Free Poetry

This is free poetry.

By that I mean unstilted, see?

Not handicapped by rhyme, or rule or time,

Or reason or metre.

The wild strawberry is sweeter,

So why not the same with verse?

Why should it be ever fine and terse,

Always straight, measured off, hard,

No more, no less, exact to a tee,

High-strung, artistic, able, gee!

I’d rather be a natural bard,

And write just as I feel and not

Be chained to the spot

Spending precious hours, yea, days

To find a word to rhyme. My lays

I’d like to go untamed, about

The kind that Whitman rounded out.

Art is all right, but I would rather see

Niagara in the rough out where she be

Than on a canvas in the galleree.

A hot-house plant is alright for some

But by gum

Give me the sturdy oak that grows

Out where the wind of winter blows;

Skunk cabbage and the goldenrod

Daisy fields and fern-grown sod.

All life is poetry and poetry is life,

I opine, anyway it is for mine,

And so whene’er I pen a lay,

As I say,

I want to break away

And go full tilt,

Hit or miss

Like this

Up to the hilt.

Aug. 5, ‘07