Beloved

In the last several years, I have read quite a bit of modern metrical poetry (if such a dichotomy can be said to exist), and have found in it an unfortunate and almost universal tendency toward gracelessly long line lengths. It is rare enough to find ten syllables per line (though this still manages to hang on in the Shakespearean sonnet), and anything less is almost non-existent. Such wordiness is usually nothing but a crutch. That is, it can be quite difficult to express cogent thoughts in brief lines, and is far easier to let lines tend toward sentence-length, then tack on some quick rhymes at the very end. What is lost in this lengthy-line format, however, is the sense of rhythm and cadence that allows a poem to dance like a leaf on the wind, march like a battalion on parade, or whirl like an elegant waltz. Consequently, most modern metrical poetry has all the finesse of a 12-gauge shotgun. How I wish that we could find our way back to the grace of language we once had.


Beloved

Beloved, consort of my soul,
you bare your heart,
unburdened of its bitter toll
by tender art
that marries, in a perfect whole,
the wanting part.

And in the greater aggregate,
these scarlet cords,
as lithe as fawns, as consummate
as cultured lords,
shall take a taste and pay a debt
that common words

cannot suffice. What interstice
is left unlit?
And what allure of this bliss
could I remit?
I find no former that I miss,
so let them flit

and fly away upon the air
of eras past.
Beloved, what sublime and rare
belief is cast
before us, in an answered prayer
of love, at last.