grass slick slippery
garlanded with dew's glint beads
taunts weary sleepers
to reach out without thinking
beyond sinking stepping stones
dawn light ogles through
a grey, hopscotch-scattered sky
crunching clouds aside
to find a way through chaos
beyond sinking stepping stones
treetops break the skin
of bedraggled drowned-out mists
frogs croak waterlogged—
no shores for sleepwalking gulls
beyond sinking stepping stones
horizon dissolves
unhitched from any compass
worn edges are blurred—
direction is strewn with ash
beyond sinking stepping stones
echoes lose their source,
I am confused, miasmal
moored meanings unspooled—
I grab for something solid,
beyond sinking stepping stones
in off-ramp byways
of shiftless realities
I crawl through muddles
clambering to find a way
beyond sinking stepping stones
When you hitch your wagon to a new star
you best make sure she’s up to par
For if she fails, your wagon’s unhitched
WNBA's 'bright college star' ~
already heading straight for the ditch
_________________________________
In case you're not sure, the 'star' I refer
to is none other than the vastly overrated
Caitlin Clark -- a college star, who (I pre-
dict) will flame out in the WNBA.
If I took my heart out of its cage
you would think: "ah offal, just meat,
fresh blood if I eat it quickly."
.
Crazily, you call 'need' love,
you're crazed, heartless,
a cannibal, a crippled dog
baying at a savage moon.
Limp tongues turn to syrup eventually.
Clearly these bodies are ravaged temples,
apes howl about its holy alter.
And yet, cherries are flesh,
their sweetness is in the hunger.
I drink and remember your face,
it is a landslip,
pushed by one iron gray hair.
We are mad, madly unhitched,
we hang from a mirage of love,
dangle from its limp sinews,
lips puckered,
ever willing to name
the unnamable, what it is not.
Wind sweeps down the side of the mountain
Crosses tracks and flings itself across the river,
First slapping against the sides of the tugboats
Causing the deckhands to shiver and curse
As they check the lashing between the barges,
Several days before they reach the sun
And longer still before arriving at the delta,
In the meantime, they work as fast as they can
with pea coats fastened against oncoming blasts
Of bitter chill, and careful avoiding icy patches
On the walkways of the behemoths they tame
Young men romanticize working on the river,
Unaware of the dangers, seems an easy job.
They do not know of bodies mangled, crushed
Chain unhitched, a single misstep, a sudden jerk
When least expected, pay beneficiaries for a life.
written December 9, 2021
Wednesday's the middle of the sandwich
equidistant from weekends -- unhitched
Plenty of room for all those toppings
ketchup, mayo and rain showers -- she's sopping
How unjust, other days' inequitable ways
they'd blanch at my nickname of 'Hump Day'...
Alas, ignominy grinds on; the day's not yet over
~ Tomorrow's Thursday, that four-leaf clover
Is it a crime
To pry apart rhyme
Stitch lines, unhitched
From native consequence
To warily marry
Unmetered time
By forced remorse
Unrehearsed
In patchwork verse
In my malaise
My daydreams ablaze
I long for eloquence...
to drip, untripped
From my lips
The devil rides
my prideful hide
Chastise with whip and spur
Damning the span
Between who I am
And who I wish I were.
3/6/20
Fledgling child unclasps
Turns and flees,
Away unhitched.
Blatant rebel, free
Rejects parents as uncool,
But as an adult, reunites.
You want me to seek help
They say I need to switch.
Well whoever heard of a diagnosis
For symptoms of being a *****.
You want me to be more thrilled
Like a roller coaster unhitched.
Yet you do things just to piss me off
And cause my brain to itch.
Not a way I'd want to wonder
Strange bursts flow through
Down and out the score evens
Unknown are the conflicts inside
Blister of the heart grows continuous
Snakes bite the unwary traveler
Growing double by unhitched soul
Placating another heart skyward
Peace runs a taught ship, softly
Earning respect to divine power
Every deity's dream to scrape mankind
Off their shoes of burning hell
Russell Sivey
Simple words left unsaid
this blindness of pride
unpinning the twine
a haunting
———-
Draping her shadow
crescents of blood
thickens to drizzle
a river of mud to
his presence
———-
Gloried divine
Savior to sole
unhealed in misery
no growing old
the revelation
———-
Centipedes crawling
pains again
poisoning floods
these misty rains
in exorcism
———-
Easing confessions
of screaming torture
reeked a misery
expelled in anger
a cleansing
———-
Unhitched by grace
serendipity flowered
this breeze to face
tendrils of love
seeped to core
is forgiven
Leathery words harshly spoken
Voices shrill and highly pitched
Without reason, without token
Indulging in subjects quite unhitched
Without cause, without fiction
Mounting on with no restriction,
Reaching deep some unknown weakness
Leaving one shocked and speechless
Barbarous phrases meant to harm,
Surging on with up heaved alarm
Raging high in humiliation
Hitting back in retaliation
Anger full of intense frustration
Irrational through the full duration
Dredging up some deep emotions
Hitting hard those old devotions
Satisfaction found, still more sought
Forgetting all which has been taught
Wondering at the futility of this fight
Yet flinging back with all our might
Knowing that nothing can be gained
That both parties have been maimed
Yet charging unchecked headlong on
Aware that all this must be wrong
Still reaching no real conclusions
Leading yet to more delusions
Protesting with suspicious mind
Another soul, another kind
Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.