What putrefaction oozes up from hell
To poison aquifers of decency
And common sense? The crops of
reason smell And do not nourish the constituency.
What polar vortex drops from unknown heights To freeze the congregations of the heart?
The steeples topple, enmity ignites
And malice rips tranquility apart.
The times devolve. Security and peace, Once real estate on which a home could rise,
Shrugs off its immigrants, revokes its lease
And shows indifference to human cries.
A Lucifer of arrogant display
Has come to sweep benevolence away.

I hate writing in pentameter,
That nagging old parameter reduces
The breadth of expression's diameter.
It's a barrier, a boundary, a cage built around me.
I'd rather cast off the impediment and
Allow my thoughts to sediment freely,
Really, I just can't dig it, ya feel me?  
After a while, it gets so **** repetitive, and
I'll bet it did drive Shakespeare nuts
When he wrote all his sonnets, back
When lords rocked big wigs and their
Ladies wore bonnets. That's another thing
It's been used and abused for like six *******
Centuries, contemptibly does this old relic
Haunt us and daunt us and taunt us
Writing's not meant to be a chore,  
It shouldn't bore and indenture me, but
Rather, set me free me and
Instead be adventure, see?

Wow.
I'm Somehow,
Feeling much better now.

Soft flakes are held aloft while drifting down
to keep those splendid structures quite intact;
Then up from pavement–piling on firm ground–
they halt all urban bustle in its tracks;
Strong plows have tried their best to push snow back,
but once this weather starts I’ve lost control;
It’s time to settle in, hear branches crack
and with my quilts and ***** I'll fight the cold.
How odd that every day has such a hold,
hurling the musts and shoulds with all its might,
until those tiny flakes conspire to scold
nice days for their mad toil and grant respite:
Sometimes it takes the ice and slush outside
to truly feel the warmth from which I hide.

I did not know that poetry has rules.
‘Tis not a craft for ordinary fools.
Those, that form and meter never master,
Are ever doomed; they are the poetasters.
As opera singers, out of tune, do make
Discerning listeners do a double-take,
And chefs, who sprinkle salt instead of sweet,
Serve meals that connoisseurs would never eat;
A writer with a wretched poet’s curse
Will never craft a great Heroic Verse.

So as I count my syllables and feet,
And wonder if my metaphors will meet,
I pray that hypermetrics are okay,
(For I have used a few of them today,)
I’ll leave the verdict, reader, up to you,
Affirm that to my mission, I’ve been true,
Or if the ending to my verse bathetic
Christen me a poet most pathetic.
Heroic Lines in Couplets, I intended;
Judge me, reader, now this verse has ended.

Phil Lindsey 12/24/15

I went and took a nap out in the woods,
and let a blanket made of leaves drown me
with sinking stones of nothing, ravished sea
descending towards a stomach, betraying deeds.

I almost caught a gust of wind, maybe
spilling through cracked fingers, escaping- seen
near spying hairs, then simply sticking here.  
Palms open - arms outstretched.
I shook hands with nothing, its weight crushing.

Tripping over pinecones, understood
by suffocating air between my foot
and strewn upon the concrete: you
mistaking it for woods that we once knew.

I saw a bird skip up this dying tree
singing to the simple sullied sky,
catching wind under its broken wings.
Palms open - arms outstretched
carried by nothing.

When every single night, this clockwork chimes...
simply said I can’t meet my own eyes
for fear of crypts where restless crickets lie,
their ceaseless praying stretching on
till dawn.  

Air thick
suffocating between sheets and mattress,
stones still sinking, carelessly caught by
Palms open - arms outstretched
begging for nothing in particular.

So I took a nap out in the woods today,
my palms open - arms outstretched
suffocated by nothing, but the hugging air
like some stuffed animal I grew up with,
painted with prideful grime.

Fell heal over heads
          in love with a poet,
  he's mostly a rhyme schemer
       likes Poe and his dark Raven,
  in actuality,  I'd fancy him more if
    he were like Pablo Neruda, but I digress
I'm much accurately fashioned after Emily Dickinson
        chasing heaven's June bugs toing and froing,
we'd meet at a perfectly superfluous coffee shop
    he'll be murmuring elegiac pentameter
I'm simply looking to devour precious words,
    we'd argue about abstract destinations,  
            straight forward persuasions and
               premonitions of wayward ink allusions,
some days I want to claw mine own eyes out
               amid all that nonsensical alliteration
  others, I want to rip out embellishments
                   of his black heart's magnification,
he mutters tumult under his breath,
     states he's abundantly sickly tired of all my
         fanatical froufroutant  flourished fantasies,
albeit, we're mild mannered artistes
         of overstatement and simplification
               thus, we continue laying it on thickly
I, with my hyperbolic cuppa tea and honey,
       he's all brass tacks, no nonsense black coffee
ultimately, we reservedly seek gratification,
      envisioning who functionally makes it first
to a finished line of manifestations's publication,
           in eternity's poetic intentions and beyond

To fly or not to fly, that is my burden
For who can run my mile or test my trail
Here draws my grief, true cries so clearly sudden
Will I lift myself on crows wings? Vile.
Nay, my soles must prove their purpose their self
Sand slithers through glass domes leaving traces
My dusty bootstraps be taken off shelf
A timely sojourn to the waves that call
Love awaits me in caved lemon groves
Salty waters I must wander to fall
Into your arms to live once again in that trove
Feet must carry me for new wings to soar
Trust makes them mine, your tired eyes glisten
Dragon’s scales and tales of forgotten lore
Float above your strong shoulders, I listen
For the sound of smoke rings breaking away
From your lips as you loft those wings so high
Fear eludes me, as wind frightens the day
I bask in their shadow, as they do try
To bear the weight of my draining presence
Reaching up to feel your reptiled jaw
Nose fills with namesake blood incense
A monster they cry: breaking natural law
Four taloned feet make mine seem so small
My lovely creature, I see your true beauty
Gems call to me, so into your nest I crawl
Feeling safe, your cave a new home for me
The wings I own are so fragile and weak
Lift me farther from the seventh circle
Take me with you to the highest of peaks
Strap me onto your back with gold buckles
I beg you to fly me away and save
Me from this horribly lucid dank fate
Steal my body from this forgotten grave
Wait til night time seeps through the sky, though late,
On your wings pull me to the stars above
Take me with you on the grandest of flights
Let me show you tales of true life and love
Take me with you to a place of great heights