~ Poets' Corner

I arrived quite promptly at the market square
in hopes that a buyer of my horse would be there.
I required the pounds for a debt I would pay
on a drunken wager lost yesterday.

Since I hadn't the coinage to make the debt good,
I had three horses, and one of them could.
The eldest was frail and sickly indeed,
and this one I'd barter to cover the deed.

“Damn this mare,” I mused to myself,
“I have two others in much greater health.”
So this one I marched to the market square,
a crooked old horse and a broken down mare.

I grinned at the fancy of the next to own her,
Indeed he would curse me, that dejected owner.
But of concern to me was a debt to be paid
regardless of trade or deceit that I played.

It soon became solid as the day wore on
I would have no purchaser for which to pawn
this decrepit old mare I began to detest,
and l lowered her price to a second-best.

The market square secured its shops
as dark clouds clustered over naked tree tops,
and the sun sank low in the village West,
along with the outlay to an any-best.

The beast was not fancied, this seemed certain.
The village fled home from the stormy curtain
that swelled to black in the Eastern sky,
and men scurried by as loud as I'd cry.

A gale wind coughed, and I fell, chilled to the bone.
The eve had fallen, and I surrendered home.
The distance was great, so I left the square
with arrears unsettled, on a crooked mare.

The air was ice and inkwell black,
I made hasted homeward ~ I headed back
to a simple cottage on the seashore's shelf,
lived in by none but my ripe-aged self.

I charged on thunder while galloping East
through a wooded trail of many o' beast.
Yet the clouds cracked open and wept their souls
as I dashed up the path of mud-filled holes.

With reins in hand and hooves at trail
I galloped away on a mount so frail
that she cracked like a twig and fell to the ground.
I drew my colt and she neighed no sound.

I scurried on foot through the sleeting aire
when I heard the wind whisper a whimper where
the pitch of night stood: front, back, and side ~
the whimper-o'mourn when the living has died.

A cold like steel had ripped me apart,
considering the dead that I strode without heart:
'I pressed the horse with unbroken strain
whilst blind to the beast's compiling pain.'

My pace had quickened at this culpable thought
and through the sea of sleet I fought
my way to safety, to my shelter on the shore
where the unrested being will concern me no more.

But the horror had established it truth at once
when I heard a neigh from the broken horse
that I erased with my colt ~ a shot to the head
and checked it for life; I'm sure she was dead.

Yet now I gathered the following steps
of the once-dead beast and then perhaps
the dragging sound of a twisted hoof
as it scraped the rocks in horrid proof
that the horse's immortal was haunting its master ~
the soul that slew her was the whole she was after.

“Away, you pest!” I snapped at the wind,
but it squalled all the greater and stinging again,
pulling and tugging at my buttoned coat seam
whilst infecting my ears with a yowling scream.

For many o' mile I charged through the rain
to flee this beast of wandering pain.
Its horrible hoof lay scratching the stones
and flushing a madness through my very bones.

Finally I broke through the fields of my home
and fixed my sight on its comforting stone.
I broke with a passion whilst gasping for aire
since I knew at the cottage, my saneness was there.

Upon reaching the door, I spun wide around
to see only sleet and a fallow ground.
I found no hoofed demon as I imagined last ~
I bent over heaving whilst convulsions passed.

I studied the earth at a branch I could feel
lodged in the rear of my split boot heel
that mimicked the sound of a dragging hoof,
my fear was madness as there lay the proof.

Then I mused at the fancy of my spurious fright
of fleeing from ghosts in the midst of night.
I unbolted the door and my cheeks flushed red
as there stared the mare with a gap in her head!

Can poems be coined merely for play
in similar manner as in olden day
or must they be butchered; dissected away
by awful autopsy after poets' decay?

“What happened to us? We demand recourse!”
Should critical dissection be the only force
that drives us poets to lay our course
in some cryptic prescription even rivaling Morse?

“We must say, no!” There are no such things
as puppet-like poems fitting critics' strings.
“QASHAB!”
All rhymes are rich by autonomous means,
and all verse is perfect when its poet sings.

We sing of spirits and dancing fairies,
of wine and women and moment that varies
'tween whim and madness that surely carries
with it some weight of worthy tally.

How dare you declare our words were wasted,
proclaiming our pieces as merely pasted,
when effort was such that we poets tasted
meaningful measures; preserved and unwasted.

Humble us now, oh Critical One,
Have you noted all prose we poets have done?
Comparing ourselves, you should certainly shun
in light of the Poet, the Counter-Critical One.

How must we give birth, oh Demanding One,
that our free-form fancy be your dutiful son?
Is there such a rule that you are the one
to raise our children? Your precision done?

We implore you Critic; critique this piece
and wave your wand that it rest in peace.
“Abreq ad habra!” Cast it down as stain and crease ~
as a leaf of languishing language released.

When condemning this leaf, you do solemnly swear
by the blood of all poets ~ us everywhere,
that all verse is worthless; all is despair
no matter the meter or genius we share.

“HARK!”
Since this is the poem where we poets do speak:
“We are neither your slaves, nor humble, nor meek,
but are lords of these worlds you contemptibly seek.
And your bounds are but ours to break and critique!”

Never lives a damon god-dog nomad as evil'r even
as a snake, which bewitched Eve to eat of Evil, condemning Man
to wander the world ~ that devil and evil jackal from Heaven.

That prideful angel and wicked warlord, whence from Heaven driven,
Angered God against Creation, to spawn a flood of forty span.
Never lives a damon god-dog nomad as evil'r even.

Tempter of mortals, that immoral and heretical heathen
Gambled as a god 'gainst goodly Job: a gentleman, better than
to wander the world ~ that devil and evil jackal from Heaven.

Gadarenes Man with a legion and then Magdalene with seven.
Satan's minions possess the masses; damons damned with his clan.
Never lives a damon god-dog namad as evil'r even.

Apostate of Apocalypse, seven heads and ten crowns given,
And himself did scripture describe: A dragon awakened, with plan
to wander the world ~ the devil and evil jackal from Heaven.

Morningstar shines no more, since fallen in sin among our brethren.
That god-like damon drifts as wandering wolf, stalking what it can.
Never lives a damon god-dog nomad as evil'r even
to wander the world ~ that devil and evil jackal from Heaven.

Cracked Floor Forest Dehydrated
Leaf Crunch Aire Dusty Grey Ash
Brittle Splinters Parched Logs Patient
Twig Crunching Vine Brown Earth

Blue Invasion Gray Cumulus Clusters
Aire Dense Whisking Wind Crackle Flashes
Million Crystals Celestial Settle Hishing
Brown Bubble Sound Standing Tree Mirrors

Steamed Floor Swollen Worms Sunken Dead
White Flesh Caps Eve Fog-Frogs Numberless
Rotting Aire Wood Sponges Soaked Yellow Dank Pulp
Mushroom Moment ~ No Lastingness ~ ^Spring ^^Sprout ^^^Haste!!!

Greetings anew, grand boneyard.
What privy parts do you hold,
and why is it that none is home
in your sacred sprawl of memories olde?

Show me your most decrepit stones, my friend,
that I may determine forthwith how you grew
spreading from that ancient cedar, outward,
to this row of headstones planted new.

Whom do you protect from me, my pumpkin?
Fe, Fi, Show me the thief and the preacher!
Make known your earthen mounds of nameless slaves.
Pray tell, I smell a swallowed soldier and a teacher!

So grand you are to guard such grave secrets ~
so kingly serene you seem with a belly of bounteous death ~
so soothing as Solomon you seem to all who arrive,
yet the living visit only long enough to catch a guilt or breath.

Do they come to rub a wish upon your belly, my dear;
or do they show simply to re-sentence themselves?
Why do they hasten to leave, again, from your jaw-ajar gates,
as if you were some whale, and them a freed Jonah as well?

No matter, a gentle lamb in wolf's hide you are, my bittersweet.
For your placid cold bosom, I have always known you.
I arrive again another day, not to visit olde bones, my grand advocate,
since I pay my respects to no greater memory here than you.

... Over and again,
how I despise the sprawled sheet
upon which I so wisely wondered last.
Nauseating, as it lay barren, I nurse it again
as prescribed by many abortions passed ~ a requisite
to bare witness if the quill will give birth to flesh and bone,
or instead, vomit forth another abandoned crumpled paper companion
nigh six legs of persistence ~ two pacing, anxiously awaiting delivery,
and the drawing board's remaining four,
exclaiming for: “Over and again” ...

Fun Trivia: Do you know what a "palindrome" is? Did you spot the palindrome used in one of the above poems on this page? If you didn't notice it earlier, go back and search for a gigantic 38-letter palindrome. See if you can find it!