Tag Archives: poetry

OR DO NOT SMILE

came to see you
found you in mood
assertive yet contemplative

strolling along the beach
inner peace broodingly tempered
by some dark cloud momemts

only adding to my sense of your
backbone, resilience, tensile strength

or perhaps you were
as I had half expected
sultry, inviting,
familiar
simply sitting on the beige sand
taking in everything
perhaps waiting
    for he who is indeed legendary
beyond compare,
or perhaps
just isn’t, will dupe you
in a masterclass of
male manipulation

and then we saw each other
which was a delightful
surprise or
might equally not have been

it’s all about probability
what
     the Universe at
its smallest is
determined to
decide for us

lifting up mountains in
a million year
blink, alternatively
                 grinding down
   
   and there we have it
all that is
and was and will
forever be

openly there between us
and openly
                   not between us

nothing in the cosmos
we know of
           to bend
in opposite direction
               the rigid arrow
of time

unless as we see
here
     not just bending but
completely melting

and
    seeing all that was fixed
and figured
helplessly dissolving

we see each other smile, are
sunshine
     or do not see, or
do not smile at all
             

UNLESS THEY DID

you wake up
it’s all
a dream

all the usual
clear lines of differentiation

unless
scriptwriter killed you off
at home
she, they
still waiting for you

one of those inept
final episodes
wrecking what
had been a great show,
truly memorable series

or maybe
they forgot you, overlooked you,
left you in subplot limbo
no hope of resolution

twist to
the tale they decided
not to run with knowing
it was all
about to be
cancelled

narrative development no
one cared about
cares about

unless they do
unless they did

POEM IS WAITING FOR ME

poem
is waiting for me

but I am not there
pen and
paper crying out

but no words, no letters,
nothing there
on the page
to remain
    unread

to add nothing,
exactly nothing

maybe
I should tell the poem
to switch itself
to go
automatic pilot

where I
feel that
there is nothing
to say, 
   no place to
start

poem can write itself
fill the page with
brilliance or
nonsense
whatever it feels
on the whim
of the moment
whatever it
    absolutely has
to say
   express from
its core, its heart,
plunder from the depths

find
   a truth to explore
simply
fill the page with

add
   its piece

to all that has
      been written, revered
and so much talked about

HOMELESS

homeless
a liability

writing
dark, empty,
self-pitying poems

not
   my usual style
not my
best voice at all

and yet
still I think I commandeer
a huge expanse
own a slice
of this planet, a
piece of everything

was forged in the unbelievable
heat of a star

too precious
to fail so abysmally

TALKING ABOUT

disappear me
unwrite my poetry

erase every
shred of evidence
that I was ever around

the world needs to know
how better off
it is now
every
moment
without me

not that
when it gets told
it will have
any
idea
what you were talking about

unless I am
much mistaken

unless this poem
these poems

thrive in
my absence
kind of find
themselves
lingering around

PRECIOUS

Look at these
they are truly precious

the standard 7.62 mm
Maxim machine-gun rounds
that killed
Wilfred Owen

cutting the supply
of his poetry
increasing demand.