So are you in the mood for some predetermined poesy? Fate can be a troubling concept — is the future predetermined and unavoidable? Is there a natural order to the cosmos? These are difficult ideas, and poetry is an excellent vehicle for experimenting with our varying notions on the subject. You could try a haiku about horoscopes or pantoum about predestination. For our part we’ve avoided metered rhyme and cast our fortunes on free verse. Our poems about fate are all original, and you will find them only at Shadow of Iris.
Fate Stayed, a poem
by Amanda Lynn
It’s esoteric
and inscrutable—
your philosophy.
Perhaps it’s just a mask
for you to hide behind.
Or is it a rubric
trying to show me
the way in?
I’m caught between two ideas,
to stay or to go;
to reach out or to hold firm—
maybe, I should just say goodbye.
I find tea leaves
at the bottom of my cup
and they spell out
a three letter word, run.
Chicken bones rolled like dice
land in the shape of an arrow
that points away from you.
Yet I look in your eyes
and I see past fate
and into soul—
I will stay.
Fate and Code, a poem
by the Eclectic Minstrel
1
Fate steps
on the skulls
of time.
Ego
follows
lust;
death consume
them both.
2
They set sail in search of heroes
yet the wind dragged them
to the place where even breezes die
and luck swirls in a vortex without end.
Looking down, in shades of blue,
they saw wavering images trying to come into form;
mysteries written in code, the cypher,
a key lost in a dream.
Fate Burns, a poem
by Dustin Down
Nearby, sex taunts me—
angels wear lingerie,
for goodness wants
nothing left unexposed
except those tears
for that which I’ll never have.
This is when I tremble
at a future without you.
I am in hallway
and each door is shut—
the passage grows
faster than I can walk it.
Then all at once each door opens,
and there are a thousand dreams
at my beck and call—
I’m stunned into a paralysis.
With you by my side,
I’m a moth to the flame.
I tell you to leave me,
but what good does it do,
at the last minute you run
when you should have veered.
We get in the car
and I drive off
remembering
what you once were
before I burned you.
Sound of Fate, a poem
by Felicity Hope
It’s a cacophony of sound
that doesn’t quite merit
the word music.
It’s the sound of machines
scraping across the ground,
a scratched whisper in the breeze;
something heard only in the mind
when the wave reach
just the right pitch.
It’s the voice of yesterday
that calls out to me and warns me
time slips,
and that if yesterday was fate,
then tomorrow is destiny.
Point of No Return, a poem
by Marya Ophir
Signal and causal influence happen
at velocities greater than light.
They stretch and bend
even my own electrons,
pulling them apart
into fragments that bloom
into dimensions of infinite mass
that drag in fate, destiny,
the kitchen sink,
the thing the cat brought back in,
and even this poem.
The world is changed because you are made of ivory and gold. The curves of your lips rewrite history.
― Oscar Wilde
Both fate and chance have lead you here. But now you control your own destiny—go to the sidebar and follow Shadow of Iris. You don’t want to miss our next great poem of providence.