Anyone
can see beauty
in the flawless.
Artists
can see beauty
in the flawed.
Sages
can see beauty
in chaos.
Aesthete Levels [Free Verse]
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Tag Archives: Vers Libre
“Earthly Anecdote” by Wallace Stevens [w/ Audio]
Every time the bucks went clattering
Over Oklahoma
A firecat bristled in the way.
Wherever they went,
They went clattering,
Until they swerved,
In a swift, circular line,
To the right,
Because of the firecat.
Or until they swerved,
In a swift, circular line,
To the left,
Because of the firecat.
The bucks clattered.
The firecat went leaping,
To the right, to the left,
And
Bristled in the way.
Later, the firecat closed his bright eyes
And slept.
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One River [Free Verse]
From the water's edge,
I see the spastic, choppy
topography of a river
that looked glassy
from the bridge that
spans it.
Is this one river?
Am I one traveler?
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Mind Storm [Free Verse]
A loose shard of thought
Flips and twists about in
My brain,
Poking sensitive tissue,
And sending firestorms
Riffling through my circuitry.
I can't really say I feel each
Prickle or pierce, but they
Do make me wince, sometimes.
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A Feather in Flow [Free Verse]
How do I roll like a
feather in flow?
The one that can't be
pulled from the pool.
It slips around the
lifted hand,
Retreating back into
the water that it never
really left.
It's like sleight of hand
one plays upon oneself:
at once magician & mark.
The faster one snatches at it,
the greater the miss.
The slower one moves,
the more frustratingly
one sees one's failure.
How to roll like a feather in flow?
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“A London Thoroughfare. 2 A.M.” by Amy Lowell [w/ Audio]
They have watered the street,
It shines in the glare of lamps,
Cold, white lamps,
And lies
Like a slow-moving river,
Barred with silver and black.
Cabs go down it,
One,
And then another.
Between them I hear the shuffling of feet.
Tramps doze on the window-ledges,
Night-walkers pass along the sidewalks.
The city is squalid and sinister,
With the silver-barred street in the midst,
Slow-moving,
A river leading nowhere.
Opposite my window,
The moon cuts,
Clear and round,
Through the plum-colored night.
She cannot light the city;
It is too bright.
It has white lamps,
And glitters coldly.
I stand in the window and watch the moon.
She is thin and lustreless,
But I love her.
I know the moon,
And this is an alien city.
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“Gitanjali 35” by Rabindranath Tagore [w/ Audio]
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heave of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
NOTE: This poem is often entitled “Let My Country Awake,” particularly when it is anthologized independently of the larger Gitanjali poem.
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Diabolical [Free Verse]
I don’t mind one crow,
on a rail or curb,
by its lonesome.
Nor am I troubled by
a large number of the birds.
(The group designation “murder,”
notwithstanding.)
But where two or three
are gathered, facing
each other…
That’s when I get the
heebie-jeebies.
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Blindspot [Free Verse]
A culture is a vehicle
we use to move
through
this world.
And like all vehicles -
be it truck or bus -
it
has blindspots.
Everyone in a given
vehicle has the same
blindspots...
That's why we travel.
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“Conscientious Objector” by Edna St. Vincent Millay [w/ Audio]
I shall die, but
that is all that I shall do for Death.
I hear him leading his horse out of the stall;
I hear the clatter on the barn-floor.
He is in haste; he has business in Cuba,
business in the Balkans, many calls to make this morning.
But I will not hold the bridle
while he clinches the girth.
And he may mount by himself:
I will not give him a leg up.
Though he flick my shoulders with his whip,
I will not tell him which way the fox ran.
With his hoof on my breast, I will not tell him where
the black boy hides in the swamp.
I shall, die, but that is all that I shall do for Death;
I am not on his pay-roll.
I will not tell him the whereabout of my friends
nor of my enemies either.
Though he promise me much,
I will not map him the route to any man's door.
Am I a spy in the land of the living,
that I should deliver men to Death?
Brother, the password and the plans of our city
are safe with me; never through me Shall you be overcome.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 