Tag Archives: Perception

Cave Monster [Common Meter]

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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.

Squishy [Free Verse]

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Nothing is straightforward,
or simple.

Everything is a messy mix
of shades

blended in swirling clouds—
chaos clouds.

Those who can redraw the world
with sharp, angular boundaries 
are the masters of self-deception:

for all deception is self-deception.

Train Rattled [Free Verse]

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It's like sticking one's head
out the window of the southbound
night train.

A rushing thunder fills the ears --
almost deafening --
and that's before
the passing northbound train
shears past,

letting wail the whistle
in one long blow.

And (now) one is deaf,
but the cyclone eddies 
shake one's flesh
& 
rattle through one's bones 
so hard that one can 
whole body hear:
one's entire skeleton 
vibrating like those tiny
inner ear bones. 

It was dark before the
scintillant streams of strobing light
burned a void into one's picture place.

There's no smelling a thing
in that crossfire hurricane,

but one can taste big gulps
of train exhaust --
exhaust with a 
cotton candy consistency 
but foul tasting
to the last bite.


And then it is quiet
and dark
and peaceful,

and it's not clear whether
one is alive or dead,

and it's not clear whether 
one cares whether
 one is alive or dead.

Diamondless Diamonds [Free Verse]

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Diamondless Diamonds?

Sounds like Daoist doublespeak
or 
a crazy Zen koan.

But, it's that which has
imaginary value,
but 
not real value.

Much of what human hands
reach for or produce
(& which human minds obsess upon)
are diamondless diamonds.

People stare at them 
with covetous eyes,

but when those eyes
saccade away
there's no reason to believe 
the diamondless diamond
still exists.

Eyes covet
what the mind knows
to have no particular worth.

Diamondless Diamonds
may change the world
for moments at a time,
but then are gone - 
and instantly forgotten.