Poems

Original Poetry by Warren Gaston

The Train Not Taken

I did not board the train, and therefore, I did not unexpectedly arrive in Seattle after a long cross-country trip I did not take. No one waited for me at the station, and if they did it was a sheer coincidence. I did not tell anyone to meet me, or not. Having not...

read more

Geworfenheit*

"Into this world we're thrown / Like a dog without a bone". The Doors "Riders on the Storm" (1971) after a slow gathering of material sensations & molecules suddenly we arrive thrown into a pattern of particulate particulars choiceless & unprepared but with...

read more

So Much

“We formerly erred through ignorance. We go wrong today through the extent of our knowledge.” Odysseus Elytis* Much, we know much, so very, very much, and so much more, much more than we thought we knew the day before. Stacks of facts. We know little things. s u b a t...

read more

Happy New Year!

The earth turns the sun arcs west across the sky, and the moon dances bravely in the dark among the black branches of an oak. The clouds blow wither they want, or so it seems, until the wind kisses your face cold and you remember we are often moved by powers we cannot...

read more

Most of Me Is Not Mine

Most of me is not mine. My provisions are provided to me more than I provide. I am almost wholly given, by the force that gives the sun, gives birds, gives wheat, that thrusts up mountains, that shoves flowers out of soil, that troubles waters and stirs wind. Over the...

read more

News*

I chop three onions my vision blurs from tearing. I blame the onions, even though wounded news bleeds through my television. --------------------------------------------- *a Japanese tanka form

read more

Warmth*

behind the furnace where heat blossoms out of gas I escape the crowd and rest near the blushing flame comfortable and alone *This poem is a tanka, a Japanese poetic for of 5 lines, the lines containing a syllable count of 5 - 7 - 5 - 7 - 7.  

read more

The Renter

Prose Poem Leroy's mind was a fully furnished apartment which he rented by the year thus eliminating the bother to furnish thoughts of his own.    

read more