FREE VERSE

A lingering flash of white in the trees.

A glimpse of molten amethyst eyes dropping pearls of sorrow,

as the industrial park grows

over an ageless stand of oak

and one small silvery pool.

A snort of loss into golden goatee,

as the last of the one-horned deer flees

amidst the thunder of cloven hooves and tearful rain.

In the distance, a buzzing, a whirring, a click,

an immortal life ends bitterly,

as the cold-steel machine-god named Progress

overtakes and slays the unicorn.

I stand free of all bonds

as free as the elements of old;

as ever-hungering flame,

as immobile stone,

as tide-locked seas,

as intangible sky.

Yes, I am free,

as free as time and space,

bound only by eternity, infinity and myself.

Only in a cold, dead world

do men speak in words of concrete.

A world so old that Death is dead,

and feeling proscribed.

This world is the perfect Utopia some seek,

with no crime or vice, no sorrow or villiany

no freedom or virtue, no joy or heroes.

God and Satan sleep together,

in matching boxes.

Here poetry is another word for nothing.

This world is coming too swiftly for me,

who do they think they are?

They've mechanized the magic out of my dreams,

and all my dragons are slain.

If Hell thrives on pain, demons feast tonight.

I need not shed a tear,

for the wind wails like well-paid mourners,

and the sky weeps rivers.

Memories march in swirling shards,

broken like fallen glass,

and slicing sharp and deep.

Our bonds are broken, you follow the sun's spark,

and I too am free,

to dwell alone in the dark.

We had clipped our wings to walk together,

and now we can fly again,

alone forever...

Cages surround me,

Wind and Wave and Stone pressed tightly to earth-mother's bosom,

raging Flame enslaved by it's hunger and it's mortality,

Time itself marching mindlessly forward.

So I too am bound,

to earth, to hunger and to die.

My cage is a shell of flesh, with bars of solid bone,

with only two small windows allow me to see the sun,

But I wish to feel the sun caress all of me,

to merge my flames with those of another,

to soar free, fast as thought, into the endless night.

To be a God, or a Devil,

I care not which.

I ride a whirlwind in my mind, a spinning maelstrom

that destroys every piece of me that slips from my grasp.

My hopes and fears are dashed against its walls of fury,

leaving what remains of me diminished and unbalanced.

Like a ball of yarn I unravel as I spin,

tugged by forces from beyond my safe eye of calm.

The storm calls to me,

and I cannot ride it out alone.

The scream is written by the scribe of illusion,

etched in the gossamer fabrics of the dream-image.

A tool of shadow and substance, the wheel everturning.

The flames called Time spark and flare, consuming nothing.

An obelisk in the sands topples through the void.

Worlds dance the endless dance of fire and burn not,

while spinning white darknesses merge into eternity.

Time

consumes life,

excreting it into the ahes of history.

To be later re-used.

Infinity clasped and held to bosom.

In your eyes I see the roaring confusion

the flames suddenly surge forth

and we burn into one.

Again we gaze into the soul's windows,

caged once more in the dimming heat, wondering...

What have we done?