Petrarchan Sonnet on a Bouguereau

For Kith & Kin

Patriot lost, mourned by no country, but

a wife and infant attend in tearful

elegy—all grief is personal—Full

as these heroes’ lives, too young they die, glut

Death with his impatient hosts. Who knows what

change each war can bring? Our headlines are full

of patriotic verve . . . Who’s this to fool?

A soldier dies for kith & kin. One may strut

to war with flag and chin held high, duty

filling heart and mind, but when the killing

begins, Life’s instinct shrugs nobility

aside so the panicked heart can beat. Thrilling

to war is the place of mad men—zealotry

a tyrant more evil than any despot king.

David M Pitchford

Picture: “Elegy” by William-Adolphe Bouguereau, 1899
Comments invited.

Poems Between Lovers

After the Vows: Poems Between Lovers

Available now via Diminuendo Press (and the usual places).

You are not Orpheus

You are not Orpheus, love, nor would I

have you be, and I will not slip in to

Hades hands. Understand my love is new

even when mundane is the order of

the day and I wish for words of passion

and wit. My days are incomplete without

a kiss from your lips, in a smile or pout.

Fanciful dreams in romantic fashion

still find their way into the world around

me, but now my prince has a face I can see

and when I look in your eyes, I see me.

My name in your voice is sweeter, I say

more musical than any poetry,

or song, Orpheus ever thought to play.

Siobhan M Pitchford

Aphrodite in Your Shadow

So well you take me as I am. I fear

to imagine what would be should that fair-

fortuned force that fogs your eyes suddenly

shed the scales that put me in your vision

as you describe it. I see no such man

within my mirror, but thank the heavens

that you see me so. And how do I see

you? Aphrodite shone as bright, I’m sure,

yet your steadfast nature is earth scented,

unlike Venus’s too fickle fragrances,

therefore so much the more desirable.

Yet, how can I compare you and be fair

when she is myth and you of fleshly make

she I wonder of—you I worldly hold.

David M Pitchford

Villanelle for Dawn

William Adolphe Bouguereau's "Dawn", circa 1881

 

Wake Me

Night’s indigo legions rise to fall each night
this sleeper’s eyes grow heavy with gloaming
Yet Dawn’s promise thrills my dreams, fills my sight

 

Wake us from dreaming to hope-born delight.
Star riders on dream-steeds, we go roaming
to hunt Midnight from rise to fall each night

 

amid night’s empty spaces, ‘tween stars’ light
and angel nebulas to sky’s foaming
birth. Dawn’s promise thrills our dreams, fills our sight—

 

Oh gossamer Eos, bless us with your light
lest our hearts grow dull, succumb to the gloaming,
fall to night’s indigo legions, to Night

 

Oh gossamer Eos, queen of hope and light,
wash in your dew this bitter dream! Combing
in Dawn’s promise of thrills and dreams, fill our sight

 

Eve is natural, the end of days is no blight,
yet we fear day’s end, clinched in Death’s loathing.
Night’s indigo legions rise to fall each night,
yet Dawn’s promise is thrills to dream and fulfilled sight.

David M Pitchford
5 August 2008

This is a draft of a villanelle.

Our Book is Coming!

After the Vows: Poems Between Lovers

After the Vows: Poems Between Lovers

My wife and I collaborated on this book of sonnets. We’ve been writing a dialog of 14-line poems since about 2001, and we’re finally getting published! We’re sosososo excited!
I’ll update this post with more information on where to get the book soon. And, of course, post a couple of samples from it!