Jul 1, 2016 | Aging, Erotic, Gus Stevens, Love, Sinner's Psalms vol. 2, Sonnet, Victorian Sonnet
The bargain wine and complimented treats were finished hours ago: the hotel’s gift for our tenth anniversary. Now, as we shift our bodies beneath borrowed cotton sheets, could there be a better time to rehearse the old arguments, those familiar friends? Our...
Sep 14, 2015 | Gus Stevens, Sinner's Psalms vol. 2, Villanelle
Tied to a stake, the string stretched ponderously far arcing into the blue and almost out of sight; it cast no shadow and seemed as distant as a star and slit the sky to a pointed diamond-shaped scar. The minuscule and near invisible sprite hung motionless and still...
Jan 4, 2014 | Gus Stevens, Quatrains, Sinner's Psalms vol. 2
Somewhere outside the Grands Boulevard, I can’t remember where, there stands a line of stone-made sisters with breasts completely bare in that style that seemed so French to me, a tourist in Paris. Their thin marble arms would live on while all these beautiful...
Jul 22, 2013 | Aging, Gus Stevens, Sinner's Psalms vol. 2, Sonnet, Victorian Sonnet
The crescent moon encroaches on the day, a pale trespasser in the realm of sun. She will not wait her turn, she will not stay until the golden reign is fully done. The gleaming future will not stand in front but lurks behind you with a loaded bow; she is moon-browed...
Apr 20, 2012 | Gus Stevens, Sinner's Psalms vol. 2, Sonnet, Victorian Sonnet
All flowers lift their hands to praise the sun— raising their lauds at dawn, their sexts at noon and vespers when the dwindling day is done— but the sea bends her knees to the moon. Such is the worship of waves and the liturgy of leaves. But what of human kings,...
Nov 27, 2011 | Gus Stevens, Sinner's Psalms vol. 2, Villanelle
A circle can’t be squared and still a circle be; the points are fixed, they cannot bend or sway. A man cannot be forced and still considered free. The change begins, the end we can’t foresee; some ideas do not mold as easily as clay. A circle can’t...
