* Watch me read Frozen Man complete version: CLICK HERE
Stopping is no option
to lose the way is to keep going
keep moving forward
lest one atrophies
rigid with despair
paralyzed with doubt
locked in hopelessness
bound by fear
the giving up
is the giving in
is the rot that sets
with the loss of wonder
when grip lets go of dreams
loss of faith debilitates the soul
cripples the manifest light
that shines so bright
at the leap into sacred uncertainty
so bright
as to boldly illuminate truth
frozen is the frightened man
withered in a worried cage
terrified of the wrong step
of the journey all in
of daring the way unmarked
wounded by fear
bleeding out the color of life
hemorrhaging joy
exsanguinating possibility
a cold brittled husk
mired in regret
for never having shone so brightly
as to blind the eyes of death
as to light the way of truth
valiant is a voting man
a hero heard and heeded
a cry of dissatisfaction
a voice of change
a stand for defiance
stopping is no option
so senators and congressmen
you best heed the call
don’t stand in the doorway
don’t block up the hall
for they that will lose
will be they who have stalled
so brothers and sisters
raise up your hand
let it be known
throughout the land
if we want change
we must take a stand
I will not smile today, you see
my broken heart is hurting, so
tears now reside where joy ran free.
I will not smile today, you see
she loved my gold, but not so me.
Played for a fool, I did not know.
I will not smile today you see,
my broken heart is hurting so!
Probably invented in the 13th century, the triolet was cultivated as a serious form by such medieval French poets as Adenet le Roi and Jean Froissart. … The earliest triolets in English are those of a devotional nature composed in 1651 by Patrick Cary, a Benedictine monk, at Douai, France.
History. The triolet is a close cousin of the rondeau, the rondel, and the rondelet, other French verse forms emphasizing repetition and rhyme. The form stems from medieval French poetry and seems to have had its origin in Picardy. … Also, at the end of the 15th century, the term triolet appears for the first time.
The triolet is a short poem of eight lines with only two rhymes used throughout. The requirements of this fixed form are straightforward: the first line is repeated in the fourth and seventh lines; the second line is repeated in the final line; and only the first two end-words are used to complete the tight rhyme scheme. … Thus, the poet writes only five original lines, giving the triolet a deceptively simple appearance: ABaAabAB, where capital letters indicate repeated lines.
This poem was inspired by a suggestion from Andy Sewina, aka SweetTalking Guy. This is a very brief flash fiction written in three American Sentences, a poetic form conceived by Allen Ginsberg.
Bohemian Tie-Dye
~
jack and Neal on the road
were rape’n their angst
in carnal combustion
allen was howl’n
pal’n with corso
but still white-hot for peter
hunter was fearful
loathing it all
as bohemia went tie-dye
…inspired by the ecological damage being done by the ill-conceived hydro-electric dams now choking many of the Pacific Northwest’s, and the earth’s mighty rivers, and the pollution we dump so recklessly into our critical and dwindling fresh water tributaries…
this “she” was birthed
in his fractured dreams
helpless as a forest fawn
frail as a snowflake
falling on a May predawn
a captive
to his fearful heart
caught in his twisted fantasy
conjured by his crippled soul
his power is his fallacy
he needs her weak
for at his core
he’s filled with sour doubt
knows his time of tyranny
is quickly running out
threatened
he seeks to dominate
silences her rising voice
to keep her mute and under thumb
tries to deny her right of choice
with strengthened will
she finds her voice
speaks direct to what she sees
startled by her forthright way
he wants her back upon her knees
once a hollow woman-husk
with sorrow dark as growing dusk
whose spirit withered
in the dimming light
as nightmares swelled
night after night
whose tears once seared the barren land
now rebukes
his fisted hand
and walks away
from the startled man
there stands a raven in the rain
liquid-black as molten coal
beside a woman
besot and broken
thoughts so black and molten
outstretched in her anguish
ravin’ in the rain
raven in the rain
why is it that you stand here
so very soaked and sullen
beside this woman so besot
so broken and bereft
heart so black and shattered
ravin’ in the rain
has her ravin’ called you forth
do you feel kinship in her blackness
does it bind you common thread
is there a faint scent of death
carried on her plaintive breath
she outcast and shunned
so like your thankless plight
picking ‘mongst the carnage
rooting in the road-kill
the writhing crawling carcass rot
left the spoiled — not the spoils
this is your lot is it not
to consume the left-for-dead
the world’s lost decay
