Dec 22, 2022 | Gus Stevens, Irregular Rhyme, Multi-Syllabic Rhyme
I can no longer listen when the music plays, but shuffle, pause, piss, and then resume. Nothing’s ever missed, and nothing heard or seen. The glistening screen commands my gaze and all I do is consume, consume, consume— until the stomach presses on the spleen. A...
Jul 2, 2021 | Gus Stevens, Irregular Rhyme, Multi-Syllabic Rhyme
I doubt his oar had ever smote the wine dark sea when Homer, or whoever, wrote The Odyssey, nor had he spent a golden hour in the garden of a god. And so the ‘epic’ reads like virginal fantasy— fetish the clever, fever of stolen power; blind the warden;...
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...
Jul 28, 2018 | Bible Story, Gus Stevens, Multi-Syllabic Rhyme, Pentameter, Prophets
It’s told that Socrates chose the hemlock over this greater terror: banishment. But tortured Jonah, standing on the dock the hour he spied the boat to Tarshish went in secret to the furthest corner of the earth to hide his hate beneath a Spanish tent. He refused...
Nov 19, 2017 | Autumn, Multi-Syllabic Rhyme, Pentameter, Seasons
Where is warmth and where can the light be found? These days, the workers put in longer hours than the sun who goes too soon to sleep. All the leaves, once bright, now have dulled and browned with the sunken gourds and withered flowers to feed the molds and mushrooms...
Aug 31, 2017 | Gus Stevens, Humor, Irregular Rhyme, Multi-Syllabic Rhyme
**Play this Audio while reading** Also don’t read if you care about SPOILERS. The rebel lords of this place must call me “your grace” And let me replace a dragon to the throne, see how they’ve grown. You hear the hooves, I make the moves with...
