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, exposed, face-to-face,
But still I forgot to ask why you were loitering
Just outside such a damnable place.
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.
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
Or the fear of inestimable loss.
He needed time to think about
This question of love, to contemplate
The reality of solitude or the
Possibility of greater satisfaction.
And his hesitation was her answer.
She knew that whatever love is,
She would never feel it for him.
She could see a future free from
Waffling and wavering solidarity.
She imagined a life where love
Never demands a sacrifice.
For her, love was ultimately freedom
Of choice to soldier forth in unity.
And she knew love as a litany of lies:
Each person has only one intended.
Love is blind to the beauty of others.
Love is a freshly paved road.
Love is a bind, a prison, a restraint.
Love is devotion, obedience, compliance.
He saw love as a list of restrictions,
But she saw love as a prison break.
She no longer thought so much
About love. She only lived
With enthusiasm for those moments
That brought her unalloyed joy.
She decided to be selfish and
Forget about the cares of others.
And her dogged egoism brought her
Continually to your arms.
And if she had not, my dear friend,
You could not stand on your own.
At the interview, she said,
“These are some designs I’ve been
Working on since I got out of jail.”
On his dating profile, he said,
“I’ve finished the last course of antibiotics
And feel I’m ready to date again.”
At dinner, she confessed,
“I listened to a Justin Bieber song to see what it was
And I ended up listening to the entire album.”
At the office sexual conduct training, he admitted,
“I once positioned myself in the audience
So that I could see Grace Jones changing costumes.”
And I feel I must disclose that
I saw you eating in a café,
And I wanted to break through the glass
To get to you as the door would take too long.
I wanted to be close enough to absorb
Stray electrons orbiting your body.
I wanted our consciousness to commingle,
So I could know all that you know.
I wanted to share your feelings of
Elation, sorrow, indifference.
I wanted eternity. I wanted permanence.
As your gaze rose, I started,
Coughed, looked toward the pavement,
And shuffled off, slack-shouldered, to the east.
A farmer working in a field with his children formed
A bucolic scene in the countryside, maybe.
An older man crashed his bicycle and
Injured his leg, or so it would seem.
On the first tour, these scenes did not
Seem so ambiguous. The world
Had not given over to chaos then.
A soldier might still pass with a sense of purpose.
On the second tour, doubt set in,
And the soldiers sometimes faltered
In indecision–perhaps the wedding
Party was filled with combatants.
On the third tour, everyone is
A combatant. Everyone must die.
The universe is infinite and absolute
Hostility, death the only possible escape.
He asked whether I thought US soldiers
May have committed atrocities.
I asked whether he had support
For his mental health needs.
He answered only with
A desperate, pleading smile.
Whatever the liberals do,
You’re against it.
You’d destroy their position,
If you could understand it.
You bought an expensive coffee pot
Just to destroy in some boycott.
But liberals have done something new,
So you have to set fire to your shoes.
I wrote this poem at 10 am
after a good night’s sleep
And a satisfying breakfast.
I was stone-cold sober,
And not the least hung over.
The sun shown brightly,
Without a hint of harshness,
And a nourishing breeze
Preserved the morning freshness.
My thoughts were untroubled
By the news of the world,
And the birds sang songs
Celebrating morning unfurled.
And I thought of you,
Running through bluebonnets,
Diving trough the air as if
You believed you could fly.
Laughing and screaming
As you ran into my arms.
I threw you higher,
And higher again,
But you’d never be satisfied
By the strength of a mortal.
You are unsatisfied still,
But I will wish you all
The way to the stars,
If I can, because that is
Where you should be,
And I am where I am.
Here. Earthbound.
And above ground,
For awhile longer.
Instead of “why is this happening?”
I ask, “What is this teaching me?”
I understand that all failure is feedback,
And I want to grow in full self-awareness.
Perhaps this rejection is telling me
That I don’t deserve to be loved,
Or this earthquake is teaching me
I live in a chaotic and hostile universe.
I think the shadows in the room
Want me to know I will always be alone.
Perhaps this new and fatal diagnosis is
God’s way of saying all prayers go unanswered.
And I suppose it may be the case that your
Betrayals have taught me to never trust again.
The rain of abuse has flooded my soul,
And my spirit drowns in a sullied sea.
I’ve learned the lessons of helplessness
And despair by the glow of an eternal flame.
In the end, all suffering comes from life,
And a universe free from suffering
Results only from all encompassing death.
(Note: I wrote this poem by looking up “rhymezone” on Rhymezone.com and copying all the resultant rhymes. A couple of the words are used incorrectly, which is sort of the point.)
It’s okay to use a rhyming dictionary,
But some poets are so addicted to Rhymezone,
It seems like a crime zone,
Across every time zone.
Worse than a dry calzone.
But you rhyme ecstatically, emphatically,
And oh so enthusiastically.
Maybe a bit erratically,
But always dramatically,
Even if not grammatically,
But certainly dogmatically.
And I would say fanatically.
It’s all about your narcissism,
Nothing but verbal tourism,
I don’t want a schism,
And I’m sorry for the criticism.
But I can’t see through your prism,
It’s like linguistic fascism.
It’s not as bad as plagiarism,
But it’s poesy fetishism.
A kind of literary nihilism.
How about some amelioration?
It just takes a bit of cognation.
You’ll be proud of your creation,
When you lose the rhyming fixation,
Try a blank flirtation,
I’m not trying to be imperious,
But get serious, mysterious,
It’s not so deleterious
To be just a bit ethereous.
I know audiences prefer the doggerel
And the strutting of a cockerel.
You may think I’m a dotterel,
But my poetic license is post-doctoral.
Sure, with so many words, you can always rhyme one.
But your first blank verse will be a milestone.
Cause you got no laurels to lie on.
Shames gonna hit you like a cyclone.
You’re just grist for my grindstone.
I give you a clue cause you can’t buy one.
And here’s some talent you can try on.
Don’t despair, I have a shoulder you can cry on.
You can keep your rhymes,
I’ll write my own.
As Eliot would say,
I buried the corpses dutifully
In the garden last autumn
With hopes of ghostly greetings to come.
Now, feeding them with
Spikes and multicolored fluids,
I wonder how they will arise,
Whether they will rise.
A regeneration, perhaps,
Or a redemption for
Last year’s cataclysm
Of paradoxical fecundity.
How does the overgrowth
Thrive so heartily
When I’ve launched such
Devious plots against it?
How does the life
I’ve coaxed so tenaciously
Defy me with such a persistent
Affront to my unfounded optimism?