Poetry - Moss Kingdom

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...

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...

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...

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...

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.

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...

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...

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 ...

All Sad Thoughts Are Banished: reflections on Roethke’s death at the Bloedel Reserve

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

The woman at the counter said she could not tell me where the poet Roethke drowned. The Bloedel Reserve wanted to put on a happier face, a garden in the wood and clifftop eyes above the grey-blue Sound. The pool where they discovered him was gone; the dying place torn...

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...

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...

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...

Wizard Nap

by M. Gus | November 23, 2018 | Gus Stevens, Humor, Rhymed Couplets, Winter | 0 Comments

This dull and wintry day is still a weeping grey. But with the turning of a dial perhaps I'll force a smile by conjuring the warmth of June against this gloomy afternoon. Like a bored cat, I linger. I boil water with my finger. Yet, despite this warlock power, I mope...

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...

Winter Staves by Rusten Harris

by M. Gus | December 14, 2016 | Advent, Rusten Walter Harris, Winter | 0 Comments

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...

As Through a Glass, Darkly

by M. Gus | December 10, 2020 | Aging, Commissioned, Grief, Gus Stevens, Irregular Rhyme, Mom, Winter | 0 Comments

She appears in the glass like a watermark and her image in the window tells the score. Her eyes, reflected, look blinkered, tired, sore as she scrapes the dishes clean. Inside: herself. Outside: the dark, and this old face between. It seemed just weeks...

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...

All This Juice and All This Joy

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

The Waking by Theodore Roethke

by M. Gus | November 29, 2011 | The Work of Greater Minds, Villanelle | 0 Comments

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. I feel my fate in what I cannot fear. I learn by going where I have to go. We think by feeling. What is there to know? I hear my being dance from ear to ear. I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. Of those so close beside...

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...

Sonnet 75 by William Shakespeare

by M. Gus | November 19, 2011 | Sonnet, The Work of Greater Minds, Victorian Sonnet | 0 Comments

So are you to my thoughts as food to life, Or as sweet seasoned show'rs are to the ground; And for the peace of you I hold such strife As ’twixt a miser and his wealth is found; Now proud as an enjoyer, and anon Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure; Now...

Rock of Ages by Augustus Montague Toplady

by M. Gus | April 30, 2012 | Hymn, Rhymed Couplets, The Work of Greater Minds | 0 Comments

Rock of Ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in Thee; Let the water and the blood, From Thy wounded side which flowed, Be of sin the double cure; Save from wrath and make me pure. Not the labor of my hands Can fulfill Thy law’s demands; Could my zeal no respite...

The Jewish Cemetery at Newport by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

by M. Gus | March 29, 2013 | Quatrains, The Work of Greater Minds | 0 Comments

How strange it seems! These Hebrews in their graves, Close by the street of this fair seaport town, Silent beside the never-silent waves, At rest in all this moving up and down! The trees are white with dust, that o'er their sleep Wave their...

Blackberry Picking by Seamus Heaney

by M. Gus | October 21, 2012 | Rhymed Couplets, The Work of Greater Minds | 0 Comments

Late August, given heavy rain and sun for a full week, the blackberries would ripen. At first, just one, a glossy purple clot among others, red, green, hard as a knot. You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it leaving...

God’s Grandeur by Gerard Manley Hopkins

by M. Gus | January 18, 2017 | Italian Sonnet, Sonnet, The Work of Greater Minds | 0 Comments

The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like shining from shook foil; It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil Crushed. Why do men then now...

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...

Immortal Sails by Alfred Noyes

by M. Gus | April 20, 2014 | Sonnet, The Work of Greater Minds, Victorian Sonnet | 0 Comments

Now, in a breath, we’ll burst those gates of gold, And ransack heaven before our moment fails. Now, in a breath, before we, too, grow old, We’ll mount and sing and spread immortal sails. It is not time that makes...

Mad Girl’s Love Song by Sylvia Plath

by M. Gus | November 17, 2011 | The Work of Greater Minds, Villanelle | 0 Comments

"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead; I lift my lids and all is born again. (I think I made you up inside my head.)The stars go waltzing out in blue and red, And arbitrary blackness gallops in: I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead. I dreamed that...

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...

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...

Womb by Rusten Harris

by M. Gus | Dec 8, 2016 | Advent, Bible Story, Rusten Walter Harris

Void space and darkness Before the universe was formed Mysterious knot of nots Untie-able Before the beginning Heavy breath Gently brooding In waiting The virgin chaos And deep waters Hover and begin The ordering of all things borders set Heavens and earth Sea and...

Magi by Rusten Harris

by M. Gus | Dec 7, 2016 | Advent, Bible Story, Rusten Walter Harris

Ancient gathered wisdom Heavenly celestial maps Long forgotten rites Codices and scrolls Strange fire Incense and embers A star unlike any have seen Oracle of the coming King A small ossuary emptied Then filled with tribute: Gold, frankincense, and myrrh A long...

Temple Trough by Rusten Harris

by M. Gus | Dec 6, 2016 | Advent, Rusten Walter Harris

There is a trough where the beasts feed Under cover of a stables roof Assembled from leftover wood Filled with hay and lifted up A kindness to the animals It's architect unknowingly built A humble tabernacle - holy of holies Awaiting Shekinah glory The meeting of...

Advent by Rusten Harris

by M. Gus | Dec 5, 2016 | Advent, Rusten Walter Harris

Advent, a season of memory A season of hope A looking backwards to an old hope fulfilled Feeds a hopeful looking forward Memory and hope A strained set of fellows As hope looks forward And memory looks back So often the two divide A memory of joy In the midst of loss...

Lord’s Day by Rusten Harris

by M. Gus | Dec 4, 2016 | Rusten Walter Harris

The light of the day's first sun Beginning ascent, cresting the horizon Kneeling, as it were, to shine upon faces Meeting the eyes of all those who dwell With foot, hoof, paw, and root Planted firmly on the surface of the earth That warm heavenly immanence Searching...

Far as the Curse is Found by Rusten Harris

by M. Gus | Dec 4, 2016 | Advent, Rusten Walter Harris

"He comes to make his blessings flow Far as the curse is found" Where has the curse not touched or spoiled? Where are his blessings bound? Pestilence, thorns Pollution and greed Infest and choke the farmer's soil With tired movements against high currents The table...

The Massacre of the Innocents by Rusten Harris

by M. Gus | Dec 3, 2016 | Advent, Bible Story, Rusten Walter Harris, Unrhymed Other

In December My memory returns To a small room Near a stairwell The Galleria Uffizi in Florence Alone and in the darkest Of the galleria's chambers Benefial's "The Massacre of the Innocents" Hangs Set apart from the well lit halls The painting: a darkness within a...

Liturgical Time by Rusten Harris

by M. Gus | Dec 2, 2016 | Advent, Rusten Walter Harris, Unrhymed Other, Winter

Behold in liturgical time Both natural and ecclesial The bowing of the trees The lifting of the hands The giving of the leaves The enacting of nativity The gowning of the ground in white The singing of the old hymns The fasting of the daylight The reciting of ancient...

The One by Luke Schreiber

by M. Gus | Dec 2, 2016 | Bible Story, Gus Stevens, Hymn, Luke Schreiber, Song

Who designed the universe Holds the stars and spins the earth? Who has covered Adam's shame Clothed him with a costly grace? Who destroyed the world by flood, Buried multitudes in mud? Who reached out a saving hand, Lifted Noah to dry land? The One Who has made the...

Jubilee by Rusten Harris

by M. Gus | Dec 1, 2016 | Advent, Rusten Walter Harris

In Matthew's gospel Three sets of fourteen generations wait for jubilee - The final freeing of the slaves. Will the debt that buries the brow of every seed of Eve in sweat and blood be paid? Will the exiles be brought back -and restored? The mystery of the jubilee of...

The Author to Her Book by Anne Bradstreet

by M. Gus | Nov 30, 2016 | The Work of Greater Minds

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...

Numbered Numbered Weighed Divided: a Rubaiyat concerning Belshazzar’s doom

by M. Gus | Nov 28, 2016 | Bible Story, Gus Stevens, Quatrains, Rubaiyat

The plates were full and all the wine provided by the levies of the King, misguided though he was, until the finger wrote "you are Numbered. Numbered. Weighed. Divided." You dress in purple and that garotte of golden chains weighs heavy on your royal throat. You have...

Hymn 101 by Joe Pug

by M. Gus | Nov 22, 2016 | Quintains, Song

I stumbled across Joe Pug many years ago and he remains one of the most compelling lyricists that I know. When I look at his words lined up below, it's obvious to me that this man is a poet, and it makes me hope that there remains a place for poetry within the social...