Poetry - Moss Kingdom

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...

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 ...

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...

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...

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...

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.

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...

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...

Cider by Rusten Walter Harris

by M. Gus | October 7, 2016 | Autumn, Love, Rusten Walter Harris | 0 Comments

Three rungs from the top of a rickety four legged ladder My entire body straining to grasp those clustered King apples Mostly green, with flecks of red on their skin facing the sun Reaching further than I ought I put a little weight on an old branch Knowing very well...

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...

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...

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...

After Walking in the Rain

by M. Gus | November 21, 2016 | Chiastic, Gus Stevens, Winter | 0 Comments

I need to find a place to dry my shoes and a fresh towel after a hot shower, then clean sheets tucked tight beneath the corners of the bed. I've been too long in the wind, too long among the tree limbs all thinned of leaves and life. While winter's bare mourners rake...

At the Wading Pool

by M. Gus | August 7, 2018 | Alexandrine, Gus Stevens, Hexameter, Seasons, Summer | 0 Comments

The wading pool is shrinking with the wasted sun and the yellows of summer drain slowly away exposing red bricks beneath the glittering spray. With cast-off toys and leaves littered about their feet, the bone-soaked nine-year-olds will squeal, crash, and run through...

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 View From Winter

by M. Gus | February 13, 2011 | Gus Stevens, Regret, Seasons, Sonnet, Victorian Sonnet, Winter | 0 Comments

By some unjust miracle I awoke again today. How? When the wasted days and hours accumulate like a grey cloak of soot-heavy snow; the sweet-sick malaise sticks and smothers me. Regret, my old friend, tucks me to sleep under these covers, while, minute-by-minute, the...

Spring by Edna St. Vincent Millay

by M. Gus | March 25, 2015 | Spring, The Work of Greater Minds | 0 Comments

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...

Excerpts from Ecclesiastes 1-2

by M. Gus | September 2, 2016 | Grief, The Work of Greater Minds | 0 Comments

What do people gain from all their labors at which they toil under the sun? Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever. The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises. The wind blows to the south and turns to the north;...

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...

“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

New Loneliness by Sarah Harmer

by M. Gus | May 22, 2012 | Rhymed Couplets, Song, The Work of Greater Minds | 0 Comments

There is just one apple on the tree It isn't like I'd hoped it'd be. Yesterday when there was still you I looked, and I swear that I saw two. Maybe a wandering white tail deer came in the night to make it even more clear and left me just one, a spartan no less, to...

Excerpts from ‘The Rubaiyat or Omar Khayyam’ translated by Edward FitzGerald

by M. Gus | November 3, 2016 | Aging, Quatrains, Rubaiyat, The Work of Greater Minds | 0 Comments

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on; nor all your Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it. [...] With Earth's first Clay They did the Last Man knead, And there of the...

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...

Hymn to Prosperine (After the Proclamation in Rome of the Christian Faith) by Algernon Charles Swinburne

by M. Gus | December 6, 2015 | Rhymed Couplets, The Work of Greater Minds | 0 Comments

Evelyn de Morgan, Night and Sleep 1878 Vicisti, Galilæe. I have lived long enough, having seen one thing, that love hath an end; Goddess and maiden and queen, be near me now and befriend. Thou art more than the day or the morrow, the seasons that laugh or that...

Batter My Heart, Three-person’d God by John Donne

by M. Gus | June 7, 2014 | Sonnet, The Work of Greater Minds, Victorian Sonnet | 0 Comments

Batter my heart, three-person'd God, for you As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend; That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new. I, like an usurp'd town to another due, Labor to admit you, but oh, to...

The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus

by M. Gus | July 4, 2014 | Italian Sonnet, Sonnet, The Work of Greater Minds | 0 Comments

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand Glows...

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night – Dylan Thomas

by M. Gus | November 14, 2011 | The Work of Greater Minds, Villanelle | 0 Comments

Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night.Good...

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...

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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