Poems Wot I Wrote: The 90s

[xse99]

These are some short poems I wrote, dating from the late 90s. It's funny to go back and look at them again. It's like finding aging snapshots in some album and being unable to recall where you were and what you were doing when the pictures were taken. Maybe you have the barest idea of who some of the other people in them might be.

I think being an English major in a program that emphasized the Major English Poets (Chaucer and Shakespeare and Milton, oh my!) definitely had an effect on my writing of the time. I was lavish with adjectives, flush with formality, and hopelessly romantic. But you're only young once! And I still like these little guys. 

Dawn

Rose
the sun bright
pure white spreading
flowering golden gilt
lacing tracing shadows
on azure on green verdant flourishing
reaching enveloping trees houses streets
to the window pushed open and boldly
proclaimed in triumph
the day
5/99

---

Separation

Searching for something

(anything)

grasping

as the ground beneath me slides away

It's not fair; they told me the earth, at least, was solid

That rock was immobile, dependable (like nothing else in this

world)

It would last forever, they said. It would be my support

Always. They were wrong.

now (but what is "now"? if space is not absolute, time

cannot be)

now I am left with a few

small, dull pieces

which slip through my hands

their existence mocking the grandeur of that whole

of which they once formed

a part

 6/96

---

Sonnet

A hazy golden veil the afternoon
Had drawn about her gently aging face,
A chill within the breeze foretold the soon,
Certain approach of evening's calm embrace
And my return to home's familiar joys;
Yet lingered we awhile with the sweet taste
Of day departing; hearing not the noise
Of crowds that bustled past in anxious haste.
We spoke of joy and beauty, pain, love, death.
The shadows grew, we murmured our goodbyes.
Then noticing some tremor in your breath
I chanced to turn and look into your eyes.
That look which passed to mine is with me yet--
Would God that I were able to forget!
3/96

---

Were It Not....

No more could I endure
The fresh assault of wind and waves
The currents of the icy sea
Its eddies swift would draw me fast
Beneath the dark sheen of its crystalline luster...

And thus another dream, Cassandra-like,
Bursts the stillness of peace and night
With its scream.

Though I place little faith in such tidings
Yet I shudder a bit from my haven fast
And offer my prayer to the holy moon
I, who only can hope for a sign
Of no more fire, but water this time.
11/98

 

Comments

[ladybird97.livejournal.com]

Aww :) I remember the sonnet from the first time around.

It's nice to take these pieces out and revisit them. Thanks for posting!

[jab2.livejournal.com]

love Separation. (my style of poem, formally speaking, not to mention it's nicely written)

thanks! i occasionally wish i still wrote. do you still find the time?

[xse99.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I think I was influenced pretty strongly by ee cummings and Elizabeth Bishop re the form of that one. I don't write anymore (not counting work and other such things). But I'm sort of hoping this LJ inspires me to do so again. As you said, hard to find the time!