Tag Archives: Vers Libre

On Tourists & Travelers [Free Verse]

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A tourist looks back fondly upon 
      A favorite destination;
 A traveler is always at it. 

A tourist loathes travel hiccups;
 A traveler calls them stories.

A tourist jumps from one
      Postcard vista to the next;
 A traveler moves through the world.

A tourist collects knicknacks & geegaws;
 A traveler collects experiences.

A tourist, between sights, seeks
      A life experience as close to 
      Their homelife as possible.
 A traveler wants a life experience
      As close to local as possible.

A tourist has a favorite meal;
 A traveler assumes he hasn't
      Crossed paths with it yet.

A tourist leaves nothing to chance;
 A traveler embraces the spontaneous.

A tourist takes comfort as a main course;
 A traveler uses it like a condiment.

Green Door [Free Verse]

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What mysteries lie behind
  That old green wooden door:
    Carved elaborately 
     In bygone days?
 
On a street that features only sights
   Both newer and more decrepit,
   It stands out as a grand entrance 
     That begs something special 
      Beyond.

I’d hate to think it’s just 
   Old paint cans —
     Half empty and congealed 
      Beyond usefulness.

I doubt it’s a brothel or speakeasy —
         Too silent…
   But a vault of lost masterpieces,
     Inhabited by a hairy-legged spider,
     Might not be too much to ask.

“The Death of a Soldier” by Wallace Stevens [w/ Audio]

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Life contracts and death is expected,
As in a season of autumn.
The soldier falls.
 
He does not become a three-days personage,
Imposing his separation,
Calling for pomp.
 
Death is absolute and without memorial,
As in a season of autumn,
When the wind stops,
 
When the wind stops and, over the heavens,
The clouds go, nevertheless,
In their direction.

“Do Not Weep, Maiden, For War Is Kind” by Stephen Crane [w/ Audio]

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Do not weep, maiden, for war is kind.
 Because your lover threw wild hands toward the sky
 And the affrighted steed ran on alone,
 Do not weep.
 War is kind.

      Hoarse, booming drums of the regiment,
      Little souls who thirst for fight,
      These men were born to drill and die.
      The unexplained glory flies above them,
      Great is the battle-god, great, and his kingdom—
      A field where a thousand corpses lie.

Do not weep, babe, for war is kind.
 Because your father tumbled in the yellow trenches,
 Raged at his breast, gulped and died,
 Do not weep.
 War is kind.

      Swift, blazing flag of the regiment,
      Eagle with crest of red and gold,
      These men were born to drill and die.
      Point for them the virtue of slaughter,
      Make plain to them the excellence of killing
      And a field where a thousand corpses lie.

Mother whose heart hung humble as a button
 On the bright splendid shroud of your son,
 Do not weep.
 War is kind.

This poem opens War Is Kind and Other Lines (1899.)

“The Snow Man” by Wallace Stevens [w/ Audio]

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One must have a mind of winter
 To regard the frost and the boughs
 Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time
 To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
 The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think
 Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
 In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land
 Full of the same wind
 That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,
 And, nothing himself, beholds
 Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

Tree Flight [Free Verse]

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On a hike,
    I come upon a tree
       Raised up on its roots,
       As if in mid-stride --
       A long, cartoonish stride
   That stretches across the trail.

But the tree doesn't stir -- 
   No matter how quietly I wait;
   No matter how long I wait.

Oh, how I wish to catch the tree
   As it flees.

River Vision [Free Verse]

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in a flat, wide river:
   something juts up
   from the water --
   far in the distance

for an instant,
   i startle:
   seeing it as an
   extended arm...

like that Stevie Smith
   poem, but i discover
   it's neither waving,
   nor drowning, but 
   merely protruding...

a dead limb
   stuck in the river,
   drag & pull balanced,
   waiting to be 
   carried away.

“Granadilla” by Amy Lowell [w/ Audio]

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I cut myself upon the thought of you
 And yet I come back to it again and again,
 A kind of fury makes me want to draw you out
 From the dimness of the present
 And set you sharply above me in a wheel of roses.
 Then, going obviously to inhale their fragrance,
 I touch the blade of you and cling upon it,
 And only when the blood runs out across my fingers
 Am I at all satisfied.

Stranger [Free Verse]

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What a view --
   Lying on one's back
      In a strange land,
   Seeing familiar skies, 
               &
   Unfamiliar faces,
 And wondering what kind
   Of strange beast 
      They take one for --
   On one's back,
      In the churchyard
         Of a strange land.

Riderless [Free Verse]

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An unfamiliar horse --
   Saddled but riderless --
 Cautiously ambles
   Into the village.
 Its saddle, bags, and coat
   Spattered in black --
      Really, rust-red on brown. 

The villagers want nothing 
   To do with it,
      But each sneaks it food
         And lets it water at their
            Tank.