple creation tales about 
how its seed got from Madagascar
to the middle of India half a millennium ago:
tales of fakirs and royal envoys.

It's even been said that the Forty Thieves,
the ones who tormented Ali Baba,
used its hollow as their cache cave.

But it refuses to respond to "Open Sesame" --
so I guess we'll never know.

Tree of a Thousand Twigs [Free Verse]

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When monsoon rains soaked the soil,
that old tree toppled.

They cut it out of the roadway,
&
I went out to count its rings,
but found it not with hundreds of rings,
but hundreds of trunks --
many no more than twigs.

What a mighty tree 
a pile of twigs pressed together 
can make,
& 
now it's gone.

Into the Light [Free Verse]

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crawling from the cave,
like Plato's untethered shadow man

a portal to perfection,
as perfect as anyplace can be:
meaning, it has depth
&
credibility

the day is cloudy,
and yet it's blinding,
blinding to eyes attuned to 
the light of dancing orange flames,
flames seen secondhand --
bounced off a wall,
a dark, dank wall

what amazing sights
must there be -
out there

don't disappoint me
now

Deep in the Forest [Free Verse]

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What happens in the
strange, nearsighted
isolation of the forest? --

sounds dulled by 
thick, soft moss
and masked 
by burbling water,
and insect buzz,
and bird song

What happens to the
rude mechanicals
who venture too deep
into those soft but terminal
lands? --

where the last stand
of life plays out

Mythic Love [Free Verse]

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Myths cheapen love
with potions &
pointy passion projectiles,

pansies squeezed over 
the eyes of cold souls
[when paired with a proper
incantation] 
can make love from naught
or turn love on its head,

but that which can be
turned on its head
is not love --
& never was love.

The Axeman [Free Verse]

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Hangman...
Axeman... 
Guillotine art-eest...
Stool-kicker...
Lever-yanker...
Elongator of necks...

His motto:
"Making them deader
than your average beheader."

Sharpening his blade,
Split hair-testing

Precise as the 
Taoist butcher --
blade between bone,
no nicks allowed

Killer of killers,
an audience thriller

Step right up...

Any last words?

Masked & shirtless
+
pudgy & sweaty

He's the hangman,
the axeman,
a killer of killers.

Anarchy [Free Verse]

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Anarchy
evokes
chicken body 
bumper cars.

Constant movement
that is not only 
undirected, but also:
fast,
violent,
random,
chaotic,
and doomed to be 
short-lived.

Anarchy 
seems like space 
in which
many participants
would soon be
on their backs --
legs churning 
in spastic bursts,
ineffectually.

Like toppled robots
or 
cockroaches that
waded through
gassy trenches.

Limbs moving,
as if confident 
that they can 
right the ship
and
recover the upright.

But everyone watching
knows they can't --
that the laws of physics
won't support it,
that it's just wasted
motion.

They might as well be
in night terrors,
for being able to move 
ineffectually seems 
only moderately less 
terrifying than not
being able to move at all --
when faced with a situation
from which one wants badly 
to get away.

But, maybe,
I've got it all wrong.

Maybe that's not 
Anarchy 
at all.

Self Speculation [Free Verse]

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What's a Self?

...a soul?
...a set of neuronal activity?
...an illusion?
...a ghost in a machine?
...the body, the brain, &
the whole enchilada?

Memories can be false,
and some always are.

Thoughts can be illusory,
and some always are.

Feelings can be flighty & fickle,
and some always are.

If one loses a little toe,
is one a diminished self,
or still whole?

What about if one loses
a pinky toe-sized mass of brain?

So many possibilities:

...death,
...changed personality,
...emotionlessness,
...speech pathologies,
...blindness,
...memory loss,
...coma,
...no discernable change,
and so on.

What's a Self?
...a dog?
...an embryo?
...an AI?
...an extraterrestrial?

What is a self?

Am I a self?

Night Market [Free Verse]

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in the chiaroscuro world
of the night market,
fruity colors blare in
orange,
green,
& 
yellow
between angular 
shadows

the sun is down;
the city is alive,
and soon the 
night market 
will be lively

Cyclone in a Cup [Free Verse]

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coffee flecks swirl
in a steaming cup

cyclonic do-si-dos,
swinging and folding,
merging into clusters

between the cyclones
there are highspeed byways
cutting across the surface

a jitter of the table
seems to stop the dance,
but then it resumes

entropy falls to 
eventually follow its imperative --

entropy rising:
using order
to turn all that energy
into a lukewarm 
cup of joe

this same fluid clockwork
played out in 
primordial soup
to begin the dance of life