Fred Rik Kesner

`
...

Morning comes softer now.
You rise without rushing,
the house no longer waiting
for your first move.
...

Late afternoon carries its usual drift,
a few steps folding into the next crossing,
someone adjusting their bag as they pass,
a shopfront glow shifting when the door swings wide.
...

'please hold the line'
...

'quieted grain'


day thins on toothy edges,
...

A stray raggamuffin breeze skitters through the yard,
catching on the rags left drying on the line—
each one a small refusal, a frayed rebuttal
to the tidy doctrines the elders once stitched.
...

They call us mad, they call us cursed,
For we will not bow to their painted gods—
Their temples reek of incense and decay,
Their priests chant empty words to dying fires.
...

people are our real legacy;
one day sure, entire poems
shall have been forgotten,
while remains a phrase or
...

O Dionysus, breaker of chains,
I sing not for the meek, the tamed, the gelded—
But for the wolves who howl against the night,
Who tear the velvet lies from rotting thrones!
...

Secrets remain shrouded, unspoken,
yet I see them seep
into the spaces between breaths.
Truth, as it stands,
...

They tell us to hold steady,
keep the ground firm,
but the ground itself shifts—
silent adjustments beneath
...

History does not pause for breath,
it moves like morning,
inevitable yet unnoticed.
...

A soul refrains from distant quests,

Throne, temple, summit—all forsaken.
...

Snow finds the peaks first.
Dusts the rocks,
a quiet landing overnight.
Thredbo wakes white,
...

They came for the feast of phrases,
gathered ‘round the wordless flame.
Empty cups clinked, unsated,
as the poet shrugged—his muse unspoken.
...

Beneath the ash-grey skies of longing,
the earth breathes—not for you,
not for me, but for itself.
A pulse steady, undaunted by
...

Words collect like morning dew on leaves—
offered, absorbed, refracted—
a quiet exchange in the rhythms of being.
...

Apologia in Free Verse (After Too Much Meter)


I meant to speak plainly. To let the thought go unbuttoned,
...

The screen yawns wide,
empty as the Nullarbor plain—
'no comments posted yet, ' it whispers,
a sign more accusatory than absent.
...

Thereupon a banquet spread
delectable dishes arrayed—
greens, meats, fruit, and wine:
marine, fowl, farm, and vine.
...