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Free Verse Links and Poems
Sketchbook
3-4, April 30, 2008
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Americana
A. D. Winans,
US—Free
Verse: Fire Ants, Visiting La Guna Honda Old Age Home,
For the Young, Superman and the FBI, Both And Bar
Stosh
Machek, US—Free
Verse: *santos
de la maquina del gumball *(gumball machine saints)
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Life on the
Edge
John Daleiden,
US
5:00 pm. in the
valley of the sun
time for the nightly news
sure enough—
sheriff Joe is at work again
keeping the boarders safe
keeping all them illegals
out of Maricopa County
building a wall of hate
in Guadeloupe today
arrested 26 of them illegals today
and he’ll be back tomorrow. . .and the next day. . .
“gonna’ send ‘em back where they came from
just doin’ my job everyday
upholdin’ the law!
today and every day!”—
The Frustrated
Wife as Artist
Andreas Gripp,
CA
You sat outside as
it poured,
brush in hand,
mascara running,
striving to paint
an indoor scene from our battleground
living room.
Carmine, indigo,
mustard yellow lines
merely streaks
on rain-soaked
canvas,
my face a smudge
of black,
clouds stirring greys
in nature's ceiling
while the sodden landscape
drooped,
heavy with water's weight,
ignored by bristled strokes
that found no happiness
to capture.
Reading Winter
Poems at Carr's Cafe
Andreas Gripp,
CA
If you as well
spend evenings
with anachronistic
bards,
then it's true
that you might spot me
at this table made for two,
with a candle,
empty chair,
and I'll spy a lovely woman
in a line-up for a drink,
beg your pardon
for my fancy,
my feigning
she's bare at the waist,
softly shuffling
to where I'm seated,
introducing herself as Kate,
my flipping through Tennyson
a sign I'm far less living
than he.
The Songs Of A
Poet Quatrain
(Reflecting
Longfellow)
Paul Ingrassia,
US
As the birds leave
in the Fall,
We know not to where;
As a dusky starless nightfall
Shows depths of despair;
As the Summer with no rain,
When brooks are dusty ground;
Agonizing, love or pain,
Screaming without a sound;
As the grape becomes raisin,
Bareness to the tree;
As fire among pines blazin—
And the storm to the sea;
As the battered vessel slips
Beneath the ocean's crest;
As comes the frown to the lips,
The soul to the test;
So come to the Poet his songs,
All hitherward torn
From the dusky realm, where nightlong
Terrors are conceived and born.
His, and not his, are the tears
He sings; and the blame
Is his, and not his; and the fear
And loathing of a name.
For emotions chase him by day,
And plague him by night,
And he is enslaved, and must obey,
When the Demon says: "Write!"
The Fossil
Found
Michael Kleiza,
CA
This flat,
scarpjawed rockscape
held you, made you recombinant
in bleached Silurian dolostone,
reefed, petrified coral, and ice-breached cliff.
Cradled, bedded,
au naturel in bas-relief, you were stone
long before my kind—
conceived in ooze—ventured
into air.
Set as if a rare jewel
of line and shape
you lay here on these remnant shores
of an ancient sea where, split-eons ago
you swam and schooled
unaware of the squidquick eye
that tracked your path until
by flash and strike, a lipless maw cracked you
in mid-stroke and left you to bleed and spiral, fall
to final rest a half-billion years
from where, in this present place, my hands
now do their timely work.
You are
the corpus delicti produced
from rake and shift of these
remains here, on Huron's shore, where
cool waves tongue my tree-ape feet.
Wind Through
Tupelo Leaves
Karina Klesko,
US
Outside my
window
grackles squawk and call
all day long from tree to tree.
He comes silently in the afternoon
on a bus from Georgia
his bags neatly set
on the front porch.
The stranger before me
sits at my table, telling me
he is through with drugs
through with drink.
I watch his animated movements
the gestures of his hands
the back and forth swing
of his head, as his eyes search—
I hardly hear what he says
I grind coffee beans
and listen to the wind
through tupelo leaves
We talk about scriptures
and the garden of Eden
Sunset stripes the fig leaves
and it is not hard to see
that it was possible
these huge leafy greens
could be used for a covering
of sin, in the sweetness
of its fruit, so close
to the ground, its trunk
snaking in strange
twists and jagged turns
He sits in a ladder-back rocker
on the front porch
and chain smokes
a new cloud in graying twilight
The dials on the washer changed
the toaster setting also changed
coffee reset from robust
to light/mellow
the shower head pulses
a harsher rain
He sits on my chair
at the table and uses my mug.
He asks for my cornbread
after he finishes his own
He hums a strange song
and talks of nonsensical things,
of building a houseboat
and living on my pond
and the cow jumps
over the moon.
As the week moves on
his words more slurred
he becomes more and more
mechanical and tells me
he needs to go to the park
and sit in town for a while
I have acres of land
and wonder what the difference
would be from here to there
He only seems to sleep
eat and smoke and smoke
says he is not cut out
for physical labor
and needs to be on his way
to go into the city
where he can find some peace
and be with civilization
his eyes darting back and forth
his tongue spraying spittle
He leaves on the bus
and tells me to pray for him—
this stranger,
this brother of mine
Absolute Zero
Dr. Ram Sharma,
IN
I am only a
zero,
Neither beginning nor end,
Neither body nor soul,
Only I am a zero,
Like the darkness of night,
In which truth is hidden,
Like a walking shadow,
Which wants to utter silently,
I am only a zero
Sunshiny Brown
Street Dawn
(A Dream in Three Parts)
Craig Tigerman,
US
I.
The night drifted into warm morning
In 5:30 dawn I passed your house
Circled the block 'cause your door was open
How was your night-watch ending?
As I stepped up I saw
Your duty turn into pleasure
As you changed with Sweet Delight
To a warm morning hour of play.
II.
I entered, embarrassed to interrupt
But when I saw your faces
And your friend from across the hall
We four became one in purpose and joy.
You have family in there. But from the first
Moment I saw you -- you're beautiful!
And where your care? It flows to me.
My soul surrounded, invaded by love.
III.
We are oblivious to the world around,
Lost in our childlike wonder of the grace
Flowing through our company,
Happy to invade the neighborhood.
Let love flow, invade, keep us warm,
Enter with joy, lift us through the dawn!
By 7 A.M. we had doubled, tripled in size,
Shared vast glory, grown delightfully wise.
Might You
Perhaps...
Craig Tigerman,
US
Might you perhaps
have consented to be—
Now that the twin fates, time and distance,
Have robbed us of the possibility...
Or are we held back for a greater purpose,
Not to become a fading memory—
O mirror of my heart, sweet as night air!
My life's restless, unrelenting quest
Has led me to one flower so fair
One angel, one mirror, the very best...
Might you perhaps have consented to share—
Dear angel of the light, whom I adore,
In whose glow I'm continually blest,
How I long to see your eyes before
My death's questless, unrepenting rest—
Might you perhaps have consented to more...
Cereal Killers
Craig Tigerman,
US
How many ways can
they take
Rice, Oats, Corn or Wheat
And shred, puff, toast, and make
All those shapes that we all eat?
A daily dose of domestic violence
In Smacks, Kix, and Pops!
And don't expect to eat in silence:
There's Snap and Crackle in your chops!
Total, Just Right, Life—feel
good?
Fortified to enrich your health
Product 19, Special K—ust
food
For Post, Kellogg's, General Mills wealth.
Some brands come in happy swarms,
Chocolate, fruity, coated with honey;
Play your Trix, enjoy your Lucky Charms,
In the end we just fork over more money.
Cheerio! Eat your Wheaties! But have the guts
To see them for what they are, at the store.
Are there grapes or nuts in Grape-Nuts?
I don't find this stuff a-Mueslix-ing any more!
An
Unremarkable Day
Trish
Shields, CA
She sits in
the shade cast
by the ruined remains
of a truck rusty red against white
a mirror to the child she holds
her skin a grey shroud
of sand and ash and pain
heat from
the dessert sears her
the flames from the huts buffet her
and the body she holds
is no longer stiff and cold
cooking on the grill of a noonday sun
earlier that
day
soldiers came to her village
their white faces
offering food and hope
bodies
surged forward
raw with animal need
saliva ropes tying the crowd
together
their eyes forward
when they should have been watchful
against those moving swiftly
silently mindlessly forward
the contents
of a man's head puddle
briefly before evaporation
leaving a smudge
ignored by all save the wind
her face is
dry
as she wanders away
desiccated beneath
an African sky.
Weathering Heights
Trish
Shields, CA
looking out
my window
I have to stretch and strain
to see the glacier
wisps of cloud
hang just above the trees
my neighbour has
green fights with blue
on good days
winter sparsing the thicket
only slightly
a flicker has returned
after a long absence
his rat-a-tat call most welcome
fire-engine feathers
flashing alarm as he climbs
he roosts in my neighbour's tree
silent when winds are high
a yo-yo in the darkness
the poplars threatening to take more
than just the view
wildness
becomes lost; fog
descends, engulfing green—
a pagan moon nets the sky each
springtide
Altered
State
Trish
Shields, CA
mist hangs
over water
obscuring dense forests
high pristine mountains
dulling their reflection
muting swans
snatching echoes
as it barrels through
this Sunday morning
transferring the valley
into a quiet cathedral—
awestruck, I'm anchored
only by the dip, dip, dip
of my paddle
and occasional seal's snort
black gives way to grey
a respectful line separating
sky from sea, only marginally
the soft snick of my canoe
on sand calms my sea legs
(the rocking from passing
tourist juggernauts lends me
a fundamentalist expression,
complete as I yelp in tongues)
sitting amongst the rocks
silent communion
shared by all is quickly eaten up
as I watch fog dissipate
grounding me in the trappings
we attribute to progress
endless
whispers are heard
over Iceland's highlands;
here volcanic plumes and glacial
calves play
Jeff Spahr-Summers,
US—Free
Verse: yaka mountain,
You Are Bantu, Hands, johnny ono,
Kiwi, Fatherhood, Strumming Her, Beware of the Floors, Blackout,
goddess of the firewater, Ode to Cobras, Red bedding, Rowboats
at Arniston, sylvias mother, im about to open this bag, my life
James Ryan
Morris, US—Four
Poems: She Said, The Hope, Face to Face, The Relief
R. D.
Armstrong,
US—Free
Verse:
Eyes Like Mingus,
The Little Red Book
Sander Roscoe Wolff Interviews Raindog
Pris Campbell,
US—Free
Verse: Catboat In Blue, Degas' Ghost
Tracy
McPherson, US—Free
Verse: Haiku Backwards, Guide to Love: Test Your
Compatibility!, The
Roster, don't want
to go to bed without you
Tracy
McPherson, US—Kona
Coffee Pickin' and Processing
Gary
Blankenship—Free
Verse: After
Howl VI, W Does Haiku,
A Bush I: The First
Edition Always Lands on the Roof, A Bush II: The Second Will Be
Thrown in the Barberries, A Bush III: A Third Lay in the Rain
until I Picked It up, A Bush IV: Today the Paper Boy Is Late,
A Bush V: A Sudden
Wind Blew the Comics across the Lawn, A Bush VI: The Dog Ate the
Obituaries, A Bush VII: The Paper Stopped We Forgot to Restart
It
Joseph Farley—Free
Verse: The Knock At The Door, Winter Rose, alone, Memorial,
The Days of The Week, cold cash, Twenty Years Later, Farewell To
Thee, Reprieve, When It Rains It Pours, Tokyo Rose,
Lyn Lifshin—Five
Poems from
Cove Point:
Ring,
Child Prodigy's Time To Die,
Something Great Mom Says,
Blue At The Table In The Hot Sun,
After 15 Years
Lyn Lifshin—Four
Poems from
January Poems, 2006:
Rage January 4, 2006; January 4 Rage; Rage
Even After Ballet; Rage, January
G. David
Schwartz—Free
Verse: If I Had One Wish, I Know , Close The Venetian
Blinds, I’ll Never Tell
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