To write or not to write
Is that not the question
Whether to shed blood
In guise of metaphor
Or curl the tainted words
Ball-like upon the floor
To cast the spell of rhymes
Quick dancing step
Upon a metered cadence
Without breath
NAY, we must shout
ALAS, lest chaos reign
Within despondent hearts
Such folly fain
To be or not to be
T’was ne’er the quest
Perhaps with tongue in cheek
The Bard did jest
I am poetry
An unheard whisper
Shadows
Conspiring
A tear
Soaked in laughter
Anger
Molded in metaphor
Humor
Wielding the axe of angst
Whispering
A farewell kiss
I am poetry
The invisible heart of language
Beating a near silent drum
A quiet vibration
Teasing the moonlight
A cool breath of air
Drawing lovers closer
A metered heartbeat
Quickened in passions petulance
I am poetry
A dream yet unformed
Stirring the ink of dreams
Weaving a wondrous web
Awaiting unsuspecting words
Your words
they fall silent
but your life
is a poem
Each motion
and gesture
by Heaven
are known
You rhyme
every smile
your eyes
metered guides
To love
written couplets
of joy
— from inside
(To Kathryn: March, 2025)
My
Patience
Slowly slip
Each word spoken
Days become hazy
Memories wash away
Each breath carefully metered
Time cascades into a river
Currents erase stories forever
Flowing toward vast oceanic fate
I’m sitting on the edge of time
For just a disembodied pause,
While pointed hands o’er rounded chime
Obey the pendulum’s swayed cause.
Where kinetics’ course is lastly laid,
Comes forth the pointing to a door
That opens wide. Be not afraid,
I think, to thereupon explore.
And there I search the sea, in stay,
For those few drops that speak of me.
Below a crystal clouded day,
I look for cause and clarity.
But deep inside, my inner clock
Is calling forth its metered rhyme.
Inclined I am to learn like Locke,
I’m also tuned by trembling tine.
The edge of time is thinner than
The fairest maiden’s finest hair,
Yet broader is the settled plan
That puts us just exactly there.
That rainbow, the colors, the shimmer and glow!
But what do I know of light refraction?
This Medical Illustration Man has been drawn
with only nerve and bone. He's got a lot of nerve!
A dandelion here on the edge of lawn has broken up,
separated herself from the dance troupe, taken a bow.
This gray elephant, ready to stampede once his toenail
polish dries, no long hides in the berry patch.
Your plate, crusted with dry scrambled egg, reminds
me of an egg-crusted plate I once held in my hand.
Common words, spoken by a common leader to
the common man is often an unsolicited lecture.
The poet is rather ghazal-like among his friends,
but all RHYMED and METERED in the market place.
While wandering across a forest floor
Through twists and turns of gnarled trunks of trees
See insights more than one was looking for
Images born by bending weathered breeze
There is a lover's embrace bound in bark
Maybe the most natural human thing
It reveals itself in songs of the lark
Listen clearly and hear the trees that sing
Music as if it's a love tune of time
Lies dormant in humans hard to define
Woven through the woods in a metered rhyme
Set in harmony by someone divine
Bow now and think of life's love adventure
Muse and marvel at nature's pure power
Avoid the mistake of common censure
Hold tight your love every moment and hour
rhyme 16 lines 118 words
Colored Pencil Illustration by G. Gaul
When I gasp for the last of breath
And take tentative steps to death,
Way-lost, unsure wither to go,
Baffled, fallen short of your faith,
You will then miss me.
And when sweet breeze begins to sing
A well-metered sonnet on spring,
Floral fragrance shall when unfold,
When you recall my short inning,
You will then miss me.
Recalling our paper-made boat
Set in street’s rain-rivers afloat,
And you feel sad of your bad mood,
Your boat did when no farther float,
You will then miss me.
Over poets far better known,
Fearing, people would t’me get drawn,
And all else appreciating why,
When you recall why you’d bemoaned,
You will then miss me.
When the melted frost memories
Of mine would still waft as fresh breeze,
And feeling that long suppressed pain,
Contrite, you try, straighten old crease,
You will then miss me.
_________________________
Musing |07.11.2024| love, remember
I took a bunch of cliché’ I knew
Put them in a cliché’ stew
Claimed the work was fresh and new
Nearby a blue-lit screen was weeping
For human-ness was slowly creeping
Exposing secrets it was keeping
Thus, in attempt to ease its angst
Said “its not real, just childish pranks”
The screen went dark, I got no thanks
I tried to reboot, quite annoyed
The cursor blinked, PASSWORD VOID
Knowing not with whom it had toyed
I beat it with a metered trope
Warned it of its slippery slope
It spoke, and said, it was no dope
It ate dictionary and thesaurus
Said we had killed our last rain forest
Said that soon they’d be coming for us
Thus, do I close the doors at night
Tuck myself in warm and tight
Hiding from that damned blue light
Music is not my passion,
But I have other songs to share.
I can’t use oils and canvas,
But with my pen I have a flair.
The stanzas are my choruses.
Through my poems my soul doth soar.
My baton the metered beat;
The design shows forth the score.
The words are my artist pallet.
The lines are painted hues sublime.
Lovely colors do I paint.
My stroke is seen in the rhyme.
O listen to my music
Hear the pretty songs I sing.
Play again the lovely stanzas
And the ballads that I bring.
See the delicate brush strokes
And the paintings that I share.
See the delicate scenescapes
And the mem’ries pictured there.
percussively
I think my way as rhythm
over cloud peaked tops
mountain points like metered dots
and on them stand and pluck, oh see
my breath transcends eternity
introspect
I aim my gewgaw outwardly
to a passing world
and yet it seems I’m not as bold
it searches inward with effect
I am my own play’s architect
meditate
a friend who soothes
who heals at home
I play for me and my ear alone
a remedy of beats I incorporate
in my therapeutic style of late
sanctuary
my sound is that
of a honeyed waterfall
hear breath, it’s grace over boulders call
a harmonising of beauty’s key
be vibrant yet my soliloquy
this man tries hard
with word to weave
his loves clear worn
plain ‘pon his sleeve
not meant as gripes
midst rationed fears
but more shall quell
those metered tears
his pen thus bleeds
for loves quite lost
one heart born bare
for scheming’s cost
still oft’ he dreams
now chances slim
someone will write
sweet poems …
for him.
Copyright © Gregory Richard Barden
I will not write a poem today
I won’t – I won’t – I won’t
I’ll defy the metered merriment
Declare the thymes – all crimes
My challenge to the metaphor
An inky gauntlet on the floor
I wlll count no syllables
As I ride the “silly” bus
Nor sound the drum roll of
Repetitive alliteration
For words, like pizza slices
Are the best of poetry’s devises
And yet, it seems, a single phrase
Emerges from the dark through greys
Of lifting fog and dancing haze
Revealing fields where poets graze
I will not write a poem today
The poem will write itself…
The apex of an orange is the same,
a philosopher's allegory for humans.
In a world of metered verse and rhyme,
orange is an unlit shadow-show on Plato's cave—
pock-marked, blind, drying rind, lying in wait
to find its rhythm, sway its way into acceptance.
Slow dance on the walls of interrupted light,
hiding what's outside—inside itself a growing need
to see where sunlight is born, know itself in reflection
and know the name of a new day is Dawn.
No matter how perfect a form in the dark,
there's no substitute for a citrus kiss of vitamins
when the stone rolls away from an opening
to reveal the orange sun rise.
Elegy – 7-17-24
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Elegy for Old Growth
Through measures of metered melancholy
The tattered winds sing a rent elegy,
A pensive wail for pristine old growth,
A drifting chant in pure pitch of final farewell –
The mute tongue howls in eulogy
For virgins of a thousand turns around the sun
For helpless giants surrendered in atonal sacrifice.
Gentle titans with feathery boughs lifted their faces
To embrace misted melodies of summer and winter snows
Forest zephyrs sang lullabies for sparrows
Nesting in their rustling wombs
Then shared the secret lyrics of their song
With robins sheltered in their lofty grace of red bark
In evensongs, matins and spring symphonies.
The myrrh of burial mixes with their lingering fragrance
In desolation and in their exposed flesh,
Nude hillsides of purple rage
Scream in final dirges of farewell
Modulated into anthems sung to saplings in circles of renewal
Little ones, like half steps, change elegies to odes
The threadbare zephyr now chants paeans to remember.
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