Reflexive Poems | Examples

Old Barn Seen from a Speeding Car

The Chevy speeds by
eyesight pings it,
a reflexive vision
momentarily catches itself
looking back.

The barn is vacant, not empty,
its eyes have been locked open,
it bathes in sparrow and bat time.

Now hollow lids capture, snatch at
a headlong flight of vision.

A snap of fleeting attention
has stabled a glance in a timeless stall
where dust hangs
in a slant of suspended light.

Road barn and car are frozen
as one symbiotic after-image,
until all disappear into each other.

Then without pause or passage
horizons are released,
distance and perspective amended,
as the tremor of a splintered
looking glass
fades behind racing wheels.

December 2

The wind moves and swirls
   in love to and fro
   already it is morning
    the cock crows and the world
    standing still and stirring
   if one look at horizon and the sky are all hither
    and thither filled in clouds and beautiful like flowers
     and greeneries
    the river is cool and reflexive like a mirror
     like the woods are fresh and tender
    all is lovely and fine
     how glee, how sweet is sometimes this life to tell?.

Into the Void

More vacuous verse to the void:
abysmal, of meaning devoid.
A reflexive spasm
sends more to the chasm
where anemic arts are destroyed.

Escaping, strange thoughts from my head
go written but largely unread.
Another deposit
to add to the closet
of words that are better unsaid.

So, in the crevasse this now lurks
with woefully wonderless works:
discursive digressions
regarding obsessions 
with muses and quixotic quirks.

How Much Vengeance Is Enough?

How Much Vengeance Is Enough?

By Mark D. Stucky
How much bloody carnage and rubble
is required to atone for sins of a few?
How many eyes must be gouged
to extract desired justice?
If wronged, is exchanging one eye enough?
What about two eyes for one? Or ten for one?
Is twenty enough?
How about a hundred?
Such revenge might feel like justice,
but it fuels hate’s endless cycle.

Can we exit this interlocked sequence
of oppression and reflexive violence?
Can we struggle toward implementing
a radical, restorative, improbable alternative?

Remember what a crucified carpenter taught
about loving enemies and turning cheeks?
Do such ideals seem impossibly wrong
when gushing anger from our wounds?
Yet, as he stretched on splintery beams
no carpenter would willingly build,
he said, while gushing blood for all our sins,
“Forgive them for they know not what they do.”


(See also my related poems “Your Order for Peace on Earth,” “Hate Vacuuming,” and “Weapons of Wonder.”)

(Cropped image is by Amin Moshrefi on Unsplash.com.)

Abstraction a Freed Verse

ASTRACTION 

unpredictable
intersecting lines
 swaths of colour
 added
by a  chance
autonomous
process

reflexive
   echoing
intensive
 to coincide
in response

The Wrong Mirror

You start by trying to ignore yourself.
This is reflexive.
Ego always wants you look into the wrong mirror.

Later you find out you can't,
you're  just too forking obvious.
So you come up with excuses, play the victim
blame your parents or childhood.

If you keep on watching
and don't settle,
then you come to an understanding,
that it was always other people's fault
on every occasion you did your best
under the circumstances.

This of course leads to depression, suppression
and a desire to find some guru
to get you out if this hall of crazy mirrors
you find yourself in.

You almost convince yourself you're happy being this
lovable person that everyone likes,
it works for you.

Then you die -
not in the body but in your humanity,
now Truth can do something with you,
you allow that Truth to set you free
but maybe just one prison at a time.

Guns

You do not own a gun...
that gun owns you;
always aware of its
whereabouts, and what that
gun can do. To be effective, its
use must be reflexive, no sympathy
for the receiving end.... It is a
necessary evil, weighing heavily
on the hearts, of law upholders
yet god
fearing men.

Accommodations

ACCOMMODATIONS
measure
the
sprawl
in
alternating
patterns
in
unvarying
regularity

a
common
structure
reinvented
& aligned
in
the
self-reflexive
spatial
&
temporal
in
intense
encounters

NOTE:THIS IS AN OPEN(organic) FORM VERSE   using spaces&breaks without grammatical symbols ,the ' open' relies upon 'the one breath limitation' & so inherently requires the 'reader' (reciter) to input and responds thus making this enigmatic form a two way interplay & interpretatIon unique to the moment& changing according to mood is inherently variable.

A Razor Reflects

Razored shards 
Sharp metal gleam white covered in silvery chrome

hard long mean a razor blade brilliant and keen

Reflexive in thought slashing through fresh 
It flashes a brilliant spark, 
tracing arcs through the nightmares air

A twist of flash, digging of marrow
blade slides home 
divides the meat from the bone 
bring the crimson to heat

A razor reflects in seconds of fate an image flash feeling the aftermath

A Great refraction 
Recollection is a collection of desolate images 
strewn across lost boulevards,
as homes burn 
discarded cars churn

the blade is cold hard long razored Keen 

Reaction retraction of sight 
the nano fire tracks the hard light
glancing off chrome brilliant, a spark

the division of flesh pouring 
of crimson heat awash all in red 

Razored shards of sharp metal 
sliver gleam covered in bright chrome keen

Post Hoc Palava

A thousand words later
we’re still talking.
I know I’m being reflexive,
this banter a transparent way
to paint clowns on speech bubbles;
ripostes that ricochet off any real wit.

Later still, alone in my head - the replay,
the should have said and the unsaid.
Witty repartee are invented,
not only as late additions
but as inserts, addendums, and edits
in an ongoing discourse.

Some words still hang in the air,
digitized like finger bones.
A back and forth exchange
of words ping-ponging along
as afterthoughts.

Next time we chin-wag
my comebacks and rejoinders
will be better timed and scripted,
unless of course you also
have been rehearsing yet more
retorts and asides.

Sequiturs

 

Instincts do not change
With time or by age.
Reflexive quick glance
Any given chance
Will never end well -
Fury, scorn and hell.


March 27, 2021

Bigamy's Troth

Being, becoming,
though different the same

All motion reflexive,
where time rules the game

Being, becoming,
whose vow is enforced

When married to both
—refusing divorce

(Bryn Mawr Pennsylvania: February, 2021)

My Reflection

An echo murmured back look at yourself, You see you'
Reflection – mirror image of me of my dreams
Staring all I see is me in you
Glaring and glaring with my reflection
Selfishly pointing in at my direction
The ephemerality brought such sorrow
My visage I spy on the morrow
Even now clouds watch
Mount Kilimanjaro, Mount Kilimanjaro!
Clouds hoover and follow
And its eyes have all the brainstorming
The Jungfrau seemed happy performing
It was heartwarming, under performing, nonperforming! 
Peek-a-boo looks at me as I look at you and I see myself
From within my steps
I walk on my shadow as my shadow holds me up
Drinking I from the clouds spilled cup
I spy, I see, me I see within the cool breeze
Even now clouds watch
My visage I spy on the morrow
Murmured echo back look at yourself, you see you'
Reflection – mirror image of me of my dreams
Staring all I see is me in you
Glaring and glaring with my reflexive reflection


12/5/19
Written words by James Edward Lee Sr. 2019©

A Thousand Words Later

A thousand words later,
we were still talking.

I know I’m being reflexive,
this humor is a transparent way 
to paint clowns on speech bubbles.
Ripostes that ricochet
off any real wit. 

"I must be going."

One thousand and forty.

Later --- 
the replay,
witty repartee are invented,
not only as late additions
but as inserts, edits
in an ongoing discourse.

Some words still hang in the air,
digitalized like finger bones.
I try to swat them with a rolled-up script,
but they dance away,
electric and blinking.

(I wish there was a big red plug I could pull.
A cut-off switch maybe,
or lips that folded words into origami birds,
each one so perfect that it would defy
misinterpretation).

One thousand and ninety-two.

I begin to cough up these inner dialogues, 
to give up on mind-talk.

My only remedy is to count more numbers,
instead of words – 
words not spoken.

Spring Gambit

We live through chill weeks
Of dreary darkness,
Alarmed a livid springtime flash
Rends open deep night,
Palpitating startled hearts—

Feet spring from bed, toes grasp:
Slippers, slippers;
Bemused eyes at last lunge,
Leap through wet glass,
Past fogged panes quaking,
Reflexive to turmoil,
A stark panorama
Of tatted rain
Hurled by vehement wind,
Lank, hunch-necked streetlamp
Quivering in its duty
To sow gold treasure
Across drenched pavement
And green-budded boughs,
Nascent foliage thrashing,
Limbs flailing wild protest
Against dark, vengeful clouds
Instantly roiling bright,
Hot-blue ire sparking world
Through klieg light to night …

Bed, bed: snug haven
From spring’s irate gambit,
Warmth of vernal hope
Mounting the barricade
In rebellion to gloom.



February 23, 2018
Describe a Thunderstorm Without the Sense of Sound Poetry Contest
Brenda Chiri, Sponsor

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