Plans, ambitions, and dreams:
Forces of power and action
Hampered by invisible foes
Like an agency by bureaucracy,
A runner by sand or storm,
An engine by lack of fuel,
And a printer with a broken port.
Cut off from communications,
Slowed by hidden hurdles,
Or immobilized and drained.
Plans fail to be made
Or if made, fade like mirages,
Occasionally visible -
Impossible to touch.
Actions and goals are hard-won
Not only in their success
But in even partial attempt.
Requiring strength of will
Beyond the shallow norm
To push beyond barriers
And fight for each fraction
Of precious progress.
Category Archives: Free Verse
Precious Progress
Magnified Regard
A word under a scope
In magnified regard
Becomes wrong, false -
Doubt colors it
And thus taints it
In form and order
Even in meaning.
Yet the word itself
Remains unchanged
With the only falseness
In the viewer.
Unseen
Standing, strident, and visible Somehow unseen, unheard. Unnoticed and unknown. Or simply unremarked. One plus one equals two Can addition be made From digits unseen? From actions unknown? Without fingers to buttons, No results are calculated. Without fingers to keys Or vibrations to chords, No stories are told. Two and two are four, But one unseen equals three. Sets of two is two, and Sets of four is one. Answers change As angles shift. Standing Unseen Unknown Untrue?
Old Expectations
A once-orderly canal: Directing and controlling, Employing the power And might of the waters. Now abandoned, unkempt But still visible, remembered, Becomes more hazardous Than an always-wild river. Old expecations defied With sudden currents And hidden hazards.
Music
Carefully arrange notes: Creating and relieving tension, Conveying and building feelings, Constructing a story, and Empowering words. Providing comfort, joy, release - Whatever can be conceived: An art of sound.
Foundation
A strong foundation To all appearances: Any fissures or flaws Well-hidden behind concrete Reinforced by steel. Until the hammers. From the largest sledges To the little ball peens To the smallest colossus That fires the shot. Blow after blow In unending succession. Most too small, Too weak to damage In a single strike, Yet flaw-enhancing, Fissure-widening When applied in barrage. And scattered throughout, With no warning or reason, The bone-shattering. The world-shaking. The mortar fire that Slices through And carves out The inner steel In erratic paths. Leaving fragments
Flip the Switch
An overwhelming storm,
Harsh and buffeting.
An unsettling quiet,
Deep and suffocating.
An unforgiving wind,
Cold and lacerating.
A temperamental land,
Hard and unpredictable.
A relentless vaccuum,
Strong and inescapable.
An endless rollercoaster,
Riders trapped by bars and belts.
Lifted, dropped, and flung about
Without rhyme, reason, or warning
And no one to hear the screams,
Take the picture, or flip the switch.
Infinite Always
Today, tomorrow, yesterday –
A blur of thens and whens
A hundred nows,
A hundred thousand,
Lost but somehow present
In an infinite always
Of forgotten beginnings
And unknown end.
Mental Illness
In the United States,
One in five have one –
Plus more undiagnosed.
There are over twice as many
Suicides as homicides.
The person who has it
Doesn’t want it,
Has tried to stop it,
Tries to hide it, and
Fears to never be free.
No matter what kind:
It can’t be willed away.
Smiling doesn’t help.
“Bringing you down”
Confirms worthlessness.
Deriding “weirdness”
Increases helpessness.
Both build hopelessness.
Listen without judgment.
Fight impatience.
Offer kindness.
Empathize.
twytte 