Like a bolt of lightning
Trapped in the body
Dashing from limb to limb
Seeking its freedom but only
Setting off extraneous thoughts and
Sending emotions into frenzies.
Category Archives: Free Verse
Anxiety Strikes
Individual Nightmares
Flickering lights
Dark, shifting floors:
A hologram turned to life,
Separating and splitting
People, casting them
Into individual nightmares:
The black, twisted memories
Of a cruelly tortured soul
Bent on revenge on any and all.
In macabre juxtaposition,
The toy train circles
Through crying bodies
Over hidden graves.
Dried Bouquet
Permanently bowed heads
Like somber penitants
Clustered close together:
A permanently mourning crowd
Encircled in bright crystal.
Digital Strings
A phone, an app:
Like digital strings
Controlling a person,
A stranger at work,
With the lure of a tip.
Exhaustion
Lasso after lasso of heavy chains
Roped around with unerring aim
Both strict coccoon and heavy anchor,
Dragging inexorably down and down
Away from the light, from thought
Away from action, from speech
Locked in dark limbo willing or no
Until chains after chains release.
Churning
A bubbling, churning cauldron,
A witch’s brew of writhing acid
Taunted, enraged by attacks
Arises, unbidden and unwished
Eating its cage from within
Unless appeased by offerings.
A Shadowed Caricature
Twisting and straining
For a meager sliver,
A mere hint of light
Until gnarled, knotted:
A shadowed caricature.
Blinded and awestruck
By an eager river,
An ocean of light
Until overjoyed, overrevealed:
A bittersweet conflict.
The Darkness Came Slowly
The darkness came slowly.
Not a sudden eclipse
Or flip of a switch.
It was a long, slow sunset
To an unending twilight:
So gradual and quiet
You never noticed the dark
Until the sudden glare
As light broke through
Anxiety’s Reign
A pressure in the chest –
Electricity and compression
Combined like lighting a fuse
And encasing the cannon’s end.
A struggle to breathe –
Pushing against a weight or
Speeding like fluttering wings
In a frantic race to nowhere.
A battle between needs –
Run, hide, rock, freeze, fight,
Cry, scream: pulling and pushing,
Everything necessary and now.
A storm in the mind –
Swirling, striking thoughts
Pecking, pacing, and repeating
Until all else hides or flees.
A pressure, a struggle,
A battle, a storm:
All needs, all now,
All nothing.
twytte 