Jan 28, 2013 | Bible Story, Gus Stevens, Sonnet, The Unspeakable Name vol. 1, Victorian Sonnet
His finger carved a sentence from the stone and the command carved a people from the whole. But they spilled an ink that settles in the bone when they ignored the scribblings of the scroll. While people beneath were busy fouling souls, casting a god they could not...
Jan 20, 2013 | Gus Stevens, Moss Kingdom, Sonnet, Victorian Sonnet
Song birds are silent as they wing their way unhindered through a clear and naked air but when, wing-wrapped, they weigh upon a branch, they breathe a morning prayer. Either body or voice will rise in song but never the two combined. For we flightless, this seems...
Jan 7, 2013 | Gus Stevens, Sinner's Psalms vol. 1, Sonnet, Victorian Sonnet
No motion carries here without my final vote for the meddler in my head, he sounds a lot like me; I hear no snake’s hiss, no gravel in his throat. My will is not a raindrop carried mindless to the sea; and yet, it is my self I can’t control and the devil...
Jan 4, 2013 | Bible Story, Gus Stevens, Quatrains, Rhymed Couplets, The Unspeakable Name vol. 1
“You must leave your land, your gods. Take flight.” The Voice was so unyielding, so obscure. How could he trust that whisper in the night beckoning the patriarch from his home in Ur? At the dead end of his doubts he could not— and perhaps it was only...
Dec 29, 2012 | Gus Stevens, Moss Kingdom, Sonnet, Victorian Sonnet
With fungal crown, King Oberon receives all the waste and the withering of time, sees the fall and the flowering of leaves then paints the river rocks all black with slime. Whole continents are nursed within a fallen log and the trees, evergreen, never shed their...
Nov 4, 2012 | Gus Stevens, Quatrains, Rhymed Couplets, Sinner's Psalms vol. 1
The wedding invitation I refuse; I cannot match your hunger for delight. In black robes instead of white I recuse myself; I do not have the appetite. Only a perfect one could be your muse; I wear more sensible shoes. Why do you keep me, pampered as a house-cat basking...
