Skip to content

Tag: French verse forms

The Use of Dreams: rondine

Published on May 11, 2017

What is the use of dreams devoid of action,
that linger on as hopes before they die;
and while they last, convince us if we try
that in the end we will find satisfaction.
Such wistful shadows taunt us to distraction;
lost in the mist, we separate in factions
and dissipate and fade out, by and by.
    What is the use?

If dreams and hope are to have any traction,
they must inspire our deeds, not just reactions.
We must find rousing songs, not lullabies,
and exercise our wings if we would fly.
If not, life is continuing subtraction;
    what is the use?

11 MAY 2017

Leave a Comment

The World Remains: rondelet

Published on May 10, 2017

The world remains,
despite our self-indulgent, hateful ways;
the world remains
through our brief, but continued growing pains,
when most would find a reason not to stay.
Despite our morbid and destructive play,
the world remains.

10 MAY 2017

Leave a Comment

Meat or Wood: rondel supreme

Published on May 9, 2017

They say to run your blade against the grain
if you would safely slice in meat or wood,
yet seek the easy way out when we should
accept that gain and glory require pain.

What makes us human, with our massive brains,
is that we choose to suffer, when we could
select to run our blade against the grain
if we would safely slice in meat or wood.

With conscious choice against personal gain,
in service to another, greater good,
unlike the low and primitive, who would
by instinct flee in fear from strife and strain,
we choose to lay our blades against the grain
and slice out equal portions, meat or wood.

9 MAY 2017

Leave a Comment

Such a World: rondel

Published on May 8, 2017

What sense can you make of such a world
where kindness and consideration fail,
and ignorance, its angry, hard fist curled,
destroys all to build more graveyards and jails?

When hatred’s flag has been proudly unfurled,
has culture’s last ship onward set its sails?
What sense can one make of this world
when kindness and consideration fails?

Forget the single grain, the oyster’s pearl;
there is no private gold, no separate grail.
The ocean’s parts held in your tiny pail
show just a pattern’s glimpse, merely a purl.
What sense can you make of such a world?

08 MAY 2017

Leave a Comment

You Came to Hear: rondeau redoubled

Published on May 5, 2017

The music that you came to hear:
a sonic bridge that helps you cross
some gulf of time no longer near,
or spend as a mere hour’s loss,

so in the maelstrom sound’s great fosse
you find your sorrows light to bear,
your jagged rocks made soft with moss,
the music that you came to hear?

What in these tunes allays your fears,
makes sunshine from an endless dross
and with a modicum of beer
a sonic bridge that helps you cross

in mirthful, bright and shiny gloss
from disconnection, felt so clear,
to friends who share a sense of loss:
some gulf of time no longer near.

And when at last the end appears:
last call, that winging albatross
whose warning bursts the happy sphere,
you’ve suffered a mere hour’s loss

and gained a bright and shiny gloss.
Now, when the new day’s dawn appears
and there may seem no way across,
you can reflect back in the mirror
the music that you came to hear.

05 MAY 2017

Leave a Comment

I Cannot Speak: rondeau

Published on May 4, 2017

I cannot speak of what I’ve seen:
the smell of bleach is on those scenes,
and faintly, on each memory’s breath,
a subtle scent of loss and death,
with hints of joy and hope between.

I hear the dripping fat, I dream
of crackles in the kerosene
that sizzle ’til there’s nothing left;
I cannot speak.

I stand aside, and watch, and lean
a while. I wait as the new green
begins to sprout amidst this death;
a garden is a grave, reset,
that in each’s season prayer and sweat
writes of the sacred and obscene
I cannot speak.

04 MAY 2017

Leave a Comment

Closing Time: rime couée

Published on May 1, 2017

Down at the bar we sit and wait,
as if our glory days, so great,
still might return anon.
We act younger throughout the night,
so we forget, while we get tight,
that halcyon is gone.

And all the girls who tend the bar,
pretend to laugh, but just so far;
it’s hard to hide pity.
Last call, they turn on all the lights;
watch us shuffle into the night,
mumbling something witty.

1 MAY 2017

Leave a Comment