real poets fire blank verse

 

dead horses saddled and flogged         the symbol of futility       ideographs of broken people      damaged and confused              forty years in the harness      dragging for the man      at the end of my bloody tether       I pulled a smash and grab        I stole an ounce of freedom           if only in my head       I took to scrawling words        to score some gravy with my bread         

those first were words ugly       but beautiful just the same        so I rearranged their order          and gave them different names       some they say there's madness in my method       that I have a turn of phrase       but from where I stir the pot        all words look the same        there is no magic incantation       no happy ever after          I may as well tear up those words       and post them down the crapper

hear my voice: "Dagger".

gently turn the tides

 

I ebb and flow         a creature born of circumstance        I apply strictly crooked reasoning         to this strictly crooked world                  I chart the geometry of being          deploying instruments         of my own design           it's an esoteric task       but mine is a ministry          a ministry of one         I'd love to touch the sun              with my banner fully unfurled      but for the moment     I'm consigned to ebb and flow       on the gently turning tide  

I ebb and flow         a captive of coincidence             I speak when I'm spoken to         this is no time for clever  rhetoric               they can lock you up        for speaking too loud       so I mind my own business        and mark my own time        worldly concerns are best left for those          who will carve a new paradigm       from the flotsam of the old        but in the meantime          I simply ebb and flow      while the tide gently turns

The Crow Road

 

with the fullness of time      it will always come to this     that we shall walk the crow road       with the darkness in our eyes        and splinters in our feet      but we meanwhile shield our eyes        from the awful truth       we live an allotted time      and are one day rendered meat

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heroes

 

they say a hero is partially courageous   but mostly foolish     that maybe a hero is just a regular guy   who made an honest mistake   a guy who wants to run like everybody else     but doesn’t    what’s he afraid of do you think?

maybe there are no heroes    maybe we are all driven by fear    maybe we’re just a pack of dogs     marking our territories with piss   perhaps the real heroes know this    because they’ve been paying attention   and they know that this life just a childish game

just who is and who isn’t a hero?    that would depend who’s side you are on   one man’s hero is another man’s villain    we are all heroes in our own minds     few ever see themselves as villainous    until it’s too late    and the villainy is done

for some a hero is someone willing to die for a cause    maybe heroism isn’t about dying for something   but living for something    in truth the common notion of heroism is a fiction    an entertainment      our prisons are full of heroes     but nobody cares  about them

I’m told there is a hero within each of us     but there are more tyrants than heroes within us    I pity anyone who needs a hero    because heroes are thin on the ground   villainy is much more common     you can always count on villains to show up on time

*Image: ‘The Death Of Achilles’  Corfu, Greece