Poetry - Why Must There be Iambs?

Iambics are the sky through which words fly
Formations sweeping all five seasons across
In order royal and in right service to
The aspirations of all noble youths

For verses built without a careful plan
Fall but as clutter on a wasted page
Their meanings and intents broken apart
And lost (like sophomores between each class)

Free verse is only an unanswered why:
Iambics are the sky through which dreams fly

What is life??
a rope
between birth and death

What is rope??
It made of threads

What is thread??
It made out of cotton

what is cotton??
It comes out of tree

what is tree?!
a Nature

What is nature??
a birth of life..

What is life??
Go to the start....

You don't know her
She is always forgotten

In your memories but soon your lips will only describe her as nondescript

The script of her life
How did she go from being so sweet to rotten
From just nightmares to sleep walking

Sweet ole her
Innocent and pure
Now she is impaired

In the need of refinement
But she doesn't have the strength to try it

You see she is chained to the past
Barely saw her dad
He was mean
Always got the last word

Drunk and abusive
Her mom was an unbloomed tulip
Looked kind but was bitter to her daughter

They'd fight and she would cry at night
She was ashamed of and had extreme anger for mother

How can you watch as she takes hits
Instead of intervening

Police bust down the doors and drag dad to jail
To the homeless shelter we go
No money, no home
It is cold

I barely knew what was going on around me
Refuse to talk to adults because they were all so confusing
And honestly my questions only led to answers that were lies

I had fear in my eye
The things that I had seen
The smoke filled air I'd breathe

Let's not forget the bullies
That talk stuff because I was so "imperfect"

Never had the latest brands
Because mom had no bands

Let's not forget how dad was back again
All hope was drained
She had thoughts of suicide and then a boy came

Walked his way in
She spilled her ink onto his page
He left anyways

Guess her story was too boring

You don't know her
You did at a time

She is nothing but rotten
And only meant to be forgotten

I need something new
old is painful, rarely true
what I would give for something new
to be one half of a part of two
in my dreams I see something new
something beautiful, rare, and few
my heart longs for something new
to kiss precious lips that God drew
I need something new
I need someone like you

Who tries to grow out of this cold
Unfolding wings from nothing
Nurtured with meager protection
Nourished with watery milk
Whose fingers try to burrow
the dry clay, the impenetrable rock
Who wants to excavate what turned
to stone?

In preservation conservation hides
In self protection arms as withered
branches wrap around what turned
to stone, knowing that deep inside
one little ember glows, still glows
There one small drop of water
remains, once a pool in polished
rounded slab of stone, rubble
remaining consciousness

This is what grows, this is one
seed of hope, one tiny root, one
drop of water, one ember of
warmth, one knowing once
belonged to a field of glacier
While only cold remains in
once warm heart that blindly
searches, searches.

*

March 25, 2017
Copyright © Darren White

Remember, when we were kids
We had time and place for everything
Now we box up hastily in a limited space
Like we have to buy air to breathe
We circling our own footprints
But time isn't going faster
And place isn't wrong
And trees in the neighborhood
Are as startling as ones at some fancy resort
When did we stop to notice
That time is always there for us
To write a letter to an old friend
And wait for an answer
With the same conviction
As we so stupidly wait for "the right time"

So simple, so free,
Rare, extraordinary,
The one and only.