The sign posts show the way
When to slow or pause or stop
Where one route joins another
Or breaks and flows apart
Without them no choice or all
An open meaning: directionless
Category Archives: Free Verse
The Sign Posts
It Changes
It changes
Through life’s many turns.
Closer. More distant.
Whether wished or not –
A fluctuation of time
A force of feelings
How to control it?
Reduce it? Increase it?
Whichever is wished
Comes the hardest of all.
Deprived of Tinder
A circle long doused.
Among the sodden cinders
Lurks a spark,
Strong and steady,
Deprived of tinder:
Unquenchable
Bite after Bite
Bite after bite
Of tasteless, worthless hatred
Stuffed into the mouth
By cold, callous hands.
Over-sated and un-pleasured,
The stomach screams.
But those unflinching hands
Shovel on.
Walking Backward
Walking backward won’t recapture the past.
Re-creation makes only caricatures:
Hollow visions that cannot satisfy truth
Though they delude ignorant eyes
And break further knowing hearts.
A Hopeless Cause
A hopeless cause:
To save all
To help all
An abandoned cause:
Saves none
Helps none
A pursued cause:
Save some
Helps some
Life’s Blood
Life’s blood: complimentary,
From the sky
From the tap
Ignored, accepted, dismissed,
Unless cascading from a crack
A Moment’s Thought
A dollar given:
Life-giving food
Or a swindler’s gain.
A dollar withheld:
Continued deprivation
Or a swindler’s irritation.
A vaccination given:
Life-saving protection
Or autism-inducing lie.
A vaccination withheld:
Life-less with others
Or perception’s pride.
A moment’s thought given
To both sides, both results
A possible change.
A moment’s thought withheld
From one side, one result
A gambler’s risk of pain.
Fame Does Not Make
Fame does not make a star
But a hollow likeness
Without shine
A true star makes fame
An effect of light inside
Heard with the Soul
Heard with the soul:
A lifting of low,
A resonance of real,
An outlet of overflow,
A warming of wishes
In an ever-shifting dance
Of unchanging change