Poems of a Free Man

In the lowest depths of the darkest year When I had all the world before me but couldn’t see I sat alone one night with a beer And reinvented my sanity. My angst ridden body in those hallowed halls Where my every step was flight The vision of a mountain town Came to me one night. The town was set... Sign in to see full entry.

Autumn and that old feeling has come around Where my mind rides heavy in the storm And my feet can’t find the ground. Round and round my brain’s work spins My chemicals spike while others dip And even smiles from pretty girls Leave my mental state in ruins. I try, I try to bear it like a man Knowing... Sign in to see full entry.

I sit on a rock in the middle of a river As the waters of life flow by from higher elevations, melted snow from craggy peaks, bringing with them knowledge of happiness and pain. The water splashes gurgled ripples over the rocks - the fluid laughter of a pretty girl I have loved whose smiling eyes,... Sign in to see full entry.

Green pasture, seven-thirty in the evening: The sun a glaring orange orb in the west, ready to tip his green flash of a hat and say good-night. I sit with friends around two burning grills, Meat searing – hamburgers and brawts – Telling stories of the day, the week. As each beer is lifted from the... Sign in to see full entry.

The sky purple orange and grey at sunset Nearly dark Too dark to write The zig zag line of cedar fences enclosing fields of death Fields of life I come to the battlefield at night At first just once or twice As the mood struck me right. But now nearly every night. Crickets, frogs, katydids Chirping,... Sign in to see full entry.

From this, the brutalist of winters I hope to emerge into a beautiful Spring full of life, love, meaning...and most of all desire. Sign in to see full entry.

Attention poets! We are now accepting submissions for the Gadfly Poetry Contest. First prize is $100. Second prize is $25. Third prize is a copy of the Gadfly Poetry Journal. Please submit up to five poems of no more than 20 lines. Entry fee is $10 for first poem plus a reading fee of $5 for each... Sign in to see full entry.

Fish and chips hot, greasy crisp, fried golden splashed with malt vinegar And a squeeze of lemon Sounds really, really good right now. Sign in to see full entry.

I remember I was a farmer in my grown up dreams But I have forsaken the land and made many wrong decisions And my fears forsook me: no land, no farmer. But thwarted Destiny drives in on her tractor sometimes and rattles my chains saying, "See, this is what could have been: The sky overhead,... Sign in to see full entry.

The world has been too much with me this week: Birth and Death on my mind in the presence of tears and the absence of love. It has caused me to be sick and the past few nights I have gone to bed troubled. But sometime this morning I dreamed of standing with her at the big window Of a clean house... Sign in to see full entry.