Jan 29, 2017 | Gus Stevens, Quatrains, Rubaiyat
Sounds are metamorphed by fear, and trolls grind their teeth with the bones of a butchered hind. Such are the thoughts that will not let you sleep when silence paints the visions of the blind. The bravest have the coward souls of sheep huddled together against the...
Dec 27, 2016 | Advent, Gus Stevens, Italian Sonnet, Mom, Sonnet
A mother’s delight and child’s torment: all those gifts beneath the glittering tree. On Christmas Eve, a singular present, always the smallest, she’d let us tear free from its bright paper. The rest must remain secrets for one more sleep: still a...
Dec 11, 2016 | Advent, Gus Stevens, Sonnet, Victorian Sonnet, Winter
There were a hundred years of snow before the human children came. Years of frost and chain and shadow when nights were long and only flame could keep away the grasping cold. The creatures hoped; but then the boy traded their hopes for promised gold and forfeit life...
Dec 2, 2016 | Bible Story, Gus Stevens, Hymn, Luke Schreiber, Song
Who designed the universe Holds the stars and spins the earth? Who has covered Adam’s shame Clothed him with a costly grace? Who destroyed the world by flood, Buried multitudes in mud? Who reached out a saving hand, Lifted Noah to dry land? The One Who has made...
Nov 28, 2016 | Bible Story, Gus Stevens, Quatrains, Rubaiyat
The plates were full and all the wine provided by the levies of the King, misguided though he was, until the finger wrote “you are Numbered. Numbered. Weighed. Divided.” You dress in purple and that garotte of golden chains weighs heavy on your royal...
Nov 21, 2016 | Chiastic, Grief, Gus Stevens, Regret, Winter
The woman at the counter said she could not tell me where the poet Roethke drowned. The Bloedel Reserve wanted to put on a happier face, a garden in the wood and clifftop eyes above the grey-blue Sound. The pool where they discovered him was gone; the dying place torn...
