An awkward, bound, constrained, disjointed, erratic, faltering, garbled, hesitant, incoherent, jumbled, knotted, labored, mangled, overwrought poem — questionable, rigid, strained, twisted, uncomfortable, vacant, weary, xerotic, yielding, zigzagging....

Lo! ‘Neath the gibbous moon’s unhallowed glow,

Where specters wail upon the midnight’s air,

A wretched soul in tempest wonders slow,

With hollowed eyes and tangled blood-clad hair.

Betwixt yon yew, where ashen gravestones weep,

The damp earth groans ‘neath footsteps soft yet dire;

A voice unholy slithers from the deep,

A whispered dirge, the hymn of lost desire.

“What wretched fate hath summon...

I sat up, startled

My mind ablaze

With a dream

Just on the tip of my tongue

But it slipped away

Forgotten

In a moment

Something with fireflies and lanterns

I lay paralyzed

Captive to my own subconscious

Trying to slip the surly bonds

Of my own addled discomfort

What if I forget to breathe?...

I opened my heart.

Golden light warmed for a breath—

then burned into scars....

The horse gallops toward peril.

The world bathed in light, ethereal.

Battered and banished,

yet wearing the vestiges,

of my old master.

From the recesses of my mind,

he speaks,

his voice eloquent,

The danger imminent.

An oblique relic of a foregone age.

His complex lexicon

bridges the chasm

of empty

reverie

inside me.

And still I ride on.

Toward the ominous,

the precarious,

my tenacity, a velo...

An eldritch storm cloud lies just before me.

The crackling purple fog beckoning me to leave this place

and return to my own plane.

For now, my parasol shields me from the waxing silver orb,

just visible at the end of day.

The celestial mirror casting its moonwake

on the rippling waters of a nearby pond.

The lachrymose song of a nearby songbird bids me adieu

I whistle back that I'll return,

but w...

I don't want to stick out like a weed in wildflowers.

I want to be the rose,

buried in thorns and brambles,

beckoning the hand to reach through and grab me.

I want to be sought for and found,

the four leaf clover,

buried amongst my brethren,

struggling to find the light,

hiding from sight in

the rolling emerald hills.

Not the weed but the lillypad,

lying flush on the surface of the pond,

soakin...

All in a golden afternoon, under the skies of cloudless blue…

I find myself vexed by its enduring hue,

upended and unaware.

Feeling impetuous,

I stretch until my joints burn,

drawn and quartered.

Feeling hollow,

I scream in ecstasy.

Orange light haunts my skin, warming me.

But the day will not last.

Deep down I know,

the impending night brings a bone-chilling cold.

And I cannot help but welcome i...

The night does not ask permission.

It spills over, breaking onto the streets,

a black tide curling against the neon edges,

soft-lipped, thick with quiet threats.

Somewhere, a coyote threads the silence,

low-bellied, starving.

Her ribs etched in hunger and asphalt.

Her howl swallowed before it can rise.

Somewhere, a woman walks home alone,

keys between her fingers,

her breath sharp as shattered g...