Be careful all you free-versin’ poetic hook-up artists and practitioners of unprotected textual *******. There are pernicious poetic maladies out there online. Casual cruising of ****** sites might infect your soul with bad verse. The wages of sin is death; but I would spare you AND your muse any viral  regrets.

Random coupling with unstructured lines you just picked up at some postmodern poetry site is NOT a healthy lifestyle in the long run. Go ahead–-call me a Victorian *****. Make fun of meter and rhyme schemes. Hoot at message-oriented versification. Throw inchoate drivel in my face… but when you come down with a compromised semantic system or an embarrassing case of nihilistic verborrhea, don’t come crying to me.

This has been a poetic public health reminder.

Your poems read as staggered prose;
the rhythm of the words escapes you.
One assumes, un-mused, you chose
a free-verse prison to run into.
You are modern. And it shows
in lack of structure, meter, beat.
Your emperor, set free of clothes
meanders on unsteady feet
exposed as naked, fending blows
from anarch subjects bored to tears
by cryptic, existential woes
and dreary imagery. One hears
within the verbiage you compose
a load of godless free-form tripe.
The lyrical ebb achieves new lows;
the scent is somewhat over-ripe…

the bottle twists
glass falls in drifts
and air parts like flesh

there’s a terror beneath this city
trucks enter from out of town and shake the power lines
passing without pause

sometimes birds gather for days
chirps grow exponentially
before tailing into silence;
heather and brimstone
little bodies roll to the edges
and burst on the streets in red regalia

a somnolence keeps the city forgetful
time flows in fits
a streetlamp; a raven; ten gravestones
it all runs without moving

vessels dilate
hands hold themselves

there’s nothing to breathe with
an empty chalice, turned on the hour grants
heaving clenching writhing
an ocean of rust
bulb shatters, blood spills out her
mouth cave head turn faith
the world remakes itself
*******
the colour of sunflowers
bicycle chains
thirst
colonialism
wet paint

emptiness over emptiness
act without agent
lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack
peel the flesh and find flesh
always more flesh
don’t stop they know better
chirp chirp chirp
turn
exit
substance
purpose
nothing

♪☺☻☺♪

Free verse was captured,
confined to a cell
by readers unraptured
in modernist hell.

And there he did languish
while chained to the wall
and desperate in anguish
gave forth a last call:

“Listen and read me—
my muse is the best!
Applaud and then feed me,
your starving guest !

Don’t fall for that beat…
Please ignore their old line.
I’m here. I’m effete.
I’m a modern divine…

I like it in prison
No, really — I’m free!”
(But his lock was awaiting
Your Readership’s key.

For the moderns all lie,
as your readership knows;
Modern poets don’t die—
they just decompose.)

Silence echoes round her
Making her tinnitus audible.
It smacked at walls,
A flat,
B sharp.
Chiming.
Chiming.
The little girl next door had a throat infection.
She was in the choir,
Singing for the night.

Dear Adulterer

the present is the only girl worth living
for in her bed is where you
always are

time brings about the decay of perfection

always,
breathe

and lend half a knee to the ground

to send naked prayers to the sky
for wifi—
we are supposed
to be our ancestor’s sci-fi.

What if I took some words
From Pablo Neruda
Copy and paste
The most beautiful of sentiments
What if I took his words
And said they were mine

And you didn't know who he was
And you didn't known who I am
Would his acclaim
Go unnoticed

Would if I felt the same
As Pablo Neruda
And my imagination saw a rose grow
From a young woman's hands
And through her lips
I could hear it blooming

But you don't know who he is
You don't know who I am
If I used his words
You would think me just a fool

And not a poet laureate
Not a Nobel prize award
Not a voice throughout the ages
Just a young man

Wasting his time......

I wonder sometimes
why droll observations;
recollections of a personal and
sometimes confessional nature,
(interesting enough in themselves – if well-written),
get called “poems” when broken up by
weird line spacing. Nothing against
descriptive prose –
but I don’t think it is truly
Poetry. You can call it that
if you want; I don’t
mind.

They throw bombs like I throw parties
And it’s equally hit and miss
Often a mess, never a success
And still we throw and throw

They have Molotov cocktails,
While I serve the regular kind
They’ll bomb your mind to pieces
While I serve peace of mind.

No bloodshed but ****** Mary,  
No barbarian, but Cosmopolitan
And my Irish Car Bombs and Kamikazes
Don’t bring death, but only fun

And the Paradise I’m aiming for
Contains gin instead of virgins
And Nixon doesn’t feed the flames
But keeps us frisky with its whiskey

So we’ll keep on throwing parties
And they’ll keep on throwing bombs
And we’ll keep on serving cocktails
Just to keep our conscience numb