an unfinsihed beginning

I'll sell you a story,
A nickle a piece.
A penny a pound if your poor.

Of tragic young damsels,
accosted by beasts.
Of dashing young men sent to war.

This was the opening lines of a ballad I had begun. I liked the intro, which is suppose to be sung by a troubadour, but never finished the rest. Who knows, maybe I'll get around to it some day.

A long poem on stairs

I like a good stairwell.
I like to climb them.
I like to descend them.
I like to experience them.

I like a good stairwell.
One which twists and turns.
One with pleasing rails fit just so for my hand.
I like a stairwell that echos.
that takes my few hummed notes,
sucks them up and spits them back out as a full song.

I like a stairwell made of polished wood.
A stairwell that speaks of the epitome of good breeding.
I like a pure-bred stairwell.

I like a stairwell with gum and questionable stains
and cigarette butts in the corner.
A stairwell who's end is both intriguing and terrifying.
A stairwell that seems to lurk, who's shadows seem suspicious.
I like a trashy stairwell.

I like a stairwell that curves smoothly around
in an endless spiral a light house or a loft.

I like a stairwell that's boxy and awkward,
like a gangly child - a parking garage, a dorm.

I like a stairwell with many landings,
covered in pots of flowers so that each flight is separate,
with a garden in between.

I like a stairwell that goes straight up,
inspiring groans of dismay to those at the bottom,
and childish pride in those at the top.

I like the stairs that lead up to the memorial of Abraham Lincoln.
A large flight of steps, with good ole Abe sitting at the top.
His giant size makes the stairs look small,
and so he deceives you in death as he never did in life.

I like the stairs connecting two little back roads in Cincinnati,
which when you stand at the top look ordinary enough,
but when you stand at the bottom you can see
a design painted onto each of the risers so that it comes together to form a picture.

I like the stairs painted onto a building in downtown Cincinnati,
stairs painted so convincingly that more than once
a young child has run smack into the building.
A few adults have come close too.

I like the stairs that I have read about in books.

Stairs like the external stairs of Balors Needle,
who's rusted steps were nearly the death of the young squire Keladry.
Or the staircases of a certain king of the Enchanted Forrest.
Who was so fond of sweeping majestically up and down stairs
in long robes that he built a plethora of stairways,
some of which lead no where at all.
Or the stairs which took Frodo and Sam up to Mordor.
Or the stair carved inside a tree that housed a young Merlin.

I like the stairwell that connects Liberty Hill to Reading Rd
which is overgrown and hardly any sane person uses.
It always smells of diapers and is covered with broken bottles.
I take these stairs to reach the number 43 Reading Rd bus,
and always feel a thrill of fear that this might be the time
I am killed by some drunk hiding in the surrounding woods.
This is my adrenaline rush
because I don't like roller coasters.

I like the memories that live on in stairwells,

Like the stairs in a certain hall in Ponca City, Oklahoma,
in which I have never been,
but in which my parents had their wedding reception,
and on which my mother had a picture taken in her white gown,
with her train sweeping grandly behind her.

Or the stairwell that I walked down with friends
on a quite, sunny day freshman year,
and at the bottom found my first job in Cincinnati,
cleaning for a lady.

Or the stairwells in the girls dorm,
which threatened to plunge anyone running
late to class in heels to their deaths.
I wrote an ode to those stairs freshmen year,
it was an ode of loathing.
But now that I have been gone from there a few years,
I begin to miss everything, even the stairs.

And so I find myself sitting hear on this rainy night,
on a dirty stairwell thinking of all the stairwells I have known,
and some that I haven't,
and of which ones I liked.
And I find that I have liked them all.

I like a good stairwell.
I like to climb them.
I like to descend them.
I like to experience them.

A tradition continues

I greatly enjoy posting my anti-love poems during the month of February. And so I will.

John Donne

I LONG to talk with some old lover's ghost,
Who died before the god of love was born.
I cannot think that he, who then loved most,
Sunk so low as to love one which did scorn.
But since this god produced a destiny,
And that vice-nature, custom, lets it be,
I must love her that loves not me.

Sure, they which made him god, meant not so much,
Nor he in his young godhead practised it.
But when an even flame two hearts did touch,
His office was indulgently to fit
Actives to passives. Correspondency
Only his subject was ; it cannot be
Love, till I love her, who loves me.

But every modern god will now extend
His vast prerogative as far as Jove.
To rage, to lust, to write to, to commend,
All is the purlieu of the god of love.
O ! were we waken'd by this tyranny
To ungod this child again, it could not be
I should love her, who loves not me.

Rebel and atheist too, why murmur I,
As though I felt the worst that love could do?
Love might make me leave loving, or might try
A deeper plague, to make her love me too ;
Which, since she loves before, I'm loth to see.
Falsehood is worse than hate ; and that must be,
If she whom I love, should love me.

I caught a hint of Christmas in the air . . .

and so I thought I'd polish up my recitation of the Night Before Christmas. And since I have no reason to recite it, I though I might annoy you with it. So here's my favorite line,

"As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle mount to the sky
So up to the roof-tops his coursers they flew
With a sleigh full of toys and St Nicholas too."

I have always liked the name Nicholas. . . and no Santa that wasn't just for brownie points!

Favorite War Poets

-Seigfred Sassoon (Actually known more for his anti-war verses.)
-Wilfred Owen (also showed the dark side of war, with very vivid imagery)
-Rupert Brooke (known for idealistic war sonnets.)

It interests me that of the three men, all of whom were soldiers, only the one (Brooke) who didn't see active combat wrote of war idealistically, while those who fought in the trenches, (Sassoon received a medal for his service) wrote blatantly of the horror they saw. Of course this was all during the WWI, and some would say that war has become much more "civilized" but it is something for one to think about.

Here are my favorite works by each author.

Sassoon

-Glory of Women

-Suicide in the Trenches

Owen

-Dulce et Decorum Est

-Anthem for a Doomed Youth

-Strange Meeting

Brooke

-The Solider

Not quite April, but this is how I feel lately

The beginning of Sword Blades and Poppy Seeds
by Amy Lowell

A drifting, April, twilight sky,
A wind which blew the puddles dry,
And slapped the river into waves
That ran and hid among the staves

Of an old wharf. A watery light
Touched bleak the granite bridge, and white
Without the slightest tinge of gold,
The city shivered in the cold.

All day my thoughts had lain as dead,
Unborn and bursting in my head.
From time to time I wrote a word
Which lines and circles overscored.
My table seemed a graveyard, full
Of coffins waiting burial.

I seized these vile abortions, tore
Them into jagged bits, and swore
To be the dupe of hope no more.
Into the evening straight I went,
Starved of a day's accomplishment.

This is one of my favorite poems, but is too long to post entirely. I always think of the first few lines on cold, wet, windy days.

Thief

First you stole my breath away
Then you stole my time
Then you stole a kiss from me
Then you stole my mind

I knew you for the thief you were,
I knew right from the start,
First you'd steal my dreams away,
Then you'd steal my heart.

Then like a thief on some dark night
Or maybe some bright day,
You'd quietly slip the window up
And steal yourself away.

mnb