What hasn’t yet been said about one’s true Love? What remains for me of you to say? Your glist’ning eyes do pierce my heart right through, As lashes long upon your cheeks do play.
How lips so delicately flushed Are parted by your laugh, revealing teeth Flashing and white, while hair so dark, smooth brushed, Does run in rivulets o’er neck beneath.
Your skipping legs do blur through leaf-strewn fields And down bucolic trails where you call me With but a look. How winter’s days you shield Me from the cold and share rough blankets weighty.
But these are all new things to say of course, For one’s true love is so rarely a horse.
Not quite satisfied with the first version of this, I adapted it to create a rhyme scheme for version 2.
Version 1 A bloody scene all scattered wide, first cold Then warming in the burning sun. But not To last, the multitude of worms work quickly. The possum’s face a lifeless rictus grin, Eyes open staring fixed and blind in death. Do not avert your gaze but listen well For if you give attention, he will speak: ‘You are ever becoming what I am.’
Version 2 A bloody scene all scattered wide, first cold Then warming in the burning sun, begins To waste. The multitude of worms fill the mold. The possum’s face a lifeless rictus grin, Eyes open staring fixed, a look so fey. Do not avert your gaze but listen well For if you give attention, he will say: ‘You too are blood within a brittle shell.’
meter: iambic pentameter form: Version 1 – blank verse, Version 2 – ABABCDCD
The sailor harnesses the wayward winds To strike out to the deep and catch the West. A tiresome life of shifts, the sailor’s test, The wooden world does tie the men as kin.
A world apart, the service and its duty. The daily scrubbing with the holy stone, Alert to quarter deck’s call, then up wind-blown Rigging to set tops’ls all in their beauty.
The ship’s routine, a perfect dance performed, They run to Neptune’s realm through foam and spray 10 That spatters hawse and bow to seize the trades, And day by day both sea and wind are warmed.
But fickle wind then fails. Stalled in dead sea, The doldrums seize the ship. Days wax and wane. While sun bleaches the sails all set in vain, Capricious wind ignores the sailor’s plea.
At last the earth exhales its sweet, sweet breath And grasping royals now begin to fill, Then speeding toward the Cape, the captain’s will. South, south away, away from mortal death. 20
Back, back homeward, routine again they sweat. Decks holystoned, hammocks piped up. At noon Position made, all hands to dinner soon. Drummed orders, hammocks down, the watch is set.
A sail on dawn’s horizon. The command Is ‘Beat to quarters’. Gun crews clear the decks For action, lest the bulkheads, hammocks vex The crews, their guns run out, slow match at hand.
And now the men alow are at the ready. Aloft they tack into the wind to cross 30 The prize’s path. But their hope turns to dross, The friendly signals shown, its course keeps steady.
The trades are strong. Wind on the beam they race Toward home. But, sailor’s dread, a gale now drives The ship headlong. It drifts to lee, no grace Grants the high cliff. The men yet strive But she founders. All hands gone with no trace Down to the bitter depths, a deadly dive. The sailor’s labor, sweat, and toil erased, No mem’ry of the sailor now survives. 40
Gnawing, biting, bleeding, wounding Yet not ever killing. Hanging On, a chained ball dragged, reminder Constant of what’s undone, ended That will not return, not ever. Orpheus walks out from Hell, but No Eurydice then follows. Look, or don’t look back, it matters Not. There’s nothing to regain there. Gone, gone, never coming back now. Forward is the only option, But it forces him to turn back. Hold, great singer, hold fast. Forward Go. Let not its teeth ensnare you.
It rained and rained so black in midst of day Relentless life falling from heaven high, Th’imagined battle, cloud and sun, that he, Hyperion, might shine and see at last Your glory in the full splendor of dawn And you adorned in sun’s full raiment bright. But clouds, bulwark of Zeus, do guard so jealous, Sequester with lightning and thunder that Which he does wrongly think belongs to him. The sun does persevere, prevails without A fight when clouds pass, as they must at last, Fighting in vain against the wind’s sure tide. And now Hyperion has his brief moment To see you and adore you now before The clouds return, as surely they must do. But you can laugh at their prepost’rous game, And laughing conquer would-be conquerors.
“Hello dear, I wrote you a poem.” “Is this one actually for me or is it another passive-aggressive revenge composition?” “No, Mabel, it’s actually for you.” “Go ahead then, Gerald.”
Along the alabaster arc of joy, Stretching beyond the mind’s membranous skeins, The heart cavils at dull, dull persiflage. Time’s bright shadow lengthens now. A moment, grant just one. That is enough.
(aside) “That is enough.” “What, dear?” “Nothing, nothing.” “Do you like it? It’s iambic pentameter, like Shakespeare.” “Is it? I couldn’t tell. Don’t let Shakespeare know you’re comparing yourself to him.” “That hurts, Mabel. I am trying.” “What does it mean?” “What does it mean? Ah, well, that’s for the reader to determine.” “I see. So it doesn’t mean anything.” “No, it does. Would it help to hear it again?” “No! No, no; wouldn’t want to spoil my first impression. Just give it to me.” “Do you like it though?” “Oh yes, I love it. I thank God every day for your poetry. In fact it’s exactly what I was hoping you’d bring me. I need some kindling for the fire.”
Come, take my hand and run with me to find A place unknown, and hand in hand we’ll cross Through skies so clear and bright, wide seas and deep, Running against both time and fate to where The mist lies deep in valleys and the high Mount calls, where deep things wait in places We forgot. We ride to battle, drums and horns, Clarion call to glory, but we laugh And dance and sing, escaping thund’rous din To wander moonlit shores and drive our ship Into the blazing shadow of the sun.
The rolling sea did call to me so sweet Where crashing surf meets yielding sand, two worlds Colliding, foes locked in combative feats, The sea, the stronger, strikes the land all furled.
The shore, deceptive refuge from sea’s ire, Does grant a place to view Neptune’s domain, The deep that beckons to the soul’s great fire, A watery grave where silence does reign.
Enter the surf and taste primaeval fear Between two clashing giants, sea and sand. The savage surf did roll and cast me here. Upon the shore again I take my stand.
I left the beach then for I hate the weather. I have sand in my shorts that chafes my nethers.
This poem was written as part of the monthly Symposium at the Soaring Twenties Social Club (https://soaringtwenties.substack.com/). The topic for the October issue is “The Beach”.
I was reminded recently, by what, I couldn’t say, of something that I knew in the past, namely that reading poetry silently in one’s head is like experiencing a song by reading sheet music and lyrics. It’s missing a crucial component. So here’s a bit of an experiment that I hope to replicate going forward with me doing my best to just read the poem based on its sense and meter while not gilding the lily with any theatrics.
Out of the fog that blankets morning cold, A land of grass in mist enveloped whole, A sea of cloud traversed by tree-top sails, A figure lies so dark, disturbed yet still. Its hooves splayed out, the deer’s slender neck bends Unnaturally, horns touching its back. Its lifeless eyes keep silent watch unblinking, A canvas filled with one’s own self-censure and Reproach as if one’s failed salvation is Akin to striking death’s most fatal blow.
Out of the fog that blankets morning cold, A land of grass in mist enveloped whole, A sea of cloud traversed by tree-top sails, A figure lies so dark, disturbed yet still. Its hooves splayed out, the deer’s slender neck bends Unnaturally, horns touching its back. Its lifeless eyes keep silent watch unblinking, A canvas filled with one’s own self-censure and Reproach as if one’s failed salvation is Akin to striking death’s most fatal blow.
Adam Writes 
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