Poetry - Moss Kingdom

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...

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...

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...

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.

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 ...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

Come Thou Dayspring

by M. Gus | November 19, 2017 | Autumn, Multi-Syllabic Rhyme, Pentameter, Seasons | 0 Comments

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...

In the Park on the First Clear Day of Spring

by M. Gus | March 25, 2013 | Gus Stevens, Seasons, Sonnet, Spring, Victorian Sonnet, Winter | 0 Comments

There's something of Spring that makes us self-deceive, that makes-believe the world has never sinned. A dozen squinting Adams search for Eve through a sunlight that's not yet warmed the wind. Weary of winter, the clearing is brim full of hairless legs...

All This Juice and All This Joy

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

December 21: an Advent poem for the Winter Solstice

by M. Gus | December 21, 2015 | Advent, Chiastic, Gus Stevens, Seasons, Winter | 0 Comments

Long lay the world in sin and error pining Till he appeared and the soul felt it's worth. A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoicing For yonder breaks, a new and glorious morn. -John Sullivan Dwight All the nations grope about in the dark to find some...

The Leaves Remember

by M. Gus | July 23, 2018 | Gus Stevens, Hexameter, Pentameter, Rhymed Couplets, Summer | 0 Comments

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...

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...

The Cherry Trees by Edward Thomas

by M. Gus | May 18, 2017 | Quatrains, Seasons, Spring, The Work of Greater Minds | 0 Comments

The cherry trees bend over and are shedding On the old road where all that passed are dead, Their petals, strewing the grass as for a wedding This early May morn when there is none to wed. Other poems on Moss Kingdom about Spring: Spring by Edna St. Vincent...

The Fickle Devotion of a Saint

by M. Gus | July 17, 2011 | Sonnet, The Work of Greater Minds, Victorian Sonnet | 0 Comments

Holy Sonnet 19 by John Donne Oh, to vex me, contraries meet in one: Inconstancy unnaturally hath begot A constant habit; that when I would not I change in vows, and in devotion. As humorous is my contrition As my profane love, and as soon forgot: As riddlingly...

Since There is No Escape by Sara Teasdale

by M. Gus | February 12, 2014 | Aging, Sonnet, The Work of Greater Minds | 0 Comments

Since there is no escape, since at the end My body will be utterly destroyed, This hand I love as I have loved a friend, This body I tended, wept with and enjoyed; Since there is no escape even for me Who love life with a love too sharp to bear: The scent of orchards...

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,...

“I will wait for you.”

by M. Gus | April 22, 2011 | The Work of Greater Minds | 0 Comments

This is an amazing performance that articulates a healthy view of singleness in the Christian life. I feel that it is a powerful and much needed corrective to a protestant/evangelical culture that overvalues married life.

“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...

Spring by Gerard Manley Hopkins

by M. Gus | April 22, 2012 | Italian Sonnet, Sonnet, The Work of Greater Minds | 0 Comments

Nothing is so beautiful as spring – When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush; Thrush's eggs look little low heavens, and thrush Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing; The glassy peartree...

The Author to Her Book by Anne Bradstreet

by M. Gus | November 30, 2016 | The Work of Greater Minds | 0 Comments

Thou ill-form’d offspring of my feeble brain, Who after birth didst by my side remain, Till snatched from thence by friends, less wise than true, Who thee abroad, expos’d to public view, Made thee in rags, halting to th’ press to trudge, Where errors were not lessened...

A Poem for Father’s day by John Piper

by M. Gus | June 17, 2012 | Rhymed Couplets, The Work of Greater Minds | 0 Comments

No tree however deep the roots, However high and green the shoots, However strong the trunk has stood, Or firm the fibers of the wood, No tree was ever meant to be A never-ending shade for me Or you. Save one: where Jesus died With bleeding branches spread as wide And...

Sonnet 129 by William Shakespeare

by M. Gus | December 2, 2011 | Sonnet, The Work of Greater Minds, Victorian Sonnet | 0 Comments

Is lust in action; and till action, lust The expense of spirit in a waste of shame Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame, Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust; Enjoy'd no sooner but despised straight; Past reason hunted; and no sooner had, Past reason...

Love and Sleep by Algernon Charles Swinburne

by M. Gus | October 11, 2016 | Erotic, Italian Sonnet, Love, Sonnet, The Work of Greater Minds | 0 Comments

Lying asleep between the strokes of night I saw my love lean over my sad bed, Pale as the duskiest lily’s leaf or head, Smooth-skinned and dark, with bare throat made to bite, Too wan for blushing and too warm for white, But...

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...

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...

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...

Chains by Rusten Harris

by M. Gus | Dec 21, 2016 | Advent, Rusten Walter Harris

When I was a kid I made chains One every year, hung near my bed About five loops from each single sheet Of cheap construction paper- Alternating red and green every morning tear one off Mark the distance between Now and Christmas With a visual point of reference The...

Gifts by Rusten Harris

by M. Gus | Dec 20, 2016 | Advent, Rusten Walter Harris

My wife and two kids Christmas carols and coffee What isn't a gift? The rest of the poems from Rusten Harris's Advent series on Moss Kingdom: Incarnation, Christmas Eve, Kings, Some Kind of Glory, Chains, Gifts, Quotidian Couple, A Thousand Lights, Eve &...

Quotidian Couple by Rusten Harris

by M. Gus | Dec 19, 2016 | Advent, Rusten Walter Harris

Mary- first century Palestine Most common of female names Young virgin betrothed to Joseph a carpenter -most common of trades An ancient quotidian couple Merely out to make their way Joseph's hands calloused with labor Mary thinks of her wedding day Their story one...

A Thousand Lights by Rusten Harris

by M. Gus | Dec 18, 2016 | Advent, Rusten Walter Harris

With the glow of a thousand lights Brightening my daughter's eyes Cold air and a winter jacket She learns to keep her hands warm buried deep within her pockets And so she buys time To walk and watch and wander It's her third Christmas And she is taking it all in...

Eve & Mary by Rusten Harris

by M. Gus | Dec 17, 2016 | Advent, Rusten Walter Harris

Did Eve often ponder The voice she overheard- Oaths made to the serpent And the promise of her womb? And did Mary think of Eve When she heard the angel say That in her womb she would conceive A boy to name "God saves"? The rest of the poems from Rusten Harris's...

Treasured Up by Rusten Harris

by M. Gus | Dec 16, 2016 | Advent, Rusten Walter Harris

Glowing logs and cool of night As shepherds watch their flock Rough assembly of tired men habits of Cain's stock Marginalized and cast aside Marked by field and sun Nomadic pastoral men Some old and some young In her heart treasured up Mary recalls the men Who came to...

Christmas by Rusten Harris

by M. Gus | Dec 15, 2016 | Advent, Rusten Walter Harris

An infant wriggling In your arms Grunting, rooting, writhing Crying Pushing against you- Or melding into the Topography of your torso True antonym of "abstract" A shoulder wet with reality Should remind you of Christmas The rest of the poems from Rusten Harris's...

Billy Collins on how to start writing poetry (you need to read it)

by M. Gus | Dec 14, 2016 | Uncategorized

Winter Staves by Rusten Harris

by M. Gus | Dec 14, 2016 | Advent, Rusten Walter Harris, Winter

Is it winter? The trees are waiting to be clothed Arms and branches lifted up to the heavens Staves - ragged upright wooden bones Sup life with a little soil - frozen Limbs clenched through the wind Some lose weight and watch their friends Keep warm through the winter...

Catholic Rhythms

by M. Gus | Dec 13, 2016 | Advent, Bible Story, Rusten Walter Harris

Contested days of rightful claims to celebrate the stories, Rituals, symbols, and traditions handed down My children - will learn the rhythms Of the Church catholic Of Mary, Joseph, and the infant Of divinity incarnate And I have no qualms with criticisms Posing my...

The Glorias by Rusten Harris

by M. Gus | Dec 12, 2016 | Advent, Rusten Walter Harris

Gloria in excelsis deo Latin phrase from long ago Translation of angelic chorus Sung to those who watched by night The sheep who often wondered off Struck with fear and then delight "Glory to God in the highest" They never cease to declare And now here in Christmas...

Of Edmund and Aslan

by M. Gus | 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...

Cherubim by Rusten Harris

by M. Gus | Dec 11, 2016 | Advent, Bible Story, Rusten Walter Harris

Cherubim - mysterious when imagined Garden keepers with sword aflame Face of eagle, man, and lion Ark guardians of the mercy seat It is said the Lord sits enthroned Upon the cherubim The priest reminded at every turn By angelic temple ornaments Ezekiel writes of them...

Joseph by Rusten Harris

by M. Gus | Dec 10, 2016 | Advent, Bible Story, Rusten Walter Harris

I'm holding my son Wondering if Joseph too Sang songs to his boy The rest of the poems from Rusten Harris's Advent series on Moss Kingdom: Incarnation, Christmas Eve, Kings, Some Kind of Glory, Chains, Gifts, Quotidian Couple, A Thousand Lights, Eve &...

Strange Redeemer by Rusten Harris

by M. Gus | Dec 9, 2016 | Advent, Rusten Walter Harris

"Chains shall he break For the slave is his brother" Strange it should be Our hope borne upon his shoulders This child birthed in a shepherds town Could he really be the one they say heals the plagues of man's dominion: Injustice, evil, and estrangement? But how time...

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