Apr 14, 2020 | Bible Story, Gus Stevens, Irregular Rhyme, Quatrains, Seasons, Spring
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...
Mar 27, 2020 | Gus Stevens, Humor, Irregular Rhyme, Seasons, Spring
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...
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...
Dec 6, 2015 | Chiastic, Gus Stevens, Irregular Rhyme, Sinner's Psalms vol. 1
Thou art more than the day or the morrow, the seasons that laugh or that weep; For these give joy and sorrow; but thou, Proserpina, sleep. —Algernon Charles Swinburne, Hymn to Prosperine If asked to choose: eternal life or sleep, he’s not sure how...
Oct 16, 2013 | Gus Stevens, Irregular Rhyme, Quatrains, Regret, Sinner's Psalms vol. 1
Hearing the car approach, the garage door open, the engine stop, the driver’s door swing shut, I ran from the room where I’d spilled the ink and fear was a goblin clutching at my gut. I’d tried to scrub the sofa cushions clean ...
Sep 12, 2013 | Gus Stevens, Irregular Rhyme
She imagines herself with skyscraper legs posed seductively in the shower. The water slithers, snake-like, down a taper waist erect and conspicuous as a tower. The lavender oils run into the basin; the scent embodies her hope to be wanted but from somewhere she hears...
