(Poem #328 on new numbering scheme)
summer now the heat has come a bird ranting just outside
(Poem #328 on new numbering scheme)
summer now the heat has come a bird ranting just outside
(Poem #327 on new numbering scheme)
The cat was jumping in the shrubs and grass that occupied the edges of the path. No one was seeing it, which set it free, just like a tree that falls in the forest.
(Poem #326 on new numbering scheme)
I have this inventory: broken things, non-functioning, old things - not problems, just invitations to live more simply, so my ancient television only asks that I not watch it. How can I resist?
(Poem #325 on new numbering scheme)
The sky like tarnished silver overlooks a world replete with immaterial digressions which the philosophers speak, until at last the night consumes it all.
(Poem #324 on new numbering scheme)
This morning tasted just like cancer. Well, you might just wonder: what does that taste like? It tastes just like most other mornings do, except your gut is filled with burning, fierce desires to keep breathing and stay alive.
(Poem #323 on new numbering scheme)
She murdered monkeys by proxy by crafting tales of woe the monkeys didn't know their fate because she was a pro.
– this quatrain in ballad meter is about a certain student I have, who makes up rather gruesome stories about my little toy monkeys that come with me to class.
(Poem #322 on new numbering scheme)
I am not rational. I lack the type of psychiatric infrastructure that provides the kind of commonplace support that normal people seem to have in spades.
(Poem #321 on new numbering scheme)
The architect denied the thing's existence. Then he said "The shapes create a volume which is only in your head."
– a return to ballad meter.
(Poem #320 on new numbering scheme)
The planet kept on spinning like a plate that someone threw down on the floor, and still it kept on spinning, rolling in a curve, an aimless helix, then it flopped down, still.
(Poem #319 on new numbering scheme)
The sea was reaching long arms through the rifts of green, wet valleys; grasping at the peaks of mountains with her cloud-hands; fine-grained snow was falling on the beach in steady clumps; the eyes of all the world were blinking, each a ghost that watched the other ghosts alone.
– this poem may be related to another poem I wrote long ago. In any event, the setting is Mahhalian.
(Poem #318 on new numbering scheme)
A house of infinite extent unfolds across the level plains of consciousness, inhabited by many ghosts that drift amid a bestiary rife with dreams.
(Poem #317 on new numbering scheme)
Kids: open young minds want to receive what they are taught but then they get pulled away by the pointless distractions that culture endlessly gives to them such that there's no room left for knowledge.
– a return to the nonnet form.
(Poem #316 on new numbering scheme)
So has the Linux O/S ever been included in a quatrain of blank verse? I wondered this as I ran some updates and wrote this stupid poem while at work.
(Poem #315 on new numbering scheme)
So are we doomed? Do we plummet down, toward some kind of anodyne apocalypse? Or are we all just victims who a fate has blinded by perceptions hinting truths?
[daily log: walking, 1km]
(Poem #314 on new numbering scheme)
A strong wind had helped push away the smog but nevertheless moods were dark at work. I walked home under the peach colored moon and wondered what strange thing would happen next.
(Poem #313 on new numbering scheme)
In summer's light concrete turns white; the city might fade into smoke. Ants feel no mirth: the grains of earth have their own worth; trails turn baroque. So as time goes, a full moon glows; a damp wind flows. Then the clouds broke.
– this is a Welsh form called rhupunt. I’m not sure I like it – the rhyme scheme is pretty demanding and with the short lines, it ends up too singsongy.
(Poem #312 on new numbering scheme)
To find success, you might try just to change what that word means. It then will come quite fast. If we allow those other people rights to choose our goals, they choose our failure too.
– Lately these haven’t been so “random” – mostly I’ve been doing quatrains in blank verse (unrhymed pentameter). But I already did quatrains in a different style, so that name is taken. I guess I’ll keep calling them “Random Poems.” Anyway I get to keep the freedom to change my mind about what format to use, then. I define my own success.
(Poem #311 on new numbering scheme)
The corpses of long expectations dwelt against the broken earth like homeless men. Dark green mosses grew fierce among the stones but nothing moved; only falling raindrops.
(Poem #310 on new numbering scheme)
The holiday fell like rain all around my Tuesday; I kept watch inside my brain, but everything was gray.
(Poem #309 on new numbering scheme)
It's hard to know why he kept fighting them; they were just spinning windmills after all; but he announced they were demonic beasts, and battled them till they, bewildered, fled.
(Poem #308 on new numbering scheme)
An escalator carried me below, where I met ghosts who haunted subway trains; their writhing nothingnesses captured me and caused my eyes to droop in naked sleep.
[daily log: walking 2.5km]
(Poem #307 on new numbering scheme)
An algebraical theology perhaps makes possible reflective thoughts of strange and doubtful meanings all arrayed in rows of figures bending into night.
(Poem #306 on new numbering scheme)
By means of time small people take on weights they would not otherwise begin to bear and understanding each year's progress till at last the heaviest thing buries them.
– this is my first ever effort at blank verse, which is arguably English’s most important poetic meter.
(Poem #305 on new numbering scheme)
The free spirits of mountains, of ephemeral cities lacking well-conceived futures, of unnamed rivers and lakes shimmering on horizons, of towers spiraling up, asymptotic to time's lines, these spirits will not speak, but loiter on the pale edges of maps, of dreams, of stories.
(Poem #304 on new numbering scheme)
I don't like the sun it makes me feel tired
(Poem #303 on new numbering scheme)
The man's moped was his cathedral, where he could sit, watch people, make deliveries, or just smoke. He had three smartphones - a kind of makeshift dashboard - attached at the front with bungee cords.
– this poem is completely random.
(Poem #302 on new numbering scheme)
The fading sun made aimless grasps against the window such that glass became purple illumination without shape. I bent over my book with my neck tensed because the tiny lamp's lighted circle denied me its narrow landscape.
This is not a quatrain. I don’t know what it is – I guess it’s a sestet, and it’s got some kind of metrical thing going on. But I think I’m not going to weld myself to a specific form, for now. I thus will just call them poems, and we’ll see what happens if I make one every day. I had been intending to change over to some continuing series of poems that were thematically (as opposed to structurally) unified, when I got to around 100 quatrains, but I didn’t. So now I am dropping the quatrains, but I still don’t have a theme worked out. So I’ll just post whatever, I guess, for now. Or forever.
(Poem #301 on new numbering scheme)
Some leaves with flashing silver eyes begin to spin as wind attempts to steal from them their trust and leaving them chagrinned.
– a quatrain in ballad meter.
[daily log: walking, 1km]
(Poem #300 on new numbering scheme)
Most people seem alarmed to learn I rarely feel alone. They ask me why, insist I must spend time with those I've known.
– a quatrain in ballad meter.
(Poem #299 on new numbering scheme)
I stepped out today feeling rushed - forgot my metaphors. So things were dull, like dirt or jobs. My words waged pointless wars.
– a quatrain in ballad meter.
(Poem #298 on new numbering scheme)
I didn't mean to keep writing these droll, clichéd quatrains, but time stole my initiative and now I'm lacking brains.
– a quatrain in ballad meter.
(Poem #297 on new numbering scheme)
Three simple songs were sung among the faces going by. I knew these songs in passing, then, though all the years did fly.
A song of patient worrying came first, a princess true. The second song had deep kindness, but understandings, few.
The third song had the boldest heart, but passions rather wild. These songs departed. But today, a song returned... and smiled.
– three quatrains in ballad meter. This poem is not just a hallucination or metaphor, unlike as is the normal case with most of my poetry. Rather, it has a fairly important and specific subtext, which will make the meaning quite clear.
(Poem #296 on new numbering scheme)
Parts of the world declaim to others by means of movements small and large, that spiral and conspire to etch scars on us all.
– a quatrain in ballad meter.