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Tag: French verse forms

What Urgency: descort

Published on May 13, 2025

What’s so urgent
all of a sudden?
It’s not like the world woke up yesterday
as a hot mess,
broken into tiny fractions
by some new denominator.

Where have you been?
Wake up and smell the coffee;
some of us been drinking a pot a day
since Reaganomics
trickled down from the septic tank
on our teenage heads.
Some even longer.

My grandpa had a book titled
“The Antichrist in Rome”
in a worn leather cover from before the depression.
Was he born in 1900 already woke,
or just poor, orphaned, son of a drunk fiddler
who toured the Great Lakes
looking for the sporting life?
Who knows.

What has changed since then?
Not much,
if we’re “being honest.”

Illusions come and go. Some die harder than others.
My second generation immigrant self
was chewing out of its
cocoon
before the last election.

13 MAY 2025

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Who Sings Your Battle Song: chanso

Published on April 29, 2025

If you would sing a battle song
to rally troops, to right what’s wrong,
be sure to check it in advance,
lest those mute puppets that will dance
mistake your good intentions.

It must bring heat, you will agree,
and indicate what infamy
you seek to topple from its throne,
but take care what you bring to boil:
you may need fire prevention.

The army of rebellious souls
you would attract to swell your rolls –
are they just parroting your lines,
or have they sought, with their own minds,
the remedy you mention?

What will you feed them, once the song
has ended, and for just how long
do you think they will sing out loud
once casualties have thinned the crowd?
Will you keep their attention?

The crowd is fickle, after all,
and once the summer turns to fall,
how will you keep those fires lit?
Will those who sing now stick to it,
or succumb under tension?

We need the song, there is no doubt,
and voices who will belt it out
with sense and comprehension.

29 APR 2025

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Uncertain Eternity: bref double

Published on April 24, 2025

Pretend we will not meet again on some bright future shore;
once they are gone, the things we love are gone forever more.
But then again, there is no me to miss them when they go;
I likewise will just disappear at some point, even though

I’d like to think eternal thoughts, and in some future, know
the secrets of the universe, and say, “I told you so.”
My energy may linger on beyond this mortal coil,
but there is nothing past the grave except some worms and soil.

Quite honestly, that is enough; one life is enough time
to figure out just who I am. The pressure is sublime,
but keeps me honest, truth be told, and there’s some good in that.
More, and I’d be self-satisfied, and grow lazy and fat.

What would you do with endless time, nothing to figure out?
Not much more than we’re doing now, of that there is no doubt.

23 APR 2025

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Musical Chairs: ballade supreme

Published on April 18, 2025

The road is long and runs for miles
between two fields on either side:
one, sown with soybeans in long files,
the other, fallow, flat, and wide.
Each season, nature must decide
which one will yield the greater crop;
while neither seeks to be on top
it’s still a competition:
year after year, it never stops.
Such is this life’s condition.

In houses, breaking up the wild,
a battle likewise coincides:
between a parent and their child,
the old ways and the new collide.
Somewhere between desire and pride,
in discount stores and online shops
the world of criminals and cops
leads all to some perdition:
year after year, it never stops.
Such is this life’s condition.

In some gray building, facts are filed:
loans pre-approved, requests denied,
and reputations are defiled
to shore up this or that divide.
Morality’s a slippery slide,
religion just a mop.
You’re one chair short; the music stops
and weakens your position.
Year after year, it never stops;
such is this life’s condition.

You work for years until you drop,
as fodder for the ones on top
who just want your submission.
Year after year, it never stops.
Such is this life’s condition.

17 APR 2025

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Slow and Steady: ballade

Published on April 17, 2025

If you would change the world, you must
believe it can be done, of course,
and with your entire being, trust
that it needs changing. Do not force
your will upon a stubborn horse;
instead, with gentle words and grace
seek out resistance at its source:
for each small thing, a time and place.

The stoutest iron succumbs to rust;
you need not hurry, lest remorse
turn all your courage into dust
as you expound until you’re hoarse.
If all your words are harsh and coarse
you will not find a friendly face,
and will have wasted vital force:
for each small thing, a time and place.

Press on, of course, but only just
enough to prove what you endorse
when mixed with reason, will combust
into a fire of such resource
that naught can stand against its force;
With such a flame, you can erase
some wrong, and good things reinforce:
for each small thing, a time and place.

And in the end, your small light’s source
will serve as a more solid base
if slowly, as you plot your course,
for each small thing, a time and place.

16 APR 2025

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Only Our Effort: villanelle

Published on June 7, 2017

I don’t believe that gods watch us at all,
or bother with our lives in any way;
only our effort makes or breaks our fall.

Perhaps it gives us hope, such folderol,
or cheats fear-mongers of their gruesome play.
I don’t believe that gods watch us at all.

The truth is that no matter who we call,
if answers come, it’s not because we pray.
Only our effort makes or breaks our fall.

We find no mule is kicking in that stall,
just empty promise of reward, someday.
I don’t believe the gods watch us at all.

Some say that god’s an ocean, us, salt dolls;
that finding the divine, we melt away.
Only our effort makes or breaks our fall.

From dust we come, and back to dust we crawl;
there is no proof of any other way.
I don’t believe that gods watch us at all;
only our effort makes or breaks our fall.

07 JUN 2017

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A Single Blink: triolet

Published on June 7, 2017

A moment’s span is very little time;
a single blink and half of it is gone.
Not long enough to make ambition’s climb,
a moment’s span is very little time,
which makes its wasting quite a solemn crime.
On such small pegs, life’s hat is hung upon.
A moment’s span is very little time;
a single blink and half of it is gone.

07 JUN 2017

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