Truth To Tell
Evil I have done
and evil suffered.
The pure of heart are hard to find.
Rain is not enough, nor sun:
to wash or bleach
the ringing cords that from my mind
unto the lock of groaning run –
from which arise
not what is living,
nor has nerves and quick recoil,
only fumes and tattered lies
that fed my choice
when I agreed instead to boil
and patience of my growth despise.
I am not ill;
I am not hard to find.
This itch I do not choose to scratch.
Guilt is not enough, nor pill
the sinews foul
to wrench or melt or disattach.
In light of loves once failed I glimpse my will.
Here I hold my self against the kill.
Slow Literature 
I think every human above the age of 12 or so can relate very personally to these words.
This must have been a free verse of yours? No attempt, this accomplishment is poignant and moving; the beauty of the light it casts is hard to bear.
In reading, I find myself convicted by my past yet inspired in recognizing the mistakes therein to change my here-and-now.
Thank you.
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Thanks for commenting, Emily. I’m glad it was enlightening.
Well, there’s a definite rhythm to it… and the rhyme scheme is abcadca(a.)
So it doesn’t fit the the definition of free verse… and no, it didn’t come easily. To compose it was was an act of power, myself moving within myself.
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Brilliant. It has been too long since I read something you’ve written.
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Thank you, David.
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Excellent! Excellent! Bravo!
One of your best.
Emily Dickinson reminds me of you.
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Romanos, thank you for the encouragement.
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I’ve been reading Robert Frost – first I read his life, then his poetry. “The Aim Was Song” is the title of the biography, taken from one of his poems, and – that’s exactly how I feel.
Also, some Ezra Pound – the two poets clashed in life and form contrasts in history. Pound was a wild singer whose ‘personae’ break your heart, but he fell to babbling in the twilight of the world and founded silly schools of poetry that had lost all semblance of being poetry other than an echo of lyricism. Frost grew wry and wise and kept gently singing well into the sixties…
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Yes, I love Frost’s poetry…
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