Disappointment
The waiting’s not the hardest part:
Much worse is when you finally know
That what you craved with all your heart
____Will not arrive.
Infatuations come and go,
Bad luck upsets your apple cart,
The gentle rains no boon bestow,
____But you survive.
Soul Mate
an alexandroid
My thoughts of you shall last until
____my bones are laid
To rest on yonder verdant hill,
____above a glade
Where somber weeping willow trees
____have set the stage.
Aloft on heaven’s billowed seas,
____beyond old age,
I’ll think of you again, to dream
____about the times
We lingered near a chuckling stream
____and traded rhymes.
Through Thick and Thin
Like moths to flame, like leaves that seek the light,
Old lovers might be drawn to fervent quarrels.
If one’s to blame, yet fails to make things right,
It’s only from a fleeting lapse of morals.
There is no shame in giving up a fight
If all the claims and counterclaims seem equal,
And when a name is whispered in the night
Endearments thus expressed beget a sequel.
The will to frame discussions free from spite
Grows weaker as the bickering continues,
But Sir and Dame both know the chance is slight
That either one would thrive in other venues.
C.B. Anderson was the longtime gardener for the PBS television series, The Victory Garden. Hundreds of his poems have appeared in scores of print and electronic journals out of North America, Great Britain, Ireland, Austria, Australia and India. His collection, Mortal Soup and the Blue Yonder was published in 2013 by White Violet Press.
These are absolutely beautiful, CB Anderson. Well-crafted, in perfect & interesting cadences & meter, and with interesting rhymes. Lingual & linguistic music – as good as it gets.
As Paul says above, the poetic skill is very good. So soft, smooth, and compelling in their nostalgia and endurance. Thanks, CB.
A ‘chuckling stream’ is a vibrant touch.
The acceptance and resignation, particularly of the last one, give awkward honesty.
I take particular note of the enjambment between stanzas in your “Soul Mate” Alexandroid. This piece is my favorite of the three, because of the sentiment expressed, and the attractiveness of the form.
“Through Thick and Thin” makes a strong case for compromise, and ‘going the extra mile’ in a relationship. The following couplet exemplifies this sage advice:
“And when a name is whispered in the night
Endearments thus expressed beget a sequel.”
Nothing less than masterful.
I’m glad you liked them, guys. I’d hate to disappoint. And, Monty, you will surely have noticed that, in the third poem, (aside from the regular double rhymes in the A-lines) that the B-lines are regularly off-rhymed, except in the second stanza, where I could not come up with a plausible off-rhyme for “equal.”
Regarding the third piece, CB: I don’t understand what you’re saying. To me, the only off-rhymes are “continue/venue”. All the others seem to be bona fide rhymes, especially “equal/sequel”. Is that not a perfect rhyme?
CBA – I liked these three little offerings very much, especially the first with the staccato effect created by the dimeter of its fourth lines, something I feel a natural poet might do almost without thinking; and the prosodic complexity of the third poem doesn’t shout aloud its presence, but is clever nonetheless.
Peter, poems like this — little nonce forms — are one of a kind. I don’t imagine you’ll see anything from me like the first and third ever again, except by complete accident.
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