An Attempt at Free Verse

I was told

my style

was old

and hadn’t been used in quite awhile.

Modern poetry, on the other hand, wherever that is…

doesn’t have to

rhyme

or follow

a pattern.

And so I’m

abandoning rhyme.

But it isn’t easy. It will take time for me to learn. (Learn rhymes with pattern…gotta fix that…)

And so,

in interest of variety

and more versatility

I decided to write modern poetry.

First I have to stop this bad

habit of rhyming all the endings

because I know the latest fad…

I mean THING…the latest thing!

(close call…)

is to run the lines long and not follow any meter or be concerned with rhythm or grammar or punctuation or speling or anything like that becuse aftur all poetrying is really just about self expreshun isn’t it?

So let’s start…What’s a good topic?

Something really philosophic…

ARGH! I mean, “thought provoking!”

(See I’m getting the hang of it)

Let’s see…Here goes:
Long ago the sound of trickling water

Entered the glass vortex of my mind

I cannot fight the dark trees looming

Over the tears inside the lakes of Minnesota where I was born

And the doctor wouldn’t tell me my weight.

If I were a fish I would swim to you

And cry out freedom and bondage no more, forever liberated, you, and only you, and none else

But you, and only you.

But no.

I can’t.

Let me go!
There. My first modern masterpiece!

Another trick of the trade is to use a lot of spaces

in places

Shakespeare would have

ne

ve r

used them.

Because it’s all about

self expression…i mean expreshun…right

?

Yeah it is.

I can be respected as a poet

Although I’m not and though I know it.

If I write with rhyme

I’m

Automatically archaic and devoid of depth or subtlety.

Because the critics say so

And they’re always right.

But if I write

Without rhyme or rhythm or meter

About a recovering wife beater…

Or about my heart bleeding deep, deep inside, or something.

A good few paragraphs

Maybe two paragraphs

And then use s p a c e s on Microsoft Word

randomly

And bre

ak

The paragraph up into

f

r

a

g

m

e

n

t

s

and ignore…I mean, “ignoar”…spell check

while closing my eyes.

I’m sure to win a Pulitzer Prize!

and get my book published and read

By blind people who can’t get out of…be…be…their chairs!

But I’ll be sure to dedicate my first volume of books to “Ann, who taught me to write”

on the fly pages of the hard cover

before the first poem, which will be about some lover

named Dan, or Ted,

who can’t get over some girl and so jumps off a building, but not before writing her an email saying “I’ve always loved you. Because your eyes are clear and bl…bl…green. Yeah. Green.

Green.

And people read it and say “I can really, really

relate

to that.” Thank you so much for writing it.

And I write them back and say,

“Really, it’s nothing”.

And I mean it, too.

(And you know how.)

So I’m wondering which is worse:

To write poetry the old way, and be ignoard like spell check.

Or publish free verse.

Hmm..

-January 2009