Sep 14, 2015 | Gus Stevens, Sinner's Psalms vol. 2, Villanelle
Tied to a stake, the string stretched ponderously far arcing into the blue and almost out of sight; it cast no shadow and seemed as distant as a star and slit the sky to a pointed diamond-shaped scar. The minuscule and near invisible sprite hung motionless and still...
May 27, 2015 | Grief, Gus Stevens, Mom, Songs for the Dead, Sonnet, Terza Rima
If you believe that deaths do come in threes and that we are maskers in some Greek play then I am deathless, immortal to disease. No foe’s hand can spill my blood nor make me pay the infinite cost of my one own life; it must be by my hand: no other way. Mother...
Mar 8, 2015 | Grief, Gus Stevens, Mom, Quatrains, Songs for the Dead
How ill a son returns his mother’s love. A mother’s love is spendthrift, wasteful, strange– while his response, at best, is but an echo of that heart. —It will never be a fair exchange. Share...
Feb 16, 2015 | Gus Stevens, Italian Sonnet, Sonnet, The Unspeakable Name vol. 2
“Who of us can dwell with the consuming fire? Who of us can dwell with everlasting burning?” -Isaiah 33:14 He is deafening sound and burning light and this sinner’s eyes cannot bear the load; I have feared His wrath and now dread delight for who can...
Dec 21, 2014 | Gus Stevens, Seasons, Sonnet, Terza Rima, Winter
Wandering with careless muddied steps, I squish the gluttonous ground all drunk with rain in this city where the puddles never dry and the leaf-crammed gutters never drain ‘cept for a fleeting fist of golden weeks when the sun visits all brilliant and vain. And...
Dec 15, 2014 | Gus Stevens, Seasons, Sonnet, Victorian Sonnet, Winter
What can be offered to the afternoon but words and words; there’s nothing new to say and so I’m silent as the winter’s moon with her half smile over the brilliant day. The clouds have all been chased off by the sun, her sole companion in an empty...
