Tag Archives: Free Verse

Labyrinth [Free Verse]

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the vaulted corridor is
lined with portals to places unknown
and linked to other hallways
in an infinite labyrinth

one can go from "here"
to anywhere,
but there's no map 
yours will be a stochastic journey;
one might prefer to systematically
 duck one's head into portals,
getting a feel about whether 
a given route seems favorable --
but we all know that one must often
travel through unfavorable territory
to get where one wants to be

and so it's like being thirsty in a life raft --
as per Coleridge's Mariner:
"Water, water, everywhere, 
Nor any drop to drink"

in this case,
 it's a free ticket to anywhere,
if you can only find your way,

but what're the odds?

Visionary Poets [Free Verse]

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Blake had visions of angels
&
Ginsberg had visions of Blake

I'm sure some 
angelheaded post-Hippie hipster 
has had, or will have had,
 visions of Ginsberg,

But who are Blake's angels hallucinating?

Maybe the angels have no eyes
and have
visionless visions 
of visionary poets?

Cemetery Walk [Free Verse]

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And in the end,
the dead are still
and the graveyard's quiet
is not so bad.

The monuments weather;
in due time,
letters become less crisp
&
dates become debatable.

A clean read means
there maybe someone 
left to mourn.

And fresh flowers mean that someone
has tracked their melancholy 
through the place,
and the air feels heavier,
and my mind feels heavier.

And I read names:
familiar & not,
popular & not.

I read names to distract me
from thoughts of my own dead --
to avoid tracking my own melancholy
through the place.

For, you see,
I've brought no flowers.

In Medias Res [Free Verse]

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Journeys start with a cattle-prod jolt 
& a kick in the soul --
not at an airport,
or a ferry dock,
or a taxi stand,
or at the curb.

By the time you've gotten that far,
you're already traveling.

By the time you've "decided" to go,
you're already traveling. 

Travel begins earlier,
if in the dark,
because travel is not a dream,
&
only dreams start 
in the middle of nonsense.

Real life flows down 
a continuous and unbroken
stream of nonsense, 
drifting at a rate slow enough 
for your brain to make a movie of
rationalizations,
so that your brain can tell you: 
that you're in control,
that you know what's going on,
that you know what will happen next,
&
assorted and sundry bullshit like that.

Cold Shore [Free Verse]

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Was it a lifetime ago,
or was it a dream?

I remember it being a 
long drive to a cold shore.

And I sat alone
on that shore,
and I sought a shark --
not out in the waters,
but within myself. 

Finding nothing,
I felt the thing to do
was to 
rattle in rhythm with
the twisted hustle of
pounding waves,

and I awoke, 
shivering under piercing
points of light
that somehow felt cold,
& 
made me feel cold -
deep inside.

Prayer Flag Impermanence [Free Verse]

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prayer flags languidly roll
in the courtyard
of the monastery

one monk
has seen the flags
every day since
they were erected

&

before that
saw their predecessors --
sun-bleached and tattered

that monk
 looks upon the flags
as if he's never seen them before
and will never see them again

each monk was taught to think this way,
but he's the only one who sees this way

Jacob’s Ladder [Free Verse]

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I'm dripping into midnight --
my world has disappeared.

My eyes crack to light and life,
but I forgot to hear --
remembering, 
the silence is broken 
& I hear a rhythmic clack.

But I can't help but wonder,
where it is that I'm at?

I'm at the bottom of a wooden staircase,
too steep to be sound,
looking up until perspective
makes the case vanishingly thin.

Should I climb the staircase?

What else can I do?

Will I wake
half way up,
and find myself
in the blue?

The laws of dreams force my hand,
I can't stand paralyzed,
and I'm halfway to infinity
by means that I know not. 

And I'm thinking of the line from that 
children's prayer:
"If I should die before I 'wake,"
and I think:

"What the hell is wrong with parents?"
that's the thought upon which you're going
to leave with your child
to "go to sleep?"

And you're wondering why the 
kid is up all night?

Because dying in one's sleep
doesn't start to seem
like a fine prospect
until one is an octogenarian. 

And so I sleep...

Gothic Imagination [Free Verse]

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I first saw the stone beast
by the light of a bright day --
frozen, still & placid

My second sighting was on a rainy night,
a steady, careless rain,
the kind of rain
that seems to have declared
itself the new default mode.

I saw it in the space of lightning flash --
the silhouetted gargoyle.
It lacked the fine detail
of its sculptor's effort.
It lacked the clean edges
and ornamental effects.
Imagination filled in the lost detail
with scales rippling under
muscular flesh.

And while the lightning felt prolonged,
it was still just a flash --
leaving me to wonder whether
I'd really seen it rear back,
preparing to lunge off the wall?

And then I saw the world through its eyes
and all was better...

and then all was worse.

Avalanche [Free Verse]

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One false footing
erases the screeched blackboard
writing that'd formed in my mind
& 
everything becomes a blank, white
emptiness --

Not a good empty.
Not a good quiet.
The emptiness of blinding pain.

That's the slow, cold death
of falling into a drift
and then cascading,
tumbling,
tumbling,
in an avalanche.

Wrenched asunder -
or so it feels -
and left to go numb in a
silence so total 
that i know 
it's my first experience 
with true silence. 

We all fall down?
That's what the plague rhyme says,
isn't it? --

Madmen & Holymen,
and those who take this fall
and are twisted into a 
grotesque blend of both.

Which way is up?
Tiny seedlings can tell,
but I cannot.

I'm lost --
50/50, I dig myself deeper
into my own doom.

My life trickles in a file of hours,
dripping into that dim distance 
of non-time. 

I'll stay lost until the spring thaw
when I'll ride the glacial runoff
to complete my tumble
as a gray and bloated thing.

Three Little Lost Thoughts [Free Verse]

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When one loses one's keys,
they're always the last place you had them,
but when you find yourself -
more often than not -
it's someplace you've never been before.

There's love that isn't 
love at first sight, 
but there's also beauty that's not 
beautiful at first sight.

Humans are the most absurd creatures,
and our competition includes 
animals that lick their own butts.