Oh Rosie, run beyond the slope
before my blood runs cold!
I feel that clammy, wraithlike rope
assert its faithful hold!
Her feet fly faster than a hare
away from Devil’s ditch,
for scents of flesh float in the air
as Johnny’s eyelids twitch.
Oh Rosie, run beyond the slope
before my blood runs cold!
I feel that clammy, wraithlike rope
assert its faithful hold!
Her feet fly faster than a hare
away from Devil’s ditch,
for scents of flesh float in the air
as Johnny’s eyelids twitch.
The shindig sheathed a shadowed year
in reams of cheese and streams of beer.
We stumbled home at half past four
and fell asleep upon the floor.
A Christmas tree without the cheer
of kin close by to hold you near,
is just a mass of dying spruce
that lost its life in winter’s noose.
Wilting where willows weep,
minute malachite mendicants measure
summer’s sultry season softly.
Mad summer’s face shall quickly fall,
when autumn shows its cheek.
For now, I wear a sylvan shawl
and wait for leaves to speak.
Outside our town there was a glade
where coats of comely mallow swayed.
Their beauty made the billows weep
and caused blithe bumblebees to leap
upon those vivid violet thrones
to gather dusty yellow stones.
The wooers chose that pretty place
to slyly bask in joy’s embrace.
Each morning at the stroke of nine
they hurried past the prickly pine
to wallow in warm waiting arms
and revel in each other’s charms.
______________________________
“Plight of the Peevish Peddler” is a 2,360 word narrative poem, written in iambic tetrameter that I wrote about a year and a half ago. This excerpt is from the poem’s second section.
Your life belongs to you alone;
beware of pointing blame.
To wretchedness that you have sown,
you must affix your name.
Over glowing glass,
broken feet beckon shyly,
fearful of impassioned paths.
Wisteria hair
stumbles against broad shoulders,
steeped in the heat of her flame.
Go tell it on the mountain, dear,
before the sun departs,
for fearful songs shall soon appear
within our quaking hearts.
tanks creep
through silent street,
for we have gone to sleep,
and cannot wake up to defeat
the fleet