I: The Ballad of the Isle#
I - Spring
I - March (Mutable Water)
The island formed where rivers meet,
where silt through vortex fords.
The place emerged a brokered feat,
a land of met accords.
A mantle crown, in breaching air,
the regents all proclaim
a vessel poured from blooded heir
of season’s last remain.
So March the army sorties cease,
embarking east and west
to mark the chartered pact with peace,
obeisance paid and blessed.
Here pairs of fish in lunar sway
coordinate their fins
in swooping ornament display
with flocking mirrored twins.
Behold the treaty words in ink,
the scrolls in future’s brine,
the sutures binding swords in sync
to island’s hallow shrine.
II - April (Cardinal Fire)
The webs of Spring such crude affairs
when strung with spinning songs;
the threaded compromise ensnares
the spidered plotting throngs.
The April session clauses creep
and wolves with sharpened claws,
deceived by strategems of sheep,
retract their motioned laws.
But blurting rams befoul the ploy,
with filibuster bleets
that break the still the ewes enjoy;
the argument repeats.
To raven galleries’ refrain
in rabble squalls of wind,
they find in mutual disdain
their hopes together pinned.
Elusive votes are overcast
on cloudy ballots posed.
By noon, the forum order passed
conceded plans proposed.
III - May (Fixed Earth)
A barren hump prepared with zeal
as sparrows plow their seeds.
From sprouted weed to plants’ reveal
through curtains made of reeds.
The shoots are sunk and water sewn
through roots of flooded banks
where mudded flanks of fish cyclone
around the studded ranks.
A retinue arrives from sea
atop a snow-white bull.
Its royalty with one decree
begins the reign in full.
The trees then stake foundations firm,
cement what’s broken free,
confirm the seed to bring to term
the squawking newborn plea.
A birth announced to kneeling crowds
in congregation’s girth,
by May pronounced through sealing clouds
of consecrated Earth.
II - Summer
I - June (Mutable Air)
When stellar swans survey the dawn
of constellated shores,
their forms in flight are downward drawn
towards gravitating cores.
They veer through plumes of pheromone,
converge at silent points.
Diverging tracts, though yearly grown,
lead back where June annoints.
At last the Summer bursts with life
and summons forth its herds
to open market pastures rife
with bounty born by birds.
In shallows deer appear to graze
beside the lazing drapes
of rays, the incandescent haze
that veils their swaying shapes.
Then maiden buds unfold to bees
their sweetly nectared heat;
unladen, drowsy, through the breeze,
the teasing fumes secrete.
II - July (Cardinal Water)
Along the flowing inlet streams
the festival begins.
Caressing music tinges dreams
with cricket violins.
Soft underfoot the cancers tap,
enrapt by vibrant chords.
The snapping prance of shells enwrap
the island shore with hordes.
As gondolas of lilies’ bud
that carry courting toads
through swampy bogs to ports of mud
relieve their tadpole loads.
Oh! Jubilee, this boon, July
through fallow leas by moon,
when rodents swoon in cups of rye
and fall to bed too soon.
Amid the revelry a kiss
to memory’s delight,
two larks alight in fading bliss
fulfill this final night.
III - August (Fixed Fire)
What bittersweet perfumes release
in looming throes of age,
when isle matures through orange cerise,
engulfed in scents of sage.
Though leonine its roar in youth,
the shedding source of mane
replies with veins of blood vermouth
through suffocating grain.
Of August lines that empire grew,
once cloaked in ermine garbs,
unkempt and molting, flake sinew,
their branches wreathed in barbs.
Though riches hide in golden limb,
the leaves dissolve to dust,
consoled in wind to hushing skim
what wealth remains in gust.
Discreetly cloaked from time the Fall
of secret reign’s decline
through crimson’s spectrum vine, all
gone brown, forgetting shine.
III - Autumn
I - September (Mutable Earth)
September storms suspend the skies
resplendent morning pinks
above the waking window eyes
despairing foregone winks.
What ears of wheat will balance scales?
What maiden disappears?
Condensing answers dance in gales,
descending hemispheres.
Now Autumn comes with heavy rain
to test the borders drawn.
The water drained from level plain
in flooding rose the dawn.
The thunder heralds sundered age
besieged by droplets fat
with blood of yearly plundered wage,
enraged what Spring begat.
What muddy lanes then sluice the drowned
debris and sweep from field
the tumbling tumult, turned aground
and heaped by waves to wield.
II - October (Cardinal Air)
Divided sky once halved in poise,
succumbs to blackened press,
the hours compress to whiter noise
in surging strained excess.
October chopping peaks depressed
through interlocking weeks
deplete reserves that Summer stressed
to balking vassal shrieks.
Retreating columns’ sullen flight,
deserting homes and kin,
the fleeing wash through rapids white
with waters steeped in sin.
So inch by inch the tides reclaim
the island kingdom keep
and cast it down without a name
to swirling depths of sleep.
The atlas page is ripped anew,
schematic contour holes
where once there rose a sprout to blue
now rising streams of souls.
III - November (Fixed Water)
Orion’s arrow point is plunged
through lunging fronts of hail
across the waves where life expunged
remains through shadowed veil.
For down below, the stones make schemes
in skipping sprees like drunks,
inlaid in sunken trees through seams
as ballast for their trunks.
Arise the turret towers stark
against the ruddered land
to touch the ceiling shuttered dark
and brace what sprawling spanned.
Beneath the surface flowers form
as shades of algae grow
atop the castle walls in swarm,
the borough glade aglow.
November’s embers burn a while
between the exiled graves.
Remembered nocturnes sung beguile
the damned, forgottten knaves.
IV - Winter
I - December (Mutable Fire)
A rending gale begins to blow
above where worlds still thrive.
Descending sickles diving slow
as primal ends arrive.
Let Winter lens of crystal glass
behold submerged the fast,
alive with dancing ghosts en masse
retreading paths now past.
Its poison stings but lacks the kill,
the sweet paralysis
of time stood still in languid chill
around the palaces.
The stasis holds in cold command
the surface wraiths in play.
They turn to gems, encased expand
beyond the skinned decay.
Dissolved December center breaks,
dismembered lattice links,
upending states, revolving wakes;
the idle spirit shrinks.
II - January (Cardinal Earth)
The horns of plenty now cry a dirge
as prying cold enfolds
the last remains from island’s purge
outcast from stable moulds.
Through sieging vortices of shard
the kingdom yard is cleaved.
Bombarding sheets of ice discard
in circles ruins sieved.
What moments held in spells now spent
impels the course of freeze.
The towers brought to knees repent,
now felled by Time’s disease.
The afterlife morassed in cracks
of marrow twisted blue,
the wighted bones of zodiacs
imbued with pallid hue.
So seconds pass eternally,
this January clock.
The island keep returns to sea
through grains of sand to chalk.
III - February (Fixed Air)
Yet February always brings
the forest chorus lines,
the chirping chickadee that sings
from luted bows and vines.
From south, the scouting vees of geese,
with probes of swiveled neckcd
that follow fronts of warmth’s caprice,
are promise-held in check.
When Spring returns the tides recede,
but hollow urns are filled.
The ashes spill through snaking weed,
a year of life distilled.
The overflows, Ambrosia wine,
Elysian cups of dust,
from Earth unfroze the redesign
of missions more robust.
The angel beaks of birds baptize
the dirt in streaking aisle.
The cycle arcs in sharp reprise:
the ballad of the isle.
May 2025
Date |
Publication |
Status |
|---|---|---|
May 23, 2025 |
THINK Journal |
Pending |
May 30, 2025 |
Wallstrait |
Rejected |
June 1, 2025 |
The Louisville Review |
Pending |
June 4, 2025 |
Swan Scyth Press |
Pending |
June 13, 2025 |
New Verse Review |
Rejected |
June 14, 2025 |
Grand Little Things |
Pending |