Her Tea Leaves

I'm in a poetry class this semester, and I thought it would be appropriate that I include the poems that I have worked on thus far. They are in the order in which I wrote them.

Christopher Wren (Villanelle)

I saw a puddle crossing Old School’s Quad

And stepped aside to keep my sandals dry

And raised my eyes to praise a stone façade.

 

“Redemption here would take an act of God,”

I thought. Perceiving sin in every eye,

I saw a puddle crossing Old School’s Quad.

 

Within those halls the greatest thinkers trod.

I saw myself amongst them by and by

And raised my eyes to praise a stone façade.

 

Yet on those streets in light I rode roughshod,

And every base, debauching drunk denied,

And skirted puddles crossing Old School’s Quad.

 

Those vaulted spires seduced me as a bawd

Ensnares a wretched mind. I breathed a sigh

And raised my eyes to praise a stone façade.

 

Beware the wakeful wit of stone-carved gods—

The evil erudition may supply.

I saw a puddle crossing Old School’s Quad

And raised my eyes to praise a stone façade.

Brother (Sestina)                                                                    

My memories of you are like gentle

Strokes of a brush. They paint before my eyes

a silhouette upon which, until now

(your absence), I could not deliberate.

Our lives become a manuscript explored

And I will bend the binding back and read.

 

When I was six and didn’t care, you read

me Faerie books. You drew me on gently

into adventures, charmingly explored

amidst your childish zeal, and in my eyes

you were the author of deliberate,

intelligent mythologies. So, now

 

do I perceive you changed? Seeing you now,

an awkward start-up man, yet widely read

and not without thoughtful, deliberate

assurance, I must turn the pages gently

to recall the child with brightened blue eyes

who thought our creek a sea to be explored.

 

The fleeting backyard world we once explored

dissolves to rude reality, and now

the physical discovery of eyes

and child-size hands is mediated, read

in words instead of sprightly play. Gently,

age has constructed a deliberate

 

man of you, and I must deliberate

whether you’ve lost the ardor to explore

that once drove me to mimic each gentle

action you took. Perhaps the truth’s that now

you’ve moved beyond that childish world and read

a greater story than before, with eyes

 

that are more like God’s own redemptive eyes.

This new world unfolds in deliberate,

broken, yet beautiful glimpses. I read

again your every move and see explored

a vaster, more enchanting story now

than any you’ve invented. Still your gentle

 

passion inspires me like your gentle eyes

have often done. Now, with deliberate

care, we’ll explore this faerie world you’ve read.

Babel   (Pantoum)                                            

Beautiful melodies, sung out of key,

Fall on receptive, deafened ears. Short of

all encompassing salvation, only

blind men read. Inarticulate sermons

 

Fall on receptive, deafened ears, short of

A word of truth. Faith mewls and dozes while

Blind men read inarticulate sermons

To pews of padded flesh and bone. To style

 

A word of truth, faith mewls and dozes while

coarse commotion rises and silence calls

to pews of padded flesh and bone to style.

Without a tuning touch the center falls,

 

coarse commotion rises, and silence calls

wantonly, babbling. Tongues must comprehend

without a tuning touch: the center falls.

In such scars our words aspire to transcend

 

wantonly. Babbling tongues must comprehend

all encompassing Salvation. Only

In His scars our words aspire to transcend

Beautiful melodies sung out of key.

Upon the Dropping of Ceramics Class (Sonnet)

Alas, I cannot apprehend the weight

of every willful act I take. Control

eludes—clay forms collapse, crush, take the toll

of ineffectual hands. I watch with hate

and curse the crooked forms. To tolerate

this failure, must I lay my wilting soul

in weak submission down before a bowl

of mangled earth?—a blank deistic fate?

Not so. For He has cradled lifeless clay

before. The malleable matter of

my small and childish lot cannot betray

such dextrous, guiding hands. For viscous gloves

of filthy mud did not deter His plan

when quick’ning arid dust and forming man. 

Highland Lament (Ballad)

Oh won’ ye go an find my luve,

 an bring him back tae stay?

Oh won’ ye go an seek him out?

 He’s left me but a day.

He promised to be e’er my luve,

 an ne’er tae go away.

Oh won’ ye go an find my luve,

 an bring him back tae stay?

 

On yester’morn he left our home,

 Wi’out a single word.

The fast’nin o’ his brog an brat,

 was a’ the sound I heard.

I rose from bed tae find him gone,

 the myst’ry I now mourn

Oh Won’ ye go an find him for

 I’m hertily forlorn.

 

When we were wed it seemed a shame,

 for I were yet so young.

My faither gave me tae a man

 So auld, my hert was wrung.

An though he luved me tenderly

 An wrote me verse an sung,

I met his luve wi’ bitterness

 an spake wi’ poison’d tongue.

 

The day since he’s been gone I’ve been

 descendin tae despair,

At first I said “he’s left tae seek

 a bih o’ Hielan air.”

But now I see he won’ come back.

 It takes me unaware,

Tae see the way I need him, Oh

 my hert was unprepared!

 

So won’ ye go an find my luve

 an tell him I was wrong,

The way I took his gentle smile

 for granted a’ along.

Today if he wuld smile at me

 my hert wuld fill wi’ song.

Oh won’ ye go an find my luve

 an tell him I was wrong?

Cornmarket (Blank Verse)

A cold, light rain falls gently on my cheeks

and hair, like so many silver beads. The rain

no longer stops this town, its streets are full

of faceless motion, tucked beneath a black

umbrella, or sunk in hooded slickers. I

once thought I saw a friendly face within

this heartless throng, but soon repented of

such charitable thought, and chastened, walked

with down-turned eyes to watch my footfalls. Now,

with beaded rain collecting on their lashes,

I raise my eyes again, examining

the street. Each darkened form propels itself

with some unknown intention, hastening on

to buy a pair of shoes or read another

essay to a keen and silent don. In all

the bodies moving here among the stores,

the birds, and beggars on the cadge, I smile,

look up into the falling rain, and feel

delicious freedom pouring down like oil.