Absolutely

The lights turned on bright
Hardly dispel the darkness,
The walls are not pale
But dark like Winter’s dusk
With shades, shadows, arriving.
Still, there are windows,
Onto the outside, shining,
With friendly glow, warmth,
But at times, this fails to rouse
Adequate joy to sustain.
Chosen to wander
Where needs must finally go
To arrange brief lives
With satisfaction enough –
Will exists to continue.
Every life matters –
Purpose burns absolutely,
Never giving in,
Coming fully alive, now,
Each life to liberate, save.

Allegiance

It is not like me
To dwell here inside my flesh;
My mind is often
An aptly chosen abode,
Words my finest furniture.
You, however, call
Me into reality,
My visions react
To your being with growing
Hopes, you may one day love me.
Time beating unkind
Reverts to seeming stillness
When you hold me near;
Better dreams, futures appear,
We, together, display promise.

What you see is quite different from what came out in my journal (in Kindness Pink ink), but I think it serves well. Again, I used the syllable counts for tanka and strung three together.

I keep thinking I will find some other forms, but I have almost always been a Free Verse poet. It is hard to break the habits of a lifetime.

What forms do you like? Can you illustrate one?

If you are another type of writer or artist, what patterns do you see in your work? Can you break with those, change things up?

I went to the library yesterday. Oh, what a treasure trove I amassed. I appeased my dragon self with a horde of books. No zombies though, no, done with those for now, maybe ever.

Beyond Here

Please strap me in, tight,
I am afraid of rollercoasters,
Runaway, lost in time,
Unanchored in the
How, what, when, where, who, why –
It is, I am, belong.
I dream of better days,
But the daze of dreams cannot,
Without concerted effort
Hope to materialize;
Reality is
A making space where things
Become only sometimes substantial.
I have staked my ideas in loamy soil –
Of inked paper, but little traction
My words have created, they slide
As if on brittle ice or hydroplane
Under driving rain, to be read
But seldom, perhaps never, again.
I believe in the Word,
I know nothing except language,
The romance of apt phrases long
Ago seized me taking most,
All the heart, mind, soul of me.
Who am I –
If not a creator, lyricist, poet,
Wordsmith, writer, an interpreter
Of things glimpsed, but rarely seen?
I am the shade of ink spilled,
A shadow in eternity,
Sent to speak, who am too weak
To fight, yet engage in
Extraordinary battles
In the war of the soul,
Continuously going on.
I must not eject injuriously
Now, though the rollercoaster
Sore abrade me, its brutality
Coaches me to fight my fears
Remaining a force for LOVE,
Understanding, in our
Destructively sybaritic world.

Cognition

What is harder than diamonds,
But fuels like coal?
The blatant disregard
We have for the dear things
Held sacred within people’s souls.
Often, we, unknowing
As a freshly diapered babe
Are only in ourselves given to see
What shines, brilliantly bright,
Though around us circle
Unnumbered universes of light –
Revealed in eyes that announce
Narratives of creation, creativity,
Inspiration, independently sourced.
We unthinkingly rush
In
Abhorrent uniform to wreak
Havoc with demands to conform –
The mountains, oceans, sky,
Beg, please have mercy on
Everyone, see, hear, know
All are brief and majestic,
Passing flowers of eternity.
We never exist alone, galaxies,
Civilizations, populations
Are inherently our home.
No strangeness is too strange,
For love survives all vexation,
Bringing reflections of potentiality.
Remember everything, every –
One of us is striving to graduate
To higher realms of becoming,
Being, meaning, which cannot
Block out or isolate the present.

Dues We Pay

Today will not lay down
Before you,
It is a gamble –
Turning cards, rolling dice;
There is a cost, a sacrifice…
You may have paid yesterday,
Or the price can come due tomorrow –
But whatever it is, anything you do,
The bill will be in the box demanding
Your hours spent making currency
Of your life, who you have become
Who you will grow further to be.
Smile,
Yes, smile,
Let go the doubt that troubles,
Even as you are, others too must be,
All are transcribing signals –
Determining how to be happy in
The constraints of our humanity.
As you stand before your mirror
Bless the image you see,
Recognize you belong,
A part of everything:
Snow-melt off the mountains,
Sunlight baking asphalt,
Electricity coursing through the wires,
Dogs barking erratically,
Grass growing until mown –
You are past, present, and futurity.