poetry, prose, and photography
Echoing voices
Brief flickers of
Light behind my
Eyes seeing potential
Birthed by different
Choices of a life
Not lived
Caught unwary
Tinged these
With regret
Painful loss
Of a false future
A lie told to
Myself
Though I love haiku, I also love creating longer works and free verse.
This strange
Insanity.
I wake early,
Or is it late?
Words flowing
Forth
Desperate for
Capture
My Moleskine
My journal
My sanity
My refuge
Where I dump
Life’s insanity
Returning to
Balance
#Spring’s remnants
Flutter to the ground
Soon nothing left
Save pale, decaying
Petals
Laying here
Sun not yet risen
Quietude dominates.
Bushes outside
This window, soon
Bursting with the
Songs from vigorous
Birds. Oblivious
To their beauty.
They hear stories
Loneliness, violence,
Domination, love and death.
Songs that change daily
Yet remain constant.
Quietude vanishes into life.
Sitting here in suburban Bohemia
Trendy music echos in rafters
My elders march through
Past darkened storefronts
Embracing the silence of the zone.
Sheltered from the sky
Whether dry, cold or kind
Like now, clouds filter sunlight
The air chilled, night’s influence
Lingering like the memory of dreams.
At the edge I wait as
Automotive druids perform
Arcane rites, resurrecting
A weary shell of steel and plastic
Coffee’s tang upon my tongue
Drifting mind
Slaughtered within
Its own rages
Brutalizing itself
Uncaring; damage done
Lost, calling silently
Screaming into
Empty echoes
Heard by no one
And surprised
By the lack
Of response
Heedless of its
Own demand
For isolation.
This vacant
Land inhabited
By the muses
Of misery
Surrounded by angels.
Are they protecting me?
Perhaps holding me back?
Adrift in the cosmos.
Beholden to no one,
And yet not fully free.
Still, fears rise up
Providing discomfort
And misery; wakefulness
When I seek sleep.
Winter’s icy breath
Haunts my dreams.
Awoke, strange chill
Lingering upon my cheek
Arms, sheets, caressing
Silently, presence insisting
Upon awareness.
Carl Setzer: Word Shaper 