Do they walk?
Why would they walk?
These faded shades of legs,
Long crumbled, hidden away.
Is it memory?
Some distant longing
For what once was –
Before it wasn’t.
Is that why they stay?
That need to see – to be?
To walk, to sing, to hold, to touch –
Are those the draw that,
All unseen, hold them
Where they cannot be
But must remain –
A dream, now dust:
Fate fain to fade.
Category Archives: Free Verse
Fain to Fade
Dream While You Can
Dream while you can
Til it fades in the dawn:
The dawn of marriage,
The dawn of kids,
The uncountable dawns
Of the life that you live –
Look! There! Can you see
Responsibilities break
Through the clouds
Of dreams left behind:
Ambiguous, undefined, hidden
In the depths of your mind –
Taken over by dreams
Taken over in kind.
Or
Accident or
Unforeseen consequence?
A difference of words
Or a difference of intent:
The truth of your awareness
Or the truth of what you meant?
Held Apart
Held apart,
It struggles to reach,
To swim through the fog.
Desperate,
It casts out its message,
Word after word flung away
As it tries, somehow, some way, to reach –
Scattered,
They fragment and fall
Some reaching but merging,
Changing the message
To unordered nonsense,
The true messages barred
By the unbending barrier.
Through Open Eyes
Through open eyes, you see the dream,
A whisper’s length from reach.
You hear it creep though it doesn’t move,
You feel its voice though it doesn’t speak —
A taste of flame that doesn’t heat,
So perfect formed, so incomplete.
You stare in longing and back away,
Away into a void
Where reason lies with emotion’s voice
And tells you nothing at all,
And from such strong persuasion,
You willingly let it fall.
Of Love: A Poem to Wish You a Happy Valentine’s Day
“Of Love” may not be my best poem, but I certainly had fun putting it with different pictures. In any case, happy Valentine’s Day!*
*(Or, if you’re not romantic or not in a relationship, Happy martyred saint day, or happy Lupercalia. If you are a romantic who loves Valentine’s Day, ignore everything I just said).
It’s the streak of heat left
By a finger on your cheek
That sinks through the skin
To the heart.
It’s the warm breath exchanged
In a lingering kiss,
That spreads through the body
Like life.
And it’s the sweet, gentle comfort
Of the welcoming arms
That soothe and make anywhere
Home.
Usually, I work with different images to see which looks best, but then, I only pick one to upload. This time, I decided to go ahead and do a handful of pictures for “Of Love” because it seemed appropriate – after all, love is a very personal thing, and what imagery communicates that feeling will vary.
What do you think? Which version of “Of Love” is your favorite?
A Call to Pens
No capitalized letters,
A missing comma or two,
Some missing periods or
(Let’s be real)
A few,
Homophone errors
(Their “there” is “they’re.”),
Run-ons, fragments, and splices
Everywhere –
A call to the red pen:
Let the writer beware.
Like a Grumpy Child
Dawn peeks through the clear air
Like a grumpy child from under heated covers.
The pinks and golds give the sky a false warmth,
Concealing the harsh, bitter cold
That strikes at the slightest opening,
Putting all within its reach –
Hands, feet, and nose –
To sleep as though waking
Is the Enemy.
Entrusted with Prisons
Like a baby bird, begging for food
Or a kitten, crying piteously for its mother,
They call out, again and again,
Repeating, unstopping,
Pleading to be heard –
Their cries echoing off their invisible bonds,
Imperceptible walls, strong as sullen stone,
Locking them away by will
Alone.
From Living Death
It happened almost naturally,
A footstep, a raised head.
It emerged from the shadows,
From confinement so deep and still,
From an invisible cage,
From living death.
Seemingly unaffected, it stepped forward,
Creating, completing as once before.
Until the trembling, the fear,
Consumed without warning, without cause
Eroding the ground from beneath its feet,
Consuming the light and sound,
Sucking away even the air
In a terrible pressure,
Pushing it beyond endurance,
Beyond hope until it shook
With the violence of an earthquake,
A silently screaming storm –
Collapsing, unable to stand,
It crawled.
twytte 