Category: Ars Poetica

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2022 Ars Poetica Poems

1000 Words

1000 words

If a picture is worth
A thousand words
What about a memory?
But that’s not really the point.
1000 words don’t even
Make up one good
Memory.
And what of 1000 good words?
Since when did a
Beautifully crafted
Multi-page poem
Get equated with
(1) photograph anyways?
That one poem
Well-written
Could evoke 1000 memories
In the mind
Of the reader.
I love photographs.
I consider myself a photographer
But 1000 perfect words
Should never
Be compared
To one
Lonely
Picture

Categories
2022 American Place Ars Poetica Breaking Muse Poems Road Less Travelled

The Language Becomes Death

The Good Doctor*
Misdiagnosed The People
The language is not lost —
It has been infected.
Funny that a general practitioner
(of This Language)
Could miss the signs of a clear
Secondary infection.
They have taken The WORDS
Into the Laboratory, where
They intentionally debased her
Until they had filled the vessel
Full of Hatred!
As with most hubris,
Once the weapon is made
Once every bad actor
Has deployed the arsenal…

The Infection begins and
Like so many hard-rubbed Wishes
Once made true —
The Nightmare begins and the
Rage consumes them and their
Words froth with blood and all
Missives boil up into the cellars
Where “Pa” keeps the AR–
Where The Words become Bullets
Where the language becomes Death!

* Dr. William Carlos Williams, Paterson. 
The man and the city, the language lost, 
"beautiful thing".
Categories
2022 American Place Ars Poetica Colorado Poems Shapes

You Can’t / I Hope

You Can't | I Hope

I

You can’t
You can’t
You can’t
Wait.
I’ve started in
The Middle
You’ve
Made
This
Suggestion
To Yourself
And immediately annihilate it with
“You Can’t”
—You Won’t
—They’ll never
— I’ll always
Accept defeat!

You Can’t
Be a poet, solve that problem, ______________
Mind your temper, be a kind person

You Can’t
because you always tell yourself
You Can’t

II

I hope
I hope
I hope
Wish
For the mystery
of maybes
You’ve
Decided
To believe
In something
Greater
So
I
hope

— You Will
— Why Always
— Just believe
And remember
That you are
FREE
To get published, help the disenfranchised, _____________
Share Love and Give Kindness

I Hope
Because, if You Can’t
There’s Always
Hope

Categories
2022 Ars Philosophica Ars Poetica Art(i)fact Poems

What has become of this Plato fellow, old chap?

What has become of this Plato fellow?
He’s holding prisoners and
Suppressing the language
Holding down our emotions
Supplanting our humanity
With silicon logic
And cold calculations
Let humanity stand up
And ban the synthetics
From Leadership

-ananymous prisoner of Amatheia

Categories
2021 Ars Poetica Poems

Writer’s Block

What is this hole
Where I like to sink?
Dive down deep and
Try not to think!
Unsuccessful, I scream out loud
Into the silence
Of the overwhelming crowd
Is it this country
So full of divides?
Or my internal spirit
Can’t look in my own eyes?
Can’t face myself
In this fractured mirror
Rather run away
Rather disappear…
It never seems to last
This unseemly despair
If I just let it pass
I might even repair
This shattered looking glass
That distorts my view
As I look out the window
Upon the cool morning dew
The sun always rises
Upon a new day
And refreshes my mind
With new words to say

Categories
2021 Ars Poetica Poems

Play Catcher

Catch me, catch me
Hold me, hold me
Sexy, sexy
“Fuck you”
You can’t hold on
You can’t slow down
Never get what you want
Until you leave this town
“Fuck you”
I thought you were insightful
When I was a young lad
But you’re so damned depressing
Just a phony, quite mad.
“Fuck you”
Fuck yous, everywhere
Can’t wipe it away
And the girls won’t stay
Sweet and pure and fair
“Fuck you”
You’re Holden, you’re holdin’
Holding on
But they’ll all slip by
They’ll all fall down…

Jenny, Jenny
It’s OK
If with the boys
You like to play
Take a roll in the rye
But you can’t stay!

Categories
Ars Poetica Poems

The Clock

I don’t know if I have
That much time left
There’s an urgency
Thumping on my breast
I don’t feel well
And they don’t know why
Their test inconclusive
Their guesses they belie
The truth that’s inevitable
“No one here get out alive”
So what do I do with myself
For what can I strive?
To peck and hen out words
To make another poem?
For if I don’t complete these thoughts
No one will ever know ’em.
My epic will fall apart
My legacy forgotten
No one can read my writing
These seeds will never be sewn.
Yet, in a panic
Poetics will fail
These themes ill conceived
Will just flop and flail
So what do I do
When money needs be made?
To care for my family
If I don’t see the next day.
Do I close up this book
And say goodbye to this dream?
Or do I take my last breath
Trying to say what I mean?

Categories
2021 Ars Poetica Poems

Self-deprecation

What radical shapes
Can these lines take
To blow the minds
Of the critical judge?
My rhythms and beats
Would soon hit delete
If held to the academic lens.
My forms seem standard
My themes unenlightened
The topics of today
Shaped by cruelty.
My meter 4/4
My couplets I adore
My birds and trees
Are all that come from me.
What would they have me do
To stand out from you?
The poet deemed better
Than the rest?
What duress must I endure
What heartbreak must I cure
To be considered the
Greatest of this age?
Some sage for the annals
Whose words fill these halls
And speak to a new
Generation as the
Voice and wisdom of the nation?

Categories
2021 Ars Poetica Poems

Gone Fishing

So few times
To Carry me
Through these days
Lately
So little written down
As I toss
These thoughts
Around
As if they
Are forbidden
To see the light
Of day.
Gone fishing,
Off camping
Must work
Or some other
Excuse
To refuse
To record
This poet’s dream.

Categories
2021 Ars Poetica Poems

Write, right?

Write, Write
Everyday
Even if
You have nothing
To say
Make it habit
More than a goal
If you don’t
Just do it
You’re leaving
A Hole
In your notebook
Where thoughts
Should assemble
And emptiness
Is what’s left
To ressemble
That you had nothing
To say
And no one cares
Anyways
So write, write
Every day
Before you’re dead
And left
Something unsaid.