Birds
Announcing
Dawn’s
Impending
Arrival
Category: Free Verse
Most everything that isn’t a haiku or tanka falls into this category lately. Subject to change, of course.
Rage’s Danger
Danger in offended rage
Most toxic of poisons
Seeps into our marrow
Boiling, burning away joy
Leaving nothing by charred
Remains
A digitized globe
It delights me so
Drifting across the earth
Dropping a word here
Another there
One in France
The next Africa
Seconds pass
Seeds planted
Hope gently
Kindled
Black History Month Meditation 2: Langston Hughes
Slowly I study the man
Delighting in imagery
Phrases bending to his will
And the flow of his heart
Slowly gazing into the soul of
Of a poet’s ghost
Tendrils of dreams
Glimmering in morning dew
Fading at the touch
Of my privilege
A Remembrance: Mary Tyler Moore
Awoke with a song,
Mary Tyler Moore’s theme.
Quirky, jaunty and cheerful,
With a tinge of sadness.
A bright point in my youth,
Faded into night.
Such is the way of things;
Joy blends with sorrow/
This complex dish,
Life.
The Smoker
Walking past a smoker
So very easy to judge
Addiction’s impacts
Yet who am I
To critique anyone’s
Frailties?
Wisdom
I seek wisdom.
Crave it, perhaps.
This longing to understand.
Freed from repeating
The past’s miseries.
Slumber’s Unanswered Call
A strange night,
Again awake when I wish to be asleep.
Slumber ignores my humble call
Blindly ignoring both my needs and concerns.
This lack of weariness annoys.
This rationale mind knows,
Knows the exhaustion coming.
Tomorrow’s sunrise.
Dread stares into my eyes,
Unblinking.
Into and Through
I collapse
Into and through
Myself, these dreams
Both from my mind
And the synaptic demands
Of others.
Mist fades
Upon the other side
Where I find
Myself.
Trust, Fear, Desire
Trust and Tryst
One letter separates.
Trusting another with deepest
Longings, dark hidden places.
Secrets.
Fearful, afraid of the destructive
Forces of lust, love
And longing.
We know the
Consuming doom
Of expressing
Desire.
Carl Setzer: Word Shaper 