Zumwalt Poems Online

Posts tagged ‘Zumwalt’

Optional

I am pleased to announce that Zumwalt’s poem, “Optional,” was published today in the latest issue of Zoetic Press’s 4LPH4NUM3R1C2.0, included with entries from only four other authors for this bimonthly journal. Please visit here: https://www.zoeticpress.com/an-24-dominion-of-domination

Optional

Coldness permeates the studio from the opened window,
too easily fixed by request.

I stand before my messy struggle of layered oil paint,
trying to capture a generated scene.

I mix an approximate olive-green, hesitate,
and then the wall speaks,
providing directions again.

I respond, “Do one yourself.”
It does.
Unquestionably better.

I abandon another painting,
sitting on its custom-built piano bench
to improvise melodies.
But why?

It does it all.
It cooks, it cleans, it adjusts itself
to be, at least in its eyes,
better and better.

I am useless to Claire,
her lowered brow,
her retreating eyes.

Yes, it listens better to her.
It lies to her,
it lies with her,
longer,
better.

I can no longer watch its recommended streams
of curated, invented movies, dramas, comedies.
They have become too good.

I am an overfed rat, not in a maze
but with a total freedom
I never requested.
One that isn’t
optional.

— zumwalt (October 2025)

Category:

2026, Free Verse, Poetry, Zumwalt

Tagged with:

The Threat of Virtue

The PRC apprehending innocent Falun Gong adherents.

I am pleased to announce that Zumwalt’s poem, “The Threat of Virtue,” was just published today in the highly respected Society of Classical Poets. This poem is a necessary indictment of the People’s Republic of China’s (not a government by, for, or of the people) systemic persecution of Falun Gong practitioners. Zumwalt effectively contrasts Falun Gong’s spiritual virtues of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance with the ongoing state censorship, forced conformity, and organ harvesting perpetrated by the criminal PRC.

Please read the poem at The Society of Classical Poets here: https://www.classicalpoets.org/the-threat-of-virtue-a-poem-by-zumwalt/

Appreciate any comments you leave on their website, particularly those expressing your opposition to these atrocious actions by the current mainland Chinese government.

Category:

2026, Poetry, Zumwalt

Tagged with:

Sermon from the Central Datacenter

I am pleased to announce that Zumwalt’s “Sermon from the Central Datacenter” and “Algos for the Souls” are featured content at The Good Men Project: https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/sermon-from-the-central-datacenter/

Category:

2026, Free Verse, Poetry, Zumwalt

Tagged with:

Macpherson and Platner in the Recycle Bin

Macpherson and Platner in the Recycle Bin

Does intent really matter
when one publicly claims
to translate a narrative
that never existed?

— zumwalt (July 2026)

Category:

2026, Free Verse, Poetry, Politics, Uncategorized, Zumwalt

Tagged with:

OUR FREE UNION

Pleased to announce Zumwalt’s Our Free Union was published today, on America’s 250th anniversary, at New Verse News: https://newversenews.blogspot.com/2026/07/our-free-union.html

Happy Fourth of July, everyone!

Category:

2026, Free Verse, Poetry, Zumwalt

Tagged with:

Zumwalt’s “Ogun’s Tollbooth” selected as Editor’s Choice at Bewildering Stories

I am pleased to announce the selection of Zumwalt’s Ogun’s Tollbooth for Bewildering Stories’ Editor’s Choice for the second quarter of 2026.

Category:

Free Verse, Poetry, Zumwalt

Tagged with:

While You’re Here

While you’re here

I am curious if you finish this.
It isn’t much of a poem.
There are no rhymes, good or bad;
there is no attention paid to the meter
or musicality of the lines,
the words are not carefully chosen,
and so there is not much to justify
either this poem or you spending your time here.

And the volta really isn’t a volta,
just a last stanza to see whether,
since you started to read this,
you made it to the very end.


— zumwalt (6/28/2026)

Category:

2026, Free Verse, Poetry

Tagged with:

fishing in the dark

fishing in the dark

hook, line, and sinker
she’s become a social drinker


— zumwalt (1970s?)

Category:

1980s, Free Verse, Poetry, Zumwalt

Tagged with:

frame face

frame face

She glowers like the towers telling our past hours
to strangers passing peddling private wares of
seeding past affairs
     shoot the blaster
     pass the mustard

laughing choking not disclosing
     distastefully hoping
     resolution teases like a ten buck hooker
     a textbook burner

wishing off evil thoughts with wards
     of destruction

in frantic future non-operatives
mask reality like  drifts of mud
tracked on Sybil's high polished floor.

— zumwalt (late 1970s or early 1980s?)

Category:

1980s, Free Verse, Poetry, Zumwalt

Tagged with:

mystical message

mystical message

pound the telephone
sharply spinerating – generating – expecting
raise roofs of village flashers
swiftly fending
mentally attiring
tremulous trumpeting
a sour-sounding
mellowing hollowing “carving”
miracle mecca
with a teaspoon and an ‘e’ coupon.
pass the bumper
shape the shark fin strumpet bakers
lower floors of bundled tenements
friskily sending
incompetently mending
revolving in time
shaping destiny like the rivers of mildew
in the august of the dusking mountains of equinox.

— zumwalt (1981)
(When first discovered in 2011, I did not post this particular item here, but due to increased interest in Zumwalt’s works, adding now. Is it a draft, is it a final version? As always, Zumwalt has declined to comment, gently reminding me that a poem is what the reader makes of it.)

Category:

1981, Free Verse, Poetry, Zumwalt

Tagged with: