Oct 31, 2016 | Autumn, Gus Stevens, Hexameter, Quatrains
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...
Aug 22, 2016 | Commissioned, Gus Stevens, Quatrains, Songs for the Dead
Being eldest, she always knew the best places to hide for games of hide and seek and where to find the abandoned bird’s nest or the stones you needed to cross the creek with dry shoes. She was strong and fast and brave; she already knew most of the letters and...
Apr 17, 2016 | Dream, Gus Stevens, Moss Kingdom, Quatrains
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...
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. Share...
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,...
Jul 23, 2014 | Bible Story, Gus Stevens, Quatrains, The Unspeakable Name vol. 1
There was hardly time for her to close the door; but a moment in the darkness passed before she cast her veil upon the floor and welcomed him to end his long-held fast. Then on her breasts she felt his wine-drunk lips whisper, “Rachel, Rachel my little...
