How To Write Knockout Poetry

Once you’ve closed in 

On putting a new piece down, 

Give it the good old mercy shot— 

No use beating another 

Dead horse into the ground. 

 

 

 

 

 

Irresistible Spatial Consummation

Once written, poetry starts 

Straightaway withdrawing, only 

 

To finish at what seems to be 

The slightest distance, still 

 

Twitching in ecstasy, light 

Years away. 

 

 

 

 

 

Multitudinous Pedestrian Onlookers

Flooding 

 

Our retinas are vistas so 

Numerous and magnificent how 

 

Is it we notice only those 

Most insignificant 

 

Of ripples floating by? 

 

 

 

 

 

I Too, Robert Frost, Thought I Took The Road Less Traveled

Frosty-haired sleepy one, trying 

Hard to keep both eyes 

Open but still 

Anxious to see

 

The next poem 

Leap from out of the thick 

Underbrush of a seemingly 

Endless peripatetic mind, 

 

I cannot but feel how 

Many uncharted miles 

You must have covered before 

Discovering you had a driving need 

 

To fall asleep less, too.

 

Haiku: Fleeing Inspiration

Low dark clouds scudding 

Over bare thirsting mountains— 

 

No stop for respite. 

 

 

 

Muse: Dear Boy, Bear With Me

The unborn 

Script you have 

 

Still to write, how 

Much longer can you bear not 

 

To issue it? This is not— 

And I repeat—a mere trifling 

 

Rhetorical question 

You are free to answer 

 

At your own discretion, 

But one you must dispatch 

 

With no waste of time or talent, 

And swear never again 

 

To shame my good name 

By writing plodding 

 

Shoddy verse under 

A slew 

 

Of shady noms de plume; 

It’s either that or else. . . 

 

Abort, sport and don't bother 

Cleaning up that bloody 

 

Mess you always leave so

Artfully behind you. 

 

 

 

 

 

Skewed Cyclopean With Doppelganger

Polyphemus, my good man— 

Had you but two 

 

Good eyes instead of one 

Skewered one, one 

 

Fine day you might well 

Find yourself standing 

 

Before a looking-glass looking 

At yourself like No Man 

 

Ever did without 

Ever once seeing double, 

 

But I wouldn't 

Bet my eye-teeth on it.

 

Beginning Of A Thought Truncated By The Arrival Of A Sparrow

There is ample reason. . . .why 

This train of thought was 

Derailed before it could 

Reach wherever it was 

 

Going is anybody’s 

Guess but who’s 

 

To say the arrival of this 

Flighty interloper does not 

Signal a necessary 

Deviation from the norm, 

(Whatever norm means in this 

Day and age). 

 

In the meantime, if I choose 

To bask in the knowledge 

That observing this twittering 

Bird on the edge 

Of a myrtle branch so 

It can better reach those pungent, 

Bittersweet berries is a balm 

To my balanced but at times still

 

Tottering soul, who’s to say 

"You are wrong in thinking so."

 

 

 

Lasting Stillborn Issue

Keep producing 

Shorter and shorter poems 

Devoid of any feeling 

 

And before you know it, 

You’ll find yourself standing 

In front of a maternity ward window 

 

With nothing to show for it 

Save longer and longer 

Pregnant silences.