Eos and Apollo

The first line of this poem is taken from Homer's Odyssey. It shows up in countless places throughout, but the particular one I stole came from line 170 of book 9. All the rest is my own, however, so, unfortunately, Homer can carry no blame, aside from being an initial inspiration.

Eos and Apollo

Young dawn, with fingertips of rose,

now makes a soft approach from Helios' house

to lay the dim stars in repose

and usher out her ancient phoeban spouse.

He waits, his chariot prepared,

all girt about in godly fire and light,

and holds his steeds, so fresh and flared,

from leaping forward in untimely flight.

She calls him forth, her waking chant

of spousal love sounds on the morning air

with warbling birds that raise a cant

of glory for the god, their humble prayer.

The two embrace in endless dance

that she begins and he concludes in turn,

her blush in bloom at his advance,

her chambers ready for his fit return.

Just so he bursts upon the earth,

as she recedes again into her hold,

and yet, in each they find their worth:

her beauty is his merry mirth;

his majesty, her happiness untold.

Spring Morning

The last couple days have been gloriously sunny (though still a bit cold in the evenings) and teasing hints of Things To Come are slowly rising in the air and trees and people. I feel it's about time, then, that I brought out my first spring poem of the year. I dearly love winter, and the quiet, cozy comfort that it brings, but we live always in the cycle of the seasons, and it is fast approaching the time of the wide and verdant days of summer. This poem is a sonnet of sorts - though not in the strictest sense - and also somewhat of a counterpart to a previous poem, 'Daybreak.'


Spring Morning

The sun, ascended to its seat above the earth

upon a coil of eternal care,

extends its lambent arms in full and fiery birth,

where feathers float so freely on the air

and mistral morning clouds recline in waning girth

to consecrate the haloes in their hair.

Then here, below, bedecked, each flower lifts a crown,
a congregation, spread about its feet
of grasses bent with dew and bees in banded down,
who gather for the sacramental sweet
of life enlivened by the lucid stellar gown
that rests upon the land in lush replete.

So spring has woken with a royal trumpet blare,
as winter makes a reticent retreat.

The Ivy

I've been desiring, for a while, to write poetry that is not about myself, but the world around me. Inspiration is always difficult to come across, though. One cannot force it, but must wait until the moment strikes. And so I waited. And waited. Then, just the other day, I saw the most wonderfully ragged growth of ivy climbing up a brick wall, and knew I had to say something about it. There was just too much beauty to ignore. This is what came out, and while it has little to do with the actual wall of ivy I saw, it does attempt to draw on something true, however little it may be. It's a bit short; I wish I could have taken it further, but I couldn't see where to go after the third verse.

The Ivy

The creep and cleave upon the stone,

laid out in ancient line,

calls quietly to earth and bone,

to storm and salty brine,

from spidered hands that hold the cracks

and twist upon the jar,

that see the shell for what it lacks

and wage a lonely war

with root and stem and branch and leaf

against the elder wall,

where growth ascends upon the grief

and carries over all.

Silence and Sound

This poem is a perfect example of how my mind runs in cycles. Not only is the rythmic structure very similar to my last post, but I even borrowed some of the images and rhymes, and without realizing it at the time. Yet somehow, the subject matter still manages to be wildly different. Essence over accident, I guess. Also, if you hadn't noticed, I've been playing around with repetition of words lately, primarily thanks to T.S. Eliot, the master of unrepetetive repetition. I hope my early attempts aren't too obtuse. I prefer the surgeon's knife over the blunt ax, but it's hard to be objective about one's own writing.


Silence and Sound

You spoke, and speaking bared the blade
that turned the flesh away from bone
and stole a heart, so sorely paid
in purchase of a pleasant tone
to rub this aching ear aright,
then burden with a baseless fright,
like moss that creeps upon the stone,

spun of the threads that chance to be
and dissipate upon the air,
that spread uncertain certainty
within the fabric, woven fair
by hand, and tongue, and time unchained;
a painful pleasure for the pained,
who fails to ever find the tear.

Yet how could I subdue the sound
that sends the agony, acute,
upon the mind in pulse and pound
that measured days cannot dilute.
For me, the only greater fear
than suffering the words I hear
is that, one day, you will be mute.

Unbound

I've been reading a lot of new and different (for me) poets lately. T.S. Eliot, John Donne, and the like. Talk about unattainable heights. This poem is taken, in a way, from Eliot's the Four Quartets. I hesitate to say that, though, because it invariably suggests comparison, which I could neither ask nor want.


Unbound

Thus bound, we are unbound,

in chains as heavy as the sea

waves crashing, foam to ground,

up from a rough eternity,

and in this noisome sound,

that rolls in rush and pound,

unbound are we,

who skitter on the sand

and flail our sodden wings for flight,

to neither lift nor land,

to look down from no greater height.

The dirt calls to the hand,

you are my clay, my sand,

and my birthright,

born in the fires below

that pull the flesh away from bone,

where from a chant runs low,

a pagan rite of blood and stone.

But here, the gentiles know;

the gods that come and go

were always one,

and One who dries the wings,

and sets the shell upon the air,

whose voice, in shouting, sings

whose wretchedness is blessed fair.

These chains are golden rings,

that lift to higher things,

to everywhere.

A Lonely Hope

I am not particularly pleased with this poem, so I may revise it at some point. This week has been an absolute crush of responsibility, and my free time has dwindled down to a few spare minutes here and there. But a poem a week is a poem a week, and so I shall not disappoint (at least in one sense...).


A Lonely Hope

Here I wake and hold my breath,
from solemn sleep, close kin of death,
but she refrains from drawing on my debt.

Another hour yet I hold,
to make of it my grist or gold,
to strain against the world in my net.

This is too much to ask of one
whose weakness is the will undone,
whose palaces are set upon the sand.

How can I hope to find, unfound,
the treasures resting in this ground,
the wonders held beyond my grasping hand?

Is it enough that I should keep
from sinking in the soundless deep
and hold my head above the stormy sea?

For I fear, yet, the heavy cost
we pay for what is asked and lost.
No happiness is set a simple fee.

And still for happiness we seek,
as if we were not frail and meek;
we cannot choose the path our feet will tread.

A lonely hope it is, but true,
and this small hope, alone, will do
to separate the living from the dead.

Daybreak

Despite the fact that I have a three day weekend, I have been rising every morning to watch the sunrise, and each time, it is equally and surprisingly beautiful. No matter how busy life gets, morning somehow manages to wash all of that away, and for a few spare hours, everything again seems simple and easy.

Daybreak

The half-moon stands illustrious above the trees,

there turned to watch the early earth unbend

in eyes and wings that waken with the western breeze

and stretch in sunlight shadow on the grass,

white-rymed and folded down in frost from end to end

and held as silent statues born in glass.

The winter black is wrenched aside as if a shroud

were split apart to prove the life that lay

beneath the still of sleep, with resurrection bowed

to swell and gasp the chill and quickened air

that bears the seasoned breath of cedar spray

and strands of smoke, the fields' hoary hair,

where little scraps of dusk endure in dip and fold

of wrinkled ground that wears its age with ease,

to wait the sun that rises slowly, rimmed in gold.

I cannot tell the moment when the day

broke forth so suddenly from secret eastern seas,

but when it did, all darkness drew away.