No frozen ground-swell damages my wall ( Read more... )

Haven't written a sonnet in a while, but this one just fell out of the keyboard ( Read more... )

"Chop wood, carry water, pray" is a descriptor of practical religious practice that appeals to me quite strongly ( Read more... )

The first frost, whitening the grass today ( Read more... )

A sonnet on Google Wave ( Read more... )

In reply to a recent sonnet by fledgist:

To make a thing, to bring it into being
Is intimate, like making love. The verb's
The join, for making either one disturbs
A universe where knowing comes from seeing.
I dream a thing that doesn't yet have form
Is risky as I love you. Both require ( Read more... )

The elder dragon stirs atop his hoard
And wakens, stretching out his scaly wings,
Rejoicing in the state of having things:
Possessions are, for him, their own reward.
He tallies up his silver and his gold,
Recalls the provenance of every gem,
But never feels the need to alter them:
He wasn't born to make, but just to hold.
But we are not the same: we crave ( Read more... )

The dragons vanished first, one day at dawn,
A close-packed mass of wings and teeth and tails
That voicelessly, just rustling its scales,
Crouched, launched itself, and in a flash, was gone.
The gryphons, barren since the hatchling blight
Around the eggless phoenix gathered near.
So when it flamed, they too began to sear,
Then sprang aloft and burned to ( Read more... )

The map said "Here be dragons" on the edge,
Beyond the farthest land, in open sea.
It seemed a little strange, at least to me:
Where did they build their nests? I like a ledge,
Some rocky outcrop on which I can sleep,
And hoard my gold, and dream up riddling quips
For jewel-thieves. I don't need much: just tips
Of stone between me and the chilly deep.
But ( Read more... )

The first September week was barely past
When he was born. The way the seasons change
Is catching, so perhaps it is not strange
That his first tongue and nation weren't his last.
But though a tree may shed its autumn leaves
And be reclad in spring, the trunk remains.
And so it is with Serge, who still retains
The core of whom he loves, what he believes.
( Read more... )