Free Verse Poem

Tears

ssss

         weet

sad

i’s

walt

        zzz

like

       leave

ssss

fall

      i

       n

        g

thru

ssss

        mall

sad

u’s 

Free Verse Poem

Old Man

His head feels like a fog

     covered window breaking

in a cascade of white

across the sticky floor

     of the two room apartment

he calls his rasping breaths. 

Poem in Iambic Tetrameter

I plant my flower just to watch it grow

its leaves curling slowly in the rain

each petal smiling up sadly:

(pink and rosy for the blue eyed moon)

and slipping slowly through the mud

blood dripping down its white stigma

(to a spot where a touch burns red)

its lowest leaf curling in the sun

once penetrated as a seed;

his world shifting from light to dark,

stars flashing in the sky (still shy

with blurry ovule) its broken

thoughts curling slowly for the night. 

Free Verse

A Prayer for Happiness

If I could live like a stone

lying in the shallows, waves slipping

over me. If I could live

never looking back into the sunset

the light catching my hands

and illuminating them against the sand.

If I could live like a candle

burning slowly in an old ghostly room

reflecting only the shadows

of girls with blue eyes and white breasts.

If I had laid myself on a towel

to talk to a sad whisp of air that blew

like dust through my small cold fingers

catching the slowly cracking vase

I call my gently drowning memory.  

Free Verse

This Girl

this girl’s eyes glance like stones

across my small pale room

filled only with a bed

covered by sky blue sheets

and the perfume of a woman

whose fingers played silly games

through my long wet hair.

this girl’s hands are cold

mirrors reflecting the full moon

that settles like a cracked light bulb

on my fragile scarred arm

lines running from wrist to elbow

through a fifty pound childhood

that hangs around my neck in a pouch

as i hike from corner to corner.

this girl’s tongue tastes like oranges

left on the table to rot

the smell drifting to my bed

reminding me of wintery mornings

and sheets that i never washed.

this girl lies beside me and i look

up at the silhouette on the ceiling

slowly changing in shape

and washing against the shore

of a woman whose picture’s on my mind.  

Free Verse

In a Moment it Seems

I watch a fuming child

walk from the room, her hair

falling slowly across her face

in a gentle way

                  and I want to laugh

but I keep it inside, pushing

my teeth behind my lips

and letting them rest —

a small drop of blood

rolling down my protruding chin. 

Free Verse

Freddie Freeloader

i smoke and listen to jazz

           under starry nights aching

for loneliness like a flower

       lying in my palm

where all the pretty blondes wait

            for me to drag my eyes

from heroin infested ditches

            filled with beetles crawling

and fucking through the empty ears

       of lost recovering soldiers

hearing Miles Davis: da-dum da-dum

     in cool air conditioned rooms. 

Free Verse

People Draw Out

a man with lanky fingers

looking at the wall

his moist blue eyes

turning in circles

and spinning out into space

to burst into an oak –

flames licking the rim

of his white t-shirt.

a girl staring at the tiles

and a white blank page

sitting on her desk

her hair falling slowly

across her silhouette

and her thoughts dripping

into puddles on the floor.

two kids running

with bubble gum and beer

bottles floating in the sea

waiting for the sun

to get his toys in one bowl

so he can run in the rain

and bring them gifts

forged from medieval stone.

Free Verse

stone child

one long night lying

                  completely motionless

under the covers

watching the fan turn

round and round and round

until it stops still –

the air growing bitter

and a shadow crawling up

through the open window

Free Verse

A Man Who Lived too Long

For each word he speaks

a leaf falls from his tongue

catching syllables

and speckles of powder

left from a morning

hidden by the moon

and dropped

                         shrieking

from his broken tree

until it collapses

like rockpo(e)ms against

a blank white page

filled by autumns milky

swaying evening light. 

Pantoum

A Poet Stumbling in Circles

In a field full of daisies (I lie

to ask a question full of thorns,

blood dripping slowly (all the way

down my thumb) until it rests

to ask a question full of thorns

(a bit like death) falling half drunk

down my thumb until I rest

inside warmth (starting to look

a bit like death falling half drunk

in a field full of daisies. I lie

inside warmth (starting to look)

blood dripping (slowly) all the way. 

Free Verse

At A Party at a House Round the Corner

I write my poems in white verse

and let them slowly fall

into this jumble of small uneven

love letters and incoherent words

masked only by my attempt

to get stoned in a silently painted

room with the walls playing

me jazz and stilted Chopin

until my ears have turned red

with the blood of a handkerchief

left in a woman’s bathroom to dry

and forgotten for three drunken weeks

until I returned with some punctuation

and let it slip slowly into the darkness

of a curled junky sleeping sunrise. 

Sonnet

Beneath the Surface

There is a face, the water lapping gracefully

across her brow, wintry and bitter with frost,

her hair blowing gently around her eyes

now milky with death, the sand in her pockets

feeding the fish on the ocean floor.

I stand above her, turning slowly to the moon

my hands shaking as time walks on, oysters

waiting for too long, the cold in my shoulders

spreading gradually to the blank white sky.

I walk from her, allowing the sun

to die in my hands, the memory imprinting

itself on my wrists. I should be rigid,

trapped beneath the surface; frigid and watching

the spiral of the stars as they fall through her lungs. 

Free Verse Poem

As I Walk Through Venice

I smell the perfumes

                                   of oranges and salt,

small speckles of stone 

                                       sanded by hand.

The dust gathers on the ground;

                        moldy and ancient. Lemons

drip slowly down

                            through the soft wet fingers

of an woman of eighty years,

                     her flesh growing cold

and drifting on water

                                   through the canals

                                    Small specks of lilies

drift like sunspots

        among banana peels and reflections

of a moon with mango flavored

                                                   thoughts; a sweet

and a sour rose  

                           wandering off to sea.                     

Free Verse Poem

I’ll Keep You in a Butterfly Jar

like a light bulb, floating

through space     (fragile and turning

on and off)      Click     Click –

whispering softly in the night

Click     Click (yet I speak silence) –

Click     Click      i turned you green

over the rotten fields

burning with the sun of god mumbling:

(it’s macabre showering in germany) –

and ClickClick:      my finger turns you

down (shit floating in the canals)(ah

the beauty of venezia)     and

ClickClick     your heels on the floor

of my room      camminano (my hair is long

and I need the blank papered doctor

man with his bang bang shoot em’ up

destiny).      ClickClick (mrs brown)

did i turn the shadows back on?

Poem in Hexameter

Soft Pictures on the Wall

and two eyes blinking brown

across those moonlit fields

where I ran as a boy

trying to catch small bugs;

orbs of light in my hands

dancing nobly to jazz

and singing dusty songs

that floated through my ears

gliding above the moon

like half cut images

of blue girls I have known

and sunsets I have drawn.

I slowly let them fall

into their frozen beds –

while I lie drenched in the night