Welcome to a new feature on FortCollinsLife-Times!

This is the home for the “Colorado Poetry Post” a new effort to support NOCO poetry- and from all over Colorado! Two Colorado poets will be published at a time in this invitational gathering of words.

Watch this space for the first edition- coming soon!

Until then…

Tim Van Schmidt- New York City 2026

Mr. Dark, Go to Your Room

Slinking into my language,
Dark utters graceless words,
snarling and snapping.

All that can be said is: go to your room.

This is temporary. Dark relents
but the door stays open.
In fact, there is no door.

Dark exudes contempt,
inching across the threshold
to bark an unkind truth.

Again, say: go to your room.

That is Dark’s weakness-
he retreats but relishes
his angry mission to escape.

Freed, Dark marks territory,
eats time twisted
by brazen, skewed logic.

Dark stands like the grizzly,
bellows and belches,
raking claws across the path.

It needs to be said: go to your room.

In that moment, Dark whimpers,
becomes only a shadow
running from his brother.

-Tim Van Schmidt
October 2026