Three Poems

Hello friends,

Three poems this week. Enjoy! (And if you do, please consider supporting my work by purchasing my latest book The Robots of Babylon, which features the first poem, or by pre-ordering my forthcoming omnibus Knit Ink, which features the second and third poems.)

This first poem is a triolet (ABaAabAB), in anapaestic tetrameter, that combines qualitative metre with alliterative verse. In this poem, the beats ‘paired off’ by caesurae (that is, the two beats in each half-line) alliterate. Thus, in line 1, ‘-shapes’ alliterates with ‘shad-’, and ‘dream’ alliterates with ‘day’. Moreover, in this triolet, the a and b rhymes are identical.

LADY OF THE LAKE

She reshapes now a shadow.   I dream her by day
as I walk to the water:   The girl rises, grey
from the lake, and allures,   with the face of the fey.

She reshapes now, a shadow....   I dream her by day,
but my reverie’s real,   and its melody may
find me drowning in darkness,   my will gone away....

She reshapes. Now a shadow,   I dream her by day....
As I walk to the water,   the girl rises, grey.

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The two Shakespearean sonnets of THE REIN THEREIN are redividers — that is, they use the same letters, in the same order, but have different spacing and punctuation. All words “redivide” such that no word appears in the same place in both poems.

THE REIN THEREIN

SO MEMO ON

Howl — unabated, nigh — the reins of art.
Here, in so fair a lighted season, cede
ephemeral, unable dares. Cue start.
Or end: erode some tomes in sweeping reeds.
 
Old ark, ensemble mask below constraint....
Herein seduce the sea. I’m still ashore.
The rending olden sky, lines’ flowless paint,
herein is limit’s idled ash — adore!
 
Forms memo on, be ambled tomes in glow;
bewilder comet onyx, slight of eye.
Art hones our gentle ash decrees, ink low.
Lines sate the rending. Nigh, the reins untie. 
 
So merited is order’s tar: Red. Scarred.
Sidereal. A sword. A shot. A shard.

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SOME MOON

How Luna bated night here — insofar
the reins of air alighted seas once deep....
Hemera! Luna bled a rescue star
to render ode. So, me to me, sins weep.
 
In greed, Sol darkens. Emblem, ask, “Be low:
constrain the reins, educe these aims, till ash
or ether end in golden skylines’ flow....”
 
Less pain therein, I slim its idle dash.
Ado reforms me. Moonbeam bled to me,
“Sing low. Be wilder. Come to Nyx’s light!”
O, fey Earth, one so urgent, leash decree;
sink lowliness, a tether ending night.
 
Here, in Sun, tie some rite disorder starred.
Scar red side, real as word: As hot. As hard.