I've been reading the Complete Poems of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and as wonderful as he was, he had an excessive fondness for a certain punctuation mark. So, me being me, I decided to have a little fun with it. Enjoy.

TEXT:

A SONNET: TO THE EXCLAMATION POINT

O exclamation point! Most overused Throughout English Romantic poesy! I marvel at the way thou art abused In every ode and sonnet that I see!

O fair and noble punctuation mark! O ender of each sentence and each clause! When I encounter thee, a voice cries "Hark!", And I compel my reading eyes to pause,

Awaiting some dramatic turn of phrase To drive the shades of boredom all away: Lo! Here it comes! I startle with amaze! And yet, to thee I raise my voice and pray:

O herald of an overheated style, Could we get a question mark once in a while?

A cri du coeur on behalf of a country I love deeply.

TEXT:

GREECE IS BURNING

In threatened churches the Theotokos clutches her child tighter, until he almost cries out. Saints twitch with fear in the prison of their icons.

Beside each cypress or olive, a wood-nymph curls into ash. They settle thickly on red tiled roofs, making of whole towns discarded cigarettes.

The sky's mouth is jagged and bleeding. It grins dazedly over dead hills.

For anyone celebrating Lammas/Lughnasadh today, here's a little gift for you. I hope you enjoy it.

TEXT:

LAMMAS

The corn is rising, ear by ear, Out of the graves of yesteryear. Roman, Saxon, Viking dead Become the dirt that gives us bread.

Every clash with gun or sword Is welcome to the Furrow-Lord. He whispers to the wounded men to sleep, and sink, and rise again.

He cares not for what cause they fight-- Their blood itself is his delight. These hallowed fields have been his own Since man first chiseled flakes from stone.

So eat your loaf and quaff your beer To mark the turning of the year, But walk the furrows with a care-- Something dreadful's dwelling there.

A little mythologically inspired poetry for you today. I hope you like it.

TEXT:

HECUBA

The first howl had not left her lips when she whetted her claws on blind Polymestor, clever Odysseus, proud Agamemnon. Greeks and Thracians fell like trees in a gale. Surf licked their bodies. If she had had thumbs to hold torches, she would have finished Hector's work and set the ships ablaze.

The second howl was heard across the sea. Piercing Argos' cold halls, it reached Clytemnestra in her black robes. She too cried out. Wronged mother to wronged mother, their antiphon of grief maddened the waters.

Braying Donkey, Gao Qipei, 1713

Today is International Donkey Day, so please enjoy this little salute to one of the humblest, yet hardest-working and most reliable, of creatures.

Text: BURRO

Where Apache and Comanche have galloped, where cowboys black and white have thrashed their herds into frenzied movement: a burro, climbing slowly.

He forgets the burden of his drowsy rider, thinking only of the sand that slips beneath his hooves, the wind past his nostrils, the scents it brings.

After ten miles of silence he brays, thanking the setting sun: its rays have laid a scarlet carpet down the arroyo, all, he dreams, for him.

A little something fun for anyone out there celebrating May Day/Beltane. Whether you are or not, I hope you have a good day today.

TEXT:

BELTANE

Comes the summer, comes the fire, Gaily fed and leaping higher--

Comes the ash, to keep at bay Cruel ghosts and crueler fae--

Comes the dancing in the dell, Bidding Mother Spring farewell--

Come the ribbons, merrily Wrapped around each bush and tree.

Welcome, days of warmest sun, Welcome, May-month just begun,

When the fields of golden grain Are made to grow by gentle rain,

When the cattle calmly graze According to their ancient ways--

Linger, summer, linger here, O most enchanted time of year.

TEXT:

SPRING PRAYER

God grant me the courage of the unsteady foal that picks his gangly way through spring mud, startled afresh each time that his hooves sink, yet forges on, refusing mulishly to seek refuge under his mother, until he takes a stand on dry ground at last.

God grant me the wonder of his eyes as they struggle to take in so much green, so much world.

Today is Poem in Your Pocket Day, so here's a little poem I hope you'll like. (Please forgive my presumption in sharing one of my own--I couldn't resist.)

Text:

BOTANICAL AUBADE

Waking just like a seed today:

drowsy heavy coat splits--

toes extend into the bedclothes, warm, dark, rooted--

arms above head rise, tug at shoulders--

on each hand pink jointed leaves shiver in thanks

for the taste of sunlight

Merlin's Song

Hidden and alone In a jail of stone, Hating the deceitful nymph I thought was all my own,

I dream but do not sleep, I mourn but cannot weep, While all along my supine form The dust is growing deep.

The final toll is pealed, My liege's doom is sealed: Without my arts to lend him aid He'll die on Camlann's field,

And Camelot will fall-- The throne, the Table, all. Sad Guinevere within her cell Will weave her love a pall.

My books of prophecy Proclaimed that this would be: A fool was I to challenge Fate And cruel Eternity.

So farewell, light of day. Like air I fade away-- Upon my cracked and mildewed lips, The name of Nimue.

Something for today's much-discussed eclipse. Enjoy.

Text: THE DRAGON AND THE SUN

Man in his foolishness thought he had outwitted the dragon. He had spiced the Sun with all the most dreadful condiments: lust, venality, pride and despair, shaken generously in black heaps past Mercury and Venus. He had looked with satisfaction as that star, cankered with sin, threw glowing tendrils in protest at this gross indignity.

Yet the dragon when she came ate all the faster and greedier. To wailing, perishing man she announced: I am so old that Death is a swaddled infant in my eyes. Did you not know? The evil you think so great turns on my tongue to rich cardamom and cinnamon. I swallow it and shudder with delight.

For World Poetry Day

LOGOS

In the beginning were the words.

Fast like rivers, slow like honey.

Sharp like quills, soft like wool.

For every picture a thousand words,

speaking the world and all its creatures.

Where are we born? A sea of words.

Where do we dance? A floor of words.

What is death? A return to words.

And heaven a tale that, like a moth,

flits about from lip to lip,

chasing the lamp of eternity.

TEXT:

THE TASK

This cracked-china world of tulips and leukemia, of warm wheat bread and bombed-out houses:

on a dark table we lay it and mend it. Again and again.

Happy New Year. May it be a good one.

TEXT:

ANNUS NOVUS

Now is the time for an alchemical touch. Now is the time to turn into gold The tin shards of the old year, To make red gold so bright the eye cannot bear it, And hang it from the eaves with a laugh That runs over and over like champagne.

This is just for fun. I hope you enjoy it.

TEXT:

THE GREEN MAN

The Green Man's not so far to seek: By glinting brook or flashing creek, You'll hear his chuckle easily In grass and flower, fern and tree.

If you're lucky, you might spy Him from the corner of your eye – But if you look at him straight on, A blink or two, and he'll be gone.

How old is he, this laughing soul? Before the plowshare took its toll, Before the soil began to bear Wheat and barley, he was there.

He leaps above, he creeps below, He makes the twining ivy grow, He calls the blood-red holly too: He makes the sleeping earth anew.

Tread lightly, all who dare to come Into the Green Man's forest home. Spare the axe and spare the knife, Claim no gentle creature's life--

Lest, straying from the wiser path, You rouse a deep and ancient wrath. For once the Green Man pulls you in, No man will see your face again.

A little something for the Halloween season, about the Unseelie Court. Enjoy.

TEXT:

The Seelie love the fairy ring, To step and turn and turn and sing, And every bright and gleaming thing-- But we are otherwise.

The Seelie on their seats of gauze Have bound themselves by ancient laws To slay no mortal without cause-- But we are otherwise.

The Seelie choose to bargain fair, To honor what they once declare, To tweak the proud, the humble spare-- But we are otherwise.

We who hide in slits of night, We red-capped spawn of spit and spite, Whose every breath conveys a blight-- Oh, we are otherwise!

Some poetry for your Monday. This was ostensibly inspired by an IG prompt "bonfire smoke," although it pretty quickly left the prompt behind. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it.

SACRAMENTS

Your midwife was A bonfire's flame. Thunder named you With its name.

Baptized by A double priest (Waves on the shore, Sun in the east),

To follow where The wolf may lead Is your one And only creed,

Your catechism Is the cry Of hawks descending From the sky.

When you die Black soil will take you, Countless creatures Will unmake you--

Chilly dew Upon your face The only unction In that place.

To such a one, A golden ring Would be a feeble, Foolish thing:

We'll wed, therefore, With fingers bare, Our notaries The earth and air.

A little Saturday poetry for you--perhaps a bit gloomy, but I hope not unduly so. The prompt was "a character visits a graveyard, mausoleum, or other resting place of the dead". Enjoy.

TEXT:

SOLILOQUY IN A NEW ENGLAND GRAVEYARD

There's moss grown on your name-- I don't know who you were. But that you grinned sometimes and sobbed Sometimes--of that I'm sure.

I don't know when you lived-- Your dates have worn away. You might have been born in Pilgrim times Or just the other day.

The angel who surmounts Your tombstone has no face. His wings have lasted, though, and grant A certain heavy grace.

Most likely you're just bones, Or even dust, by now. But kneeling in the cold, I feel That we were friends, somehow.