Is It Pretentious

Is it pretentious

To pretend about pretense

When pretense pretends

That there could be such a thing

As light unpretentious verse?

The Deepening Black

The deepening black

Of self-talk draining away

Your creative will

Bringing forward the abstract.

An aberration in verse.

Dark Imagery

The creek raising vapor below the bridge.

Mosquitoes work typewriters of text

Find the ether of meaning

On hook and line to catch breath

And blood from the Bare arms

And bulging veins drawn by mosquitoes

Sworn to the devil.

Sworn to grief of voice and pain of meaning.

Sworn to the dark imagery of verse.

October Poem 45: The Dark Imagery

And they walked through the rising vapor of

The creek below the bridge where mosquitoes

Work the keyboards to generate the text

Of my future masterpiece of modern

Poetry. They will find the ether, for

The thick air of meaning brings its own hook

And line to catch the words and breathe the lines

Of verse into being like the blood from the

Bare arms with bulging veins that draw out the

Mosquitoes like little vampires sworn

To the devil. Sworn to bring grief and pain

In long swaths of meandering voice. Sworn

To confuse those willing to subjugate

Their minds to the dark imagery of verse.