Poetry is just a tool

To speak your mind, not serve as rule.

Constructed help to bear one's soul,

Declare one's love, or friend console.

To speak in verse is but a scheme,

A packaging for fancy dream.

Fixing meter's common place,

But it's up to the writer's taste.

To rhyme, to pair these simple sounds,

To fuel the whimsy, feed these hounds,

Can sometimes be itself a crutch,

Or hind'rance if it's used too much.

The feeling and it's heartfelt message,

Speak more than some structured presage;

Create your voice from humble words,

An ode or sonnet, praise or gird.

Loose your arrows, verbal arcs,

And dot the Earth with sharp remarks

And when the last launched barb should fall,

Who minds if they should rhyme at all?

When I was a boy
My life was erratic
Volcanoes in Antarctica
Jungles in LA
Shouts and anger; quiet farmstead

As I got older
My heart was erratic
Kisses in the hallway
Bruises on the cheek
Soft words and embraces; angry thoughts

Even older still
My mind was erratic
Screaming at the wall
More clever than ever
Lucid, powerful arguments; raving paranoid delusions

And here I am
I am erratic incarnate
A bundle of sluggish energy
A sonnet written for one girl and an excuse for another
A coil of madness tight around the bright spark of genius
A purely mechanical soul-filled destiny driven fate-less wonder
Do I laugh for the irony or madness?

Since I could remember
My heart has balanced
Along such a thin line
Of right and wrong
Love and hate.
The line already stretched
To the extremes.
Taught with fear and uncertainty.

Tension reached its maximum
When that day came 'round.
Ever since that day
When I learned the truth.
The day my eyes were forcefully
Peeled open by dull razors.
That day the line faded
And the tight rope snapped.

With no line to follow
My heart fell.
Now concussed,
Delirious and confused.
My heart wanders between worlds.
Never certain of who it is
Where it was or
How it should be.

-Kevin Robert Rose

Have you ever made
fun of the way people
walk, what they say,
or how they talk?

Have you ever laughed
at another one's hair,
or because someone
else was square?

Have you ever stared
at another one's feet,
at what some wear,
or what people eat?

Have you ever laughed,
at another fellow
because of the way
he eats jello?

If you have, your not
nice you see, you should
care, it could be you
that gets that stare.

Everyone is special
including you
in what we say
or what we do.