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Tag: blank verse

Suppositions: blank verse

Published on April 21, 2025

There’s no such thing, he said, as what should be;
for if there were, we’d all just waste our time
imagining how other folks should live,
instead of working on the here and now.

Is that a fact? she answered, with a laugh;
you may as well propose there is no past.
If that’s the case, we have no one to blame
for where we sit and spin, stuck in this spot.

Indeed, he countered, why do you suppose
we fight so hard when we could just evolve,
and stop this endless fighting with ourselves
that doesn’t lead to anything at all?

21 APR 2025

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No Time to Lose

Published on March 24, 2025

There is no time to lose, I want to say;
what difference can be made must be right now.
Despite a sense of overwhelming odds,
each inch of progress changes the whole world.

When we begin to try, the fulcrum shifts,
and what was once impossible is not;
in place of pale excuses why we can’t,
imagine that it is already done.

Who says there is no point in pressing on?
Ignore those whispers from beyond the edge.
Let others take the easy path ahead;
what is worth doing will take all your strength.

Look down; your feet are both there on the path.
One step, and then another, ‘til it’s done.

24 MAR 2025

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On Optimism: blank verse

Published on January 18, 2017

One can suppose those clouds are silver-lined,
that just around the corner lies great joy,
and what appears today both bleak and sad
tomorrow may turn out to be rainbows.

Let anyone suggest such dandy things
and all the world proclaims them truly mad.
“Come to your senses! Live in the real world!”
those persons full of reason will advise.

Contrariwise, let any sourpuss disagree,
and on their heads is rained derisive scorn.
“How dare you destroy hope, and shun good faith”
that things will work out, somehow, in the end?

Depend on it: you try to spend the buck
that “stops here”, and you’ll be made out a thief;
but ask for change to buy a cup of tea –
you’ll end up parched, and fined for vagrancy.

One can suppose this world an oyster, still;
a shellfish allergy afflicts us, then.
What difference does it matter, joy or pain?
You live a while, perhaps, and then you die.

18 JAN 2017

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No End of Days

Published on March 16, 2016

The world has not yet made its final twirl
around a sun still managing to burn;
the seasons, although changed somewhat of late,
continue with their ceaseless promenade.

Both wise and foolish prattle on no end,
with new results no different from before;
the civilized maintain the status quo
their barbarous ancestors stumbled on.

The end of days is always almost here;
soothsayers find new suckers without fail.
The young, in spite of things, still become old
and stop all their pretending at some point.

So put away those funeral shrouds for now.
There will be no apocalypse this week.

16 MAY 2016

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I Love the Way: a blank verse

Published on November 16, 2010

I love the way the world unfolds at times:
in sudden spurts of random energy
that interrupt a boring, same old day;
and with a moment’s notice, nothing more,
release some new unknown into the mix.

I love the way that life unwinds, sometimes:
like careful knotted segments on a string
you foolishly attempt untangling;
a few short tugs is often all you get
of easy work suggesting at success.

I love the way that trust releases hope:
like an old rusty key you thought was lost
to the great treasure room inside your heart;
it squeezes past the slowly creaking door
and with a gentle hand, turns on the light.

16 NOV 2010

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High School Reunion Musical

Published on September 14, 2009

Someone told me once we never grow
beyond the point we turn the age eighteen:
what insecurities we carried then
still manifest themselves throughout our lives.

That makes those speeches every June
(you know the ones that say life’s just begun)
much more than naive lies, and still the truth:
depends on just how much you would believe.

I wonder if it’s like the weakling boy
who overcomes his limited physique
by spending endless hours in the gym
to change the image in the mirror,
but never runs quite fast enough to flee
the sickly shadow he would leave behind.

Could be the “eighteen” theory’s full of shit;
What would the world be if we never grew
beyond the high school notions that we held
to be so absolute and crystal clear?

A playground laid out on a global scale,
with territories marked in black and white,
a constant “them” and “us” dividing up
the haves from the have-nots, and so forth.

We must evolve.  I’d like to think we do,
although it often takes ten years or more
to come to terms with who we thought we were
(in contrast with what we had yet to prove).

How many of us reach the other side
with anything but memories left alive?

14 SEP 2009

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The Shallow Water

Published on April 4, 2004

a poem in blank verse

Again, the conversation turned to fate;
and as the group was interested, to chance,
the lines of battle drawn between the ones
who thought the world predestined yet misshaped

and those who found perfection or kismet
in random acts and notions of free will.
The problem, said the former, is the lack
of evidence to justify our claim;

and to rebut, the latter said, to wit,
all evidence is houses built on sand.
For after all, our frame of reference fits
inside a thimble floating on a sea.

At best, we know our own spot on the shore;
and of the entire ocean only guess.

04 APR 2004

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