Skip to content

Tag: poetry

Mere Words

Published on April 30, 2013

Are they still weapons, these mere words
we use to crystallize what thoughts
may form at random in our heads
or like to squeeze out for some end,
a worthy cause we would advance,
a blessing, curse or snare of love,
some cleverness sure to impress
or at least baffle for a time?
How everyone is armed these days!
It takes so little effort now
to build an arsenal behind
a screen of anonymity.

There are more poets, it would seem,
than there are fishes in the sea,
more than the stars out there in space,
more now than ever were before,
and each would wield a sacred sword
to cut away the rotted flesh
and free the suffocating soul
so it may somehow serve the world;
and everyone assumes their blade
will make the most important cut,
remove the cancer, scour the wound
and make the body pure again.

There is no end to such deceit:
that words alone can change the world,
that careless phrases in the void
transform some evil into good
by virtue of their worth alone,
or by some miracle subdue
the brute force that enslaves the world
and makes it blind and deaf;
while everyone pretends they hear,
that they are the sole conduit
by which the universe declares
itself, and by that act, survives.

They may be weapons, but what use
are words in such unthinking hands
that would destroy to somehow build
a world that values their intent.
Just how will some mere phrases turn
the tide of angry sentiment
that grows against the use of thought
and would devour diversity,
while everyone, in pantomime,
acts out some peaceful, loving role
without believing it themselves?
What good can such words do?

30 APR 2013

Leave a Comment

Imago: a decastich

Published on December 12, 2012

Show, don’t tell, the modern critics rave!
Let solely image drive the poet’s art;
so that this generation weaned and fed
on television’s drivel won’t complain.

Describe in such a universal way
that anyone with half a brain could find,
within a flash, some personal motif
illuminating their sad, pointless life.

What else is the whole point of poetry?
Who cares? Who still has time to enough to read?

12 DEC 2012

Leave a Comment

A run through the poetic forms

Published on November 3, 2010

As much as I laud those who attack National Novel Writing Month with great zeal, I am a poet not a novelist.  So in my own parallel to NaNoWriMo, I’ve decided to once again work my way through each of the poetic forms identified in my old standby resource, Lewis Turco’s Book of Forms: Revised Edition starting with the acrostic and ending with the virelai – hitting all the Irish, Welsh and other forms and meters along the way.  I’ve done this in the past – I’ll try to post a poem a day, which may take us through the new year.

Leave a Comment

I am so sick of poets

Published on May 10, 2010

I am so sick of poets, in real life and found online;
how they tend to wax poetic, and pretend to be sublime
when describing some quite minuscule and unimportant thing:
the dewdrop on the lily, a mosquito’s lacy wing.

With pretense they have pretensions, and expect to be profound;
particularly when their fancy talk has drawn a crowd around,
and every word that drops like nectar from their honeyed lips
is guaranteed to break a heart, or at least, sink a ship.

But worse are poem lovers: those sad, sycophantic thralls
who quote their favorite bards by name whilst walking through the halls,
and without grace or courtesy, expose the world to verse
that often only merely stinks, but sometimes, is much worse.

Not everyone can hold a tune, or expect that their voice
will earn them any supper, if the listener has a choice.
Likewise, because you cast in rhyme a metaphor or two,
and hang a shingle (or a website), does not make true

that you are either poet, or can recognize the same;
such things are proven over time, and not by just a name
applied by those who dare not prick your bubble of esteem
for fear their own imagined greatness will be robbed of steam.

I am so sick of poets; every single one I’ve met
is either spent and sick and sad, or hasn’t happened yet.
In either case, I have no interest in their point of view
unless it can be spoken in a simple phrase or two

that doesn’t count on me to picture some fantastic scene,
and waste my time imagining I know just what they mean.
Dispense with all that sentiment, and vivid imagery;
a life that needs a poet is a boring life, indeed.

Leave a Comment

There is a poem, somewhere, here

Published on March 11, 2009

There is a poem, somewhere, here,
behind these words that ramble on
and with no seeming purpose try
to hint at meaning where there’s none.

There is a poem, somewhere, here,
between ramshackle rows of prose
that seem too weak to stand erect
or hold in a protruding gut.

There is a poem, somewhere, here,
despite itself, against all odds;
in lock-step cadence down the page,
it rolls on in a drunken march.

There is a poem, somewhere, here,
too subtle for its meager words,
that feel so common in the mouth
and leave their sour taste on the tongue.

There is a poem, somewhere, here,
beyond where critics dare to look,
afraid they might find nothing left
once deconstruction has commenced.

There is a poem, somewhere, here,
one ardent fan, at least, insists,
who seeks some message more sublime
than those who practice show not tell.

There is a poem, somewhere, here,
but I have failed to write it down;
like here, and now, its life is past,
and will not come again. It’s gone.

11 MAR 2009

Leave a Comment

Like Miles Says, “So What”

Published on October 7, 2008

NarcissusWorks: The Ghost Anthology:

No, it’s not a real poetry collection.

No, I didn’t write the one line poem attributed to me.

No, I didn’t give my permission for, or seek, inclusion in this farcical volume.

But think about it. If you ARE a living poet and you WERE somehow included, it’s probably one of the few, if not the ONLY time in your life that you will be included as a “poet” along with the likes of Rainier Maria Rilke, Walt Whitman, Jack Keroauc or even Ron Silliman.

This freak act of iambic penterrorism, or whatever you want to call it, has by the simple fact of random collection given you, me and everyone else on its table of contents a kind of legitimacy — the same kind of legitimacy that we now share with 98% of historical figures, that we are referenced in print by yet another source.

In this world of screen names, false accounts, spoofed IP addresses, and other ridiculously easy ways to remain anonymous while spouting damn near anything from a virtual soapbox, maybe that’s as “REAL” as it’s ever going to get.

And as a parting thought … think of the MILLIONS of folks who post what they call poetry on their websites, on poetry bulletin boards, anywhere they can get access, that their friends and readership laud with attaboys, right ons and “oh how deeps” … folks who remind us all of watching American Idol audition outtakes (if they were for poets, instead) who WEREN’T included on this voluminous list. Why us, instead of them? Perhaps because some of us in this anthology actually ARE poets.

Leave a Comment

If Words Alone Could Change the World

Published on August 19, 2007

If words alone could change the world
the poets would still reign as kings,
and those who may rely on swords
would spend their time on lesser things.

The lure of verse, both blank and rhymed,
would tempt young minds to greater heights;
to cast aside appearances
and reclaim beauty as their right.

If words alone could change the world,
then love would be the ruling act;
for more has been said on this verb
than said on any other fact.

The search for meaning would consume
that span that runs from birth to death;
and those who would conceal great truths
would waste both time and precious breath.

If words alone could change the world,
each pulpit, podium and stage
would needs be guarded night and day
lest some loose phrase escape its cage

and in an instant, raze to ash
our vain illusions, leaving naught
except the aching poet’s mind
that dreams of texts no longer taught.

19 AUG 2007

Leave a Comment