Jul 24, 2019 | Alexandrine, Gus Stevens, Hexameter
I once plucked a beach rock from his watery bed; beautiful, once brushed of sand, he did not complain, but now that he’s home, he just lies there–dull and plain. Somewhere along the dirt path home he must have died. A lifeless grey replaced the impossible...
Feb 4, 2019 | Aging, Dream, Gus Stevens, Hexameter, Multi-Syllabic Rhyme, Sestet
Legs stirring before the alarm’s tormenting beep, I wake from strange dreams in the autumn of my youth, and choke on broken promises I meant to keep– a sludge that settles to the bottom with the truth where bottled thoughts belch the foam of cold fermented...
Aug 21, 2018 | Alexandrine, Daughter, Grief, Gus Stevens, Hexameter, Love
The little girl did not know what he was at first— the yellow thing that did not drop if you let go. Still he filled her with so much joy she’d either burst or grow wings so she could float with him through the air. He smiled from above while she laughed along...
Aug 7, 2018 | Alexandrine, Gus Stevens, Hexameter, Seasons, Summer
The wading pool is shrinking with the wasted sun and the yellows of summer drain slowly away exposing red bricks beneath the glittering spray. With cast-off toys and leaves littered about their feet, the bone-soaked nine-year-olds will squeal, crash, and run through...
Aug 4, 2018 | Grief, Gus Stevens, Heptameter, Hexameter, Mom, Whale
She let go yesterday; she thought she could let go, let him slip from her nose, and gently from the sun to sink deeper than her lungs could go; it was done. She carried her son for nine suns, and eighteen moons before. Could she let go, when the tide turned within her...
Jul 23, 2018 | Gus Stevens, Hexameter, Pentameter, Rhymed Couplets, Summer
Why are my poems so obsessed with doom? Is there no light their dark will not consume, no work they will not turn into a chore, nor child they cannot drown in metaphor? Sometimes beauty is neither fraud nor thief; sometimes a leaf is just a common leaf— a welcome...
