Some writers use poetry

To propound great thoughts

Through deeply intoned vowels,

But poetry is only language,

And you can use it as if

Chatting with a friend

About passing days

And pastimes.

You can pull them in,

Get a laugh or two,

And make them

Trust you

Before thrusting

The knife deep

Into the abdomen,

Drawing it up

Toward the eyes,

As you let...

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An explosion beyond comprehension sent all

The ingredients of the cosmos careening through the void.

Light, matter, and energy diffused chaotically,

Taking billions of years (as we now know them)

To fall into some kind of order, to establish

Some vaguely predictable interactions of

Cosmic proportion. Somehow, trillions of

Particles began to cooperate to form

Molecules of ca...

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What if the hyperreal really isn’t real,

And the news never happened?

Our perceptions are just pixels, photons,

Bits and bytes scattered on a screen.

Gods and monsters both just

Misapprehensions of a troubled mind.

But whose mind is responsible for

The anxiety provoking representation?

Surely some eternal consciousness

Has not conspired to create in y...

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Standing on the platform, waving goodbye to yesterday’s train.
Perhaps you wanted to feel you had a little bit of control.
You’re saying you hope that train never comes back again.

 A peripatetic pretense helps to ease the pain.
It’s a phantom journey, but no one has to know.
Standing on the platform, waving goodbye to yesterday’s train.

You collected yourself, stood erect, and hoped to ...

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I stood outside the gates of Hell,

Ready to dive headlong into flame,

But you put your hand on my shoulder,

Turned me toward you and kissed my face.

You held me tightly against you and promised

You’d protect me for all eternity.

You assured me I was one of the good ones,

And I never should have been in this place.

You led me from the depths to a softer light,

And we lay,...

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It’s best to sneak up on the reader.

Change the meter,

Change the rhyme,

Change the tone,

Or change the subject.

Try to do something unexpected,

Like confessing a crime

Or secret perversion,

Even in a

Short poem.

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He broke her spirit when he declared

He didn’t even know what love is.

She had only asked a simple question

As she planned her own future.

Whilst he resisted closing his options,

He never noticed how open hers were.

She awaited his answer as her suitors

Sat on the sidelines biding their time.

He pretended he didn’t understand

The comfort of constant companionship

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The idea for this poem was to have Metaphor itself tied to a chair and tortured with bad writing. I have a feeling the bad writing comes through, but the meta-metaphor and overall conceit for the poem may be lost. But I guess writing is, in a sense, experimental, even if it isn't falsifiable. So, whatever, here is the poem.

Tortured Metaphor

Every rendition begins with shackles,

And ...

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It seemed you never put down your club

With the handle wrapped in cloth tape.

You patrolled the hallways, playground, and athletic fields

Like a sadistic southern sheriff overseeing slaves.

You thought “abuse of authority” was your job description

As you terrorised children with the constant threat of violence.

Each look, each word, each step you deemed unacceptable

Was met wi...

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They say we carry the dead with us,

And most are surprised by the weight.

We hoist them up on our shoulders,

And imagine our strength is adequate.

But invariably we fault and stumble.

We stagger and trip and fall

We can’t see a way out of this trouble

Each partition becomes a wailing wall

We drop them in the middle of our marriage.

We trip over them when we try...

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I found a picture of you in my arms,

Sleeping securely, safe from harm,

As you knew it, anyway.

Your trust for me was complete,

You wanted for nothing

And thought of my love only

As often as a bird thinks of sky.

You didn’t yet know people

Can go away or even die.

I know how things changed,

But I can’t bear to think of it.

I picture you now, with your love

...

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At an unprogrammed Quaker meeting

The spirit moved someone

To remind us to find our Joy.

After, a friend said she would

Find joy in a nice boy toy.

Or maybe it was a toy boy.

She said one is a boy

You’d like as a toy

And the other is something

A boy would like to play with.

We giggled at that,

And I was reminded of a joke

About a party where everyone

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