Free Verse

 

Joseph Farley, US   Void   most of the volume of an atom is empty space we try to focus on small bits of matter that spin by but it is hard to ignore the emptiness that fills most of existence ... dead cat in daffodils so much winter remains in this would be spring     Slithy Toves   I don’t gyre and gymbol the way I used to. My blade no longer goes snicker snack, but I can still ham it up on the porch with the other retirees at the Sunnyside Home, weaving tales of great adventures in search of the snark. It’s all bull. We all know that. Well, maybe there is a teaspoon of truth, but we won’t let that get in the way. Our fading lives require lies, and it makes our eyes twinkle to see the nursing aides grin as they listen in on all that has transpired during our sojourns in the rabbit hole.     The Visitors   The deer were in the yard, a dozen or more, seldom seen, but there, their presence evidenced by piles of spoor that must be shoveled and buried or thrown over the fence into the woods. Untidy visitors that come by night or while the family is at school or work, I cannot ban them even if I wanted to. I trespass more than they do, having usurped ancestral lands where the herd once roamed through forest. I shall accept this tax of droppings, and let them nibble at flower bulbs and lay waste to my annual garden. I know when I find one of them in the yard and look into those silent brown eyes that they know as well as I do that me and my kind are more thief and interloper than they will ever be.     Down But Not Out   We’re down, but not out. We’re out, But not down. Let’em in. Let’em stay in. Let’s lock them in. They can have the house and what’s inside. We’ll take the free world instead.     Lost and Along For the Ride   I don’t know where I am going. I don’t know when I’ll get there. I don’t know where I am going, And I’m not sure I should care. Outside the window it is raining, Drops hit and run down the glass. I can’t see if there are forests or houses. I can just see the rain storming past. The train car is empty. I can sit in any seat, But I’ll stay where I am in the corner Wondering who or what I might meet If I get off at the next station, If I get off any time, If the train pulls in anywhere, Even the end of the line. I don’t know where I’m going. I don’t know when I’ll get there. I don’t know where I am going, And I don’t know if I care.     A Liar By Trade and Practice   I have no name I use for long, So let me borrow yours, And I will tell you of adventures you have had, though you might not remember being there, or be able to place a face with a name I might recite in my story. Forget and forgive. Forgive and live, if only vicariously, as the fellow you might have been.     The Clowns   I admire Paris Hilton and Lindsey Lohan. They have transformed their lives Into performance art, teaching all of us The frivolity of existence As their bizarre daily dramas Supplant famine and war In the news media And our consciousness.