For Perseus

I wonder what my cat is thinking
when his fur is full of sun
and his eyes are full of secrets
and the world is full of promise.

I wonder if he really knows
when the time is right to play
and when it is right to stop
and the moment the world waits.

I wonder if my cat pities me
for being human
and not a cat like him
and having to work instead.

I wonder.

Literary flow

Poetry causes some consternation,
chiefly, mental constipation.
You strain to write the perfect rhymes,
but words and meters stop and bind.
Then, roaring from the wild blue,
the poem comes and rushes through
like grease through a stopped up goose.
Yes, poetry is like a clogged caboose.

Night of the living poems

We sacrifice our profits to our art
on altars made by voodoo poet-priests. 
Our zombie hordes, our words alive, will start
to shamble towards the cityscapes to feast
on brains untried by literature's blood. 
The beating metrics, the verse hordes lurching,
an overwhelming, never ending flood
that in its hunger is darkly searching. 
We resurrect the language culture killed
by dumbing down our informative prose. 
So we, the poet-priests in secret guild,
let slip the zombie-songs that no one knows
to kill the ignorance breeding inside
our population. Don't run, and don't hide.

Ars Piratica

I want to live a life that's bold and free,
chasing broad horizons and bright sunsets.
Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me!

I want to sail the wild, open seas,
and live without society's regrets.
I want to live a life that's bold and free.

I'll capture British cargoes full of tea
shipping from the East: China and Tibet.
Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me!

Swab the deck! Hard a' port and hard a' lee!
The Royal Marines won't catch me, not yet!
I want to live a life that's bold and free.

I'll give chase from those naval enlistees
and I'll slip free from their poorly made net.
Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me!

When I'm finally caught (like I knew I'd be!)
I'll go out fighting, from all sides beset.
I want to live a life that's bold and free,
yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me!

Lions of poetry

Sprawling in sun and baking dry
Gorged from the gazelle and oryx
Dozing, awaiting night's embrace
An ear flick, a tail twitch, power

Sprawling in concept and idea
Gorged from the diction and syntax
Dozing, awaiting the pen's scratch
A stanza, a couplet, meaning

Word quilts

They may have called me a wordsmith 
but I don't strike hot iron to forge prose.
Verse can be steel hard in creation,
but can also be as delicate as a rose.

No clanging forge creates my mess,
no hot fire or anvil hard for my words.
Instead it is more like making a quilt,
sewing the ideas as flighty as birds.

Adjectives embroider my art
Word choice stands substitute for fabric shapes 
Meter dances in and out like thread
quilting and binding poetic landscapes.

Inspiration

Inspiration has no foreplay
it will never offer or tease
the rude bastard just grabs on
and so like an animal, seeds.

Generation

Writing should be what I abhor
because my mind is raped by metaphor.
Day by day, the churlish swain
invades, impregnates, corrupts my brain.
My thoughts are heavy with fetal prose;
it kicks and squirms, writhes and grows,
'til long last with beating heart
it's born as screaming, naked art.