Poetry by Vernon Frazer

On Deadline

A cold wall stutter

intoned, its pontificated glyph

marked the surfeit’s rendered portent:

adagio lumens, 

the nicety flailing the flags 

of past gallantry,

a wherewithal enamored in the knot.

No freelance desists rafting

past mention of durable utterance

staking amoral claim

to lifting measured legends

past drywall custom

or fledgling nuance cast ashore

nor gall to mutter

the stale fragrance the memoir

brings to utter the present rift 

Written in Stone

the barrier rose a frugal mist

in turns against the bloodline shore

its sequestered undertow

a churn toward memory 

fixed as granite’s flow ebbing 

a slow repose its yearning

listless memoirs unwritten

flap white banners across the sky

foreboding couriers on course

with collision its time carrier

broken open as a telling dial circles

twelve limits of its grim perimeter