Poetry - Moss Kingdom

All This Juice and All This Joy

by M. Gus | May 8, 2016 | Dream, Gus Stevens, Seasons, Summer | 0 Comments

Alive and heavy with health, syrup swells the root, and sun-dappled fields are filled with walking flowers: the blossoms of the body and the promise of fruit. We know, and delight, and dream away the hours; let us have sweet Summer's cream ...

Sunday Morning Lethargy

by M. Gus | September 8, 2014 | Dream, Gus Stevens, Sinner's Psalms vol. 1, Terza Rima | 0 Comments

It's Sunday morning; I don't make the bed. Somehow worn from an oversupply of sleep, I feel empty and overfed all at once. Should I eat or should I try a second cup of coffee, or the tea? I am too weary to decide and I tire of this mush of humid luxury. The night held...

A Child’s Sleep

by M. Gus | July 18, 2018 | Alexandrine, Daughter, Dream, Gus Stevens | 0 Comments

I wonder if the tearful child, not yet perceiving what it means to fall asleep, might believe she dies each night. Afraid to go alone, she chokes on her goodbyes, "Please don't forget me! O please leave the door ajar!" But the swallowing Unknown will not share her...

At Torrey Pines

by M. Gus | April 17, 2016 | Dream, Gus Stevens, Moss Kingdom, Quatrains | 0 Comments

A cruel salt wind molests the twisted pine who grovels on his gnarled knees for rain; his futile prayers won't mend his broken spine nor will he stand, as in his dreams, again. The cliffs themselves all crumble in the sea and the tumble-down rocks resent the mocking...

Spider Dream: a Limerick

by M. Gus | June 11, 2016 | Dream, Gus Stevens, Humor, Limerick | 0 Comments

I saw a spider fall into my bed right onto the pillow beside my head. Now I'm hunting him, like preachers hunt sin, and dare not sleep till he or I is dead.

Tooth by Rotten Tooth

by M. Gus | February 4, 2019 | Aging, Dream, Gus Stevens, Hexameter, Multi-Syllabic Rhyme, Sestet | 0 Comments

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 sleep and...

The Icebox

by M. Gus | June 5, 2018 | Alexandrine, Daughter, Dream, Grief, Gus Stevens, Hexameter | 0 Comments

In my dream, I held too many things in my hands and my fingers grappled and fumbled with the load afraid I'd drop one as I stumbled down the road for I'd balanced several things atop an icebox and my dream-drunk brain was slow, weighted down with sand until I knelt to...

Ephemera: Beauty Lies

by M. Gus | August 16, 2014 | Dream, Gus Stevens, Italian Sonnet, Moss Kingdom, Sonnet | 0 Comments

"It is the failing of a certain literature to believe that life is tragic because it is wretched. Life can be magnificent and overwhelming — that is its whole tragedy. Without beauty, love, or danger it would be almost easy to live." "Beauty is unbearable, drives us...

Dream After Making 300 Valentines for Lifelong Aids Alliance: by Amy Doran

by M. Gus | June 10, 2014 | Amy (Doran) Keeney, Dream, Unrhymed Other | 0 Comments

We sat, pasting crows from construction paper waiting for them to come to life. They did come to life, shuddering with breath, flapping cautiously, realizing. Jesus could be a camera watching over us when we're sick with letters sick with names, lying on a hospital...

A Closer Kind of Warm: a break-up-with-summer song

by M. Gus | September 1, 2013 | Autumn, Gus Stevens, Quatrains, Seasons, Summer | 0 Comments

The tyrant sun with unforgiving light bends the boys and girls like the August wheat. He makes them strip their clothes and beg for night like mountains made immodest in the heat. Rustling in a windless night, they seethe and sweat in anguish—should they cut their...

Iron Sky

by M. Gus | October 31, 2016 | Autumn, Gus Stevens, Hexameter, Quatrains | 0 Comments

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 fall up and...

Not One of Us Tried to Remember by Duncan King

by M. Gus | February 2, 2016 | Duncan King, Grief, Villanelle, Winter | 1 Comment

Not one of us tried to remember what happened in that cave in the middle of tropical December The men burned to not less than ember villagers we'd tried to save not one of us tried to remember The two Portland boys in chain and fetter so long starved they could only...

August’s End

by M. Gus | August 24, 2017 | Autumn, Gus Stevens, Rhymed Couplets | 0 Comments

The thorn branches are a knot of tangled capillaries. They quarter armies of spiders standing silent and sentinel over the blackest of the blackberries-- the last and heaviest summer sweet before the coming rot. These are the scouts and outriders of the advancing...

“What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why” by Edna St. Vincent Millay

by M. Gus | September 22, 2016 | Aging, Italian Sonnet, Love, Sonnet, The Work of Greater Minds, Winter | 0 Comments

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why, I have forgotten, and what arms have lain Under my head till morning; but the rain Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh Upon the glass and listen for reply, And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain For...

Easter

by M. Gus | April 14, 2020 | Bible Story, Gus Stevens, Irregular Rhyme, Quatrains, Seasons, Spring | 0 Comments

I believe in the resurrection. With its birdsong and flowery filigree, springtime is a useful simile, but the meaning moves in only one direction. It is a life that was, and then was not: true flesh with dirt beneath the fingernails, an eye color that history has...

Dandelions

by M. Gus | May 11, 2019 | Gus Stevens, Rhymed Couplets, Spring | 0 Comments

They say to write what you know, but what if there is nothing left to show? Nothing to paint but green on green, and all there is to see—already seen. No fresh petals curl up from the dirt, and meaning hangs like an ill-fitting shirt: stretched and shrunken, thin and...

To the Grasshopper and the Cricket by Leigh Hunt

by M. Gus | June 5, 2016 | Italian Sonnet, Sonnet, Summer, The Work of Greater Minds | 0 Comments

Green little vaulter in the sunny grass, Catching your heart up at the feel of June, Sole voice that's heard amidst the lazy noon, When even the bees lag at the summoning brass; And you, warm little housekeeper, who class With those who think the candles come too...

Walking One Spring Morning

by M. Gus | June 15, 2014 | Gus Stevens, Italian Sonnet, Seasons, Sonnet, Spring | 0 Comments

Walking one spring morning I weighed the cherry blossoms all brimming with new, full with such impossible hues that every petal, every blade, was like a schoolgirl at her promenade adorned for but an hour or two in reds or purples, pinks and blues before it's shorn...

Notes from the Quarantine

by M. Gus | March 27, 2020 | Gus Stevens, Humor, Irregular Rhyme, Seasons, Spring | 0 Comments

Day 1 You tell yourself that you are going to learn French. Instead you make coffee with milk and tell yourself it's okay because they've yet to close the grocery stores; no need to break into the shelf-stable supplies. You tell yourself lies—that you'll use the time...

Thoughts in a Zoo by Countee Cullen

by M. Gus | February 4, 2017 | Rhymed Couplets, The Work of Greater Minds | 0 Comments

They in their cruel traps, and we in ours, Survey each other’s rage, and pass the hours Commiserating each the other’s woe, To mitigate his own pain’s fiery glow. Man could but little proffer in exchange Save that his cages have a larger range. That lion with his...

From the Dark Tower by Countee Cullen

by M. Gus | February 27, 2016 | Sonnet, The Work of Greater Minds | 0 Comments

We shall not always plant while others reap The golden increment of bursting fruit, Not always countenance, abject and mute, That lesser men should hold their brothers cheap; Not everlastingly while others sleep Shall we beguile their limbs with mellow flute, Not...

After great pain, a formal feeling comes – by Emily Dickinson

by M. Gus | March 28, 2017 | Grief, Rhymed Couplets, The Work of Greater Minds | 0 Comments

After great pain, a formal feeling comes – The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs – The stiff Heart questions ‘was it He, that bore,’ And ‘Yesterday, or Centuries before’? The Feet, mechanical, go round – A Wooden way Of Ground, or Air, or Ought – Regardless grown, A...

Non Sum Qualis Eram Bonae Sub Regno Cynarae by Ernest Dowson

by M. Gus | July 10, 2016 | Alexandrine, Erotic, Love, Regret, The Work of Greater Minds | 0 Comments

Last night, ah, yesternight, betwixt her lips and mine There fell thy shadow, Cynara! thy breath was shed Upon my soul between the kisses and the wine; And I was desolate and sick of an old passion, Yea, I was desolate and bowed my head: I have been faithful to thee,...

Immortal Sails by Alfred Noyes

by M. Gus | April 20, 2014 | Sonnet, The Work of Greater Minds, Victorian Sonnet | 0 Comments

Now, in a breath, we’ll burst those gates of gold, And ransack heaven before our moment fails. Now, in a breath, before we, too, grow old, We’ll mount and sing and spread immortal sails. It is not time that makes...

November by William Cullen Bryant

by M. Gus | September 19, 2016 | Autumn, Sonnet, The Work of Greater Minds, Victorian Sonnet | 0 Comments

Yet one smile more, departing, distant sun! One mellow smile through the soft vapory air, Ere, o’er the frozen earth, the loud winds run, Or snows are sifted o’er the meadows bare. One smile on the brown hills and naked trees, And the dark rocks whose summer wreaths...

Villanelle of the Temptress by James Joyce

by M. Gus | February 4, 2017 | Love, The Work of Greater Minds, Villanelle | 0 Comments

Are you not weary of ardent ways, Lure of the fallen seraphim? Tell no more of enchanted days. Your eyes have set man’s heart ablaze And you have had your will of him. Are you not weary of ardent ways? Above the flame the smoke of praise Goes up from ocean rim to rim....

How Sweet and Awful is this Place by Isaac Watts, 1707

by M. Gus | June 26, 2015 | Hymn, Quintains, The Work of Greater Minds | 0 Comments

How sweet and awful* is the place With Christ within the doors, While everlasting love displays The choicest of her stores! Here every bowel of our God With soft compassion rolls; Here peace and pardon bought with blood Is food for dying souls. While all our...

Elegy 20 To His Mistress Going to Bed by John Donne

by M. Gus | March 25, 2012 | Erotic, Love, Rhymed Couplets, The Work of Greater Minds | 0 Comments

COME, madam, come, all rest my powers defy; Until I labour, I in labour lie. The foe ofttimes, having the foe in sight, Is tired with standing, though he never fight. Off with that girdle, like heaven's zone glittering, But a far fairer world encompassing. Unpin that...

God’s Grandeur by Gerard Manley Hopkins

by M. Gus | January 18, 2017 | Italian Sonnet, Sonnet, The Work of Greater Minds | 0 Comments

The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like shining from shook foil; It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil Crushed. Why do men then now...

You Violated Right-of-way: a rondel about how I hope you die in a fire.

by M. Gus | February 20, 2016 | Gus Stevens, Humor, Rondel | 0 Comments

You violated right-of-way when you cut in front of all of us-- a hundred drivers and a city bus-- to be the first car parked on the freeway. There were a few words I wanted to say but it's Lent and my wife growls when I cuss; you violated right-of-way when you cut in...

Where is the Boy? a Rondel for Stephaun

by M. Gus | March 6, 2016 | Gus Stevens, Rondel, Songs for the Dead | 0 Comments

"Look at the picture. Where is the boy?" "Use your finger, like this, and point right here." Some sounds come out of the scowling man, "We're wasting time. Better to let him enjoy himself, stare at the sun, fondle a toy." "When we talk, it's like he can't even...

Yes, I Was Once Afraid of Bees

by M. Gus | July 14, 2016 | Gus Stevens, Humor, Rondel | 0 Comments

Back when I was afraid of bees with a fear most grave and sober; I would flinch when they'd flyover, would shrink and beg my mother, "Please let me stay inside away from these!" Whining from May to October. Yes, I was once afraid of bees but now I see with eyes more...

How Sweet and Awful is this Place by Isaac Watts, 1707

by M. Gus | Jun 26, 2015 | Hymn, Quintains, The Work of Greater Minds

If you believe that deaths do come in threes

by M. Gus | May 27, 2015 | Grief, Gus Stevens, Mom, Songs for the Dead, Sonnet, Terza Rima

If you believe that deaths do come in threes and that we are maskers in some Greek play then I am deathless, immortal to disease. No foe's hand can spill my blood nor make me pay the infinite cost of my one own life; it must be by my hand: no other way. Mother and...

Exerpt from “The Lanyard” by Billy Collins: a poem for Mother’s Day

by M. Gus | May 10, 2015 | Mom, The Work of Greater Minds

I was told that all the firsts would be hard. Today is my first Mother's Day without my mom. Billy Collins, in his poem "The Lanyard," has captured my own feelings better than I could myself. In it he tells how, as a child, he'd thought that giving his mother a...

Spring by Edna St. Vincent Millay

by M. Gus | Mar 25, 2015 | Spring, The Work of Greater Minds

To what purpose, April, do you return again? Beauty is not enough. You can no longer quiet me with the redness Of little leaves opening stickily. I know what I know. The sun is hot on my neck as I observe The spikes of the crocus. The smell of the earth is good. It is...

How ill a son returns his mother’s love: a poem on my birthday after realizing she will not call again

by M. Gus | Mar 8, 2015 | Grief, Gus Stevens, Mom, Quatrains, Songs for the Dead

How ill a son returns his mother's love. A mother's love is spendthrift, wasteful, strange-- while his response, at best, is but an echo of that heart. —It will never be a fair exchange.

Deafening Sound and Burning Light

by M. Gus | Feb 16, 2015 | Gus Stevens, Italian Sonnet, Sonnet, The Unspeakable Name vol. 2

"Who of us can dwell with the consuming fire? Who of us can dwell with everlasting burning?" -Isaiah 33:14 He is deafening sound and burning light and this sinner's eyes cannot bear the load; I have feared His wrath and now dread delight for who can love when so much...

Cowper’s Grave by Elizabeth Barrett Browning: a tribute to my mother on the morning after she took her own life.

by M. Gus | Jan 22, 2015 | Grief, Mom, Quatrains, Rhymed Couplets, The Work of Greater Minds

It is a place where poets crowned may feel the heart's decaying. It is a place where happy saints may weep amid their praying. Yet let the grief and humbleness, as low as silence, languish. Earth surely now may give her calm to whom she gave her anguish O poets, from...

The Prodigal Sun: a poem about how we love the Sun despite his philandering

by M. Gus | Dec 21, 2014 | Gus Stevens, Seasons, Sonnet, Terza Rima, Winter

Wandering with careless muddied steps, I squish the gluttonous ground all drunk with rain in this city where the puddles never dry and the leaf-crammed gutters never drain 'cept for a fleeting fist of golden weeks when the sun visits all brilliant and vain. And we,...

Winter Words: a poem about the uselessness of poems

by M. Gus | Dec 15, 2014 | Gus Stevens, Seasons, Sonnet, Victorian Sonnet, Winter

What can be offered to the afternoon but words and words; there's nothing new to say and so I'm silent as the winter's moon with her half smile over the brilliant day. The clouds have all been chased off by the sun, her sole companion in an empty sky, and I despoil...

An Apathy: a reflection on joyless bible reading

by M. Gus | Sep 23, 2014 | Gus Stevens, Sinner's Psalms vol. 1, Sonnet, Terza Rima

"Boredom: the desire for desires. " —Leo Tolstoy What is the point of sitting here? I turn the pages chore by chore puzzling as I read, "He's Near!" "He stands beside the open door," it claims, yet I am still a man without a prophet to ignore, without a tribe, without...

Sunday Morning Lethargy

by M. Gus | Sep 8, 2014 | Dream, Gus Stevens, Sinner's Psalms vol. 1, Terza Rima

Fathoming the Measure: words about the Grand Canyon

by M. Gus | Aug 20, 2014 | Commissioned, Gus Stevens, Moss Kingdom, Picture Challenge, Sonnet, Terza Rima

Yes; I could estimate the grains of sand the Colorado carries year by year carving with his crooked and cursive hand. But such reckoning is but a cashier's math yielding a number I cannot know for in my mind the zeros disappear. Nor can I figure a new fallen snow...

Ephemera: Beauty Lies

by M. Gus | Aug 16, 2014 | Dream, Gus Stevens, Italian Sonnet, Moss Kingdom, Sonnet

Mother of the Storm

by M. Gus | Aug 12, 2014 | Gus Stevens, Seasons, Sonnet, Victorian Sonnet

What is it about the sea, that heaving mass of endless grey, that stills and saddens me and bends my thoughts like clay? Upon the undulating mass the waves warp and glisten like a field of broken glass and call to all who'd listen, "I am the mother of the storm and...

“I wish I could remember that first day” by Christina Rossetti

by M. Gus | Aug 11, 2014 | Italian Sonnet, Sonnet, The Work of Greater Minds

I wish I could remember that first day, First hour, first moment of your meeting me, If bright or dim the season, it might be Summer or Winter for aught I can say; So unrecorded did it slip away,...

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