Speaking Poetry

The key to speaking poetry

Is practice, practice, practicing,

For then your language will not walk,

But take the music, dance and sing. 

In the Flower Garden

The cock's combs, red and wrinkled, rise
Above the leaves to lift the blooms
They hide up to the butterflies.
Crab spiders transform feasts to tombs.

The buzz and sip of bees upon the breeze
That brings the honeysuckle--yellow, sweet--
To both our senses--theirs more sensitive
Than mind--they smell the clovers at my feet.

An Epitaph for the Photograph

The visual records you once made were true--
With filters, photoshop, you now are through
And cannot be believed. Your truths may lie,
Your lies look true--all trust in you must die.

Meditation Quatrain

I'm breathing in the peace, serenity--
I hold it in, the tension will unbind--
I'm breathing out all my anxiety--
I pause and, pausing, open up my mind.

Instructions:

As you can see from the quatrain, each line should be recited in your mind as you breath in, hold your breath, breath out, then hold your breath again. You repeat the quatrain for each cycle of breaths you take throughout your meditation. The use of iambic pentameter lines means each stage is approximately 3 seconds long. This duration is the same length of time of your auditory moment, of your short-term memory slot, and thus should help to keep you in the moment itself, since your every moment will be filled with a line of poetry aiding you in your breathing.

Nature

When we see only surfaces, we miss
The complex life below, which we deny--
But in our dives below, we should not miss
The patterned flocks that glisten in the sky.

Divine Quatrain

The soul of deity is not control
The wind exudes its breath in randomness
That orders only itself without goal
And only with that voice can it then bless

From the Forest

The silent pines blocked out the morning light,
The floor of ivy tangled up the cones –
So I devised a thyrsus, made to fight
For light and dancing, melodies and tones.

Relief

Is that a crocus peeking through the snow?
The winter melts away around the bloom
Of tender promise in light indigo.
I'm thankful for the disappearing gloom.

Recursion

Death feeds life and life feeds death
All of earth lives in this heth
Growth embraces not just one
Mountains too will be undone.

Quatro Quatrains (of the Prophetic Kind)

The fiat virus grows relentlessly
To sicken, poison almost all the herd
Until the herd itself is blamed -- the three
Shall kill the herd, supporting the absurd.
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The fire shall sweep the countryside to ash
And singe the eagle's feathers, threaten her
Young eaglets in the nest. The nest will crash
Into the flames and crush the moral cur.
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The island nation lights the lamp of liberty
As it goes out in the devalued, dying west
As they embrace lies' leaders and frivolity,
The promise they can all suck from the common breast.
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Two Scotsmen and a saint provide the light
And tension needed for the growth of man --
Behold their paradoxical delight,
The source of growth from when it all began.