Nov 21, 2016 | Chiastic, Gus Stevens, Winter
I need to find a place to dry my shoes and a fresh towel after a hot shower, then clean sheets tucked tight beneath the corners of the bed. I’ve been too long in the wind, too long among the tree limbs all thinned of leaves and life. While winter’s bare...
Oct 31, 2016 | Autumn, Gus Stevens, Hexameter, Quatrains
With a howl, October’s winds shear the fiery hosts of their yellows and reds to leave the branches bare. Then the orphaned leaves are stained, like little brown ghosts, on the sidewalk before they’re raised into the air again. A resurrecting tempest—they...
Oct 22, 2016 | Gus Stevens, Sestet
It’s said that Heaven’s Father never will receive worship from those mercenaries who use love’s coin to purchase other joys. If sought not for himself, his hands will kill the traitor gods and glamouring fairies who...
Sep 12, 2016 | Erotic, Gus Stevens, Italian Sonnet, Love, Sonnet
The body delights in its own travail, both teased and tortured by a pulsing strain with claws of pleasure resembling pain. She prophesies but cannot pierce the veil; she approaches but cannot breach the pale. The end she sees and struggles to obtain with breathless...
Aug 22, 2016 | Commissioned, Gus Stevens, Quatrains, Songs for the Dead
Being eldest, she always knew the best places to hide for games of hide and seek and where to find the abandoned bird’s nest or the stones you needed to cross the creek with dry shoes. She was strong and fast and brave; she already knew most of the letters and...
Jul 15, 2016 | Alexandrine, Autumn, Erotic, Gus Stevens, Love, Seasons, Spring, Summer, Winter
Look my young fool, born with the Spring’s first green, our morning is all spent and now the afternoon bleeds red in the west. Will you really be so mean as to ignore the pot you set upon the coals? I want you, and the water will be boiling soon. Come, Fool,...
