Welcome Guest Poet - Melissa Keir #poetrymonth

About Melissa: 

As a writer, Melissa likes to keep current on topics of interest in the world of writing.  She’s a member of the Romance Writers of America, the Mid Michigan chapter of the RWA, and EPIC.  Melissa is always interested in improving her writing through classes and seminars.  She also believes in helping other authors and features authors and their books on her blog.

Melissa doesn’t believe in down time.  She’s always keeping busy.  Melissa is a wife and mother, an elementary school teacher, a book reviewer, co-owner of a publishing company as well as an author. Her home blends two families and is a lot like the Brady Bunch, without Alice- a large grocery bill, tons of dirty dishes and a mound of laundry. She loves to write stories that feature “happy endings” and is often found plotting her next story.

STEPH: How long have you been writing poetry?

MELISSA: I began writing poetry in junior high. I loved using the creative words to express my feelings. Of course being a teenager, feelings were the focus of my life. I have a huge number of my sappy love poems from that time. They all had rhymes and were mostly about lost or unrequited love as well as my feelings.

I left poetry for many years as I became a wife and mother. Finally, I went back to college when my children were both in elementary school. I was fortunate to have some wonderful instructors who breathed new life into my poetry (and reading) experiences.

STEPH: What your favorite style of poetry?

MELISSA: My favorite style of poetry is the free verse that evokes either feelings or thoughts by the reader.

STEPH: Who is your favorite poet?

MELISSA: This was a challenge. I love so many different poets but my two favorite poets are Langston Hughes and Margaret Atwood. I was given both of these authors in college for assignments. I really hadn’t known anything about them until I was *forced* to write about them and analyze their work. Now I can’t imagine life without their works.

STEPH: What's their favorite poem that they wrote?

MELISSA: I highly recommend Margaret Atwood’s short book “Good Bones and Simple Murders”. It has not only poetry but a unique look at life. One of my favorite pieces by her is “Gertrude Talks Back” where Hamlet’s mother basically gives him some advice.

Helen of Troy Does Countertop Dancing

The world is full of women
who'd tell me I should be ashamed of myself
if they had the chance. Quit dancing.
Get some self-respect
and a day job.
Right. And minimum wage,
and varicose veins, just standing
in one place for eight hours
behind a glass counter
bundled up to the neck, instead of
naked as a meat sandwich.
Selling gloves, or something.
Instead of what I do sell.
You have to have talent
to peddle a thing so nebulous
and without material form.
Exploited, they'd say. Yes, any way
you cut it, but I've a choice
of how, and I'll take the money.

I do give value.
Like preachers, I sell vision,
like perfume ads, desire
or its facsimile. Like jokes
or war, it's all in the timing.
I sell men back their worse suspicions:
that everything's for sale,
and piecemeal. They gaze at me and see
a chain-saw murder just before it happens,
when thigh, ass, inkblot, crevice, tit, and nipple
are still connected.
Such hatred leaps in them,
my beery worshippers! That, or a bleary
hopeless love. Seeing the rows of heads
and upturned eyes, imploring
but ready to snap at my ankles,
I understand floods and earthquakes, and the urge
to step on ants. I keep the beat,
and dance for them because
they can't. The music smells like foxes,
crisp as heated metal
searing the nostrils
or humid as August, hazy and languorous
as a looted city the day after,
when all the rape's been done
already, and the killing,
and the survivors wander around
looking for garbage
to eat, and there's only a bleak exhaustion.
Speaking of which, it's the smiling
tires me out the most.
This, and the pretence
that I can't hear them.
And I can't, because I'm after all
a foreigner to them.
The speech here is all warty gutturals,
obvious as a slab of ham,
but I come from the province of the gods
where meanings are lilting and oblique.
I don't let on to everyone,
but lean close, and I'll whisper:
My mother was raped by a holy swan.
You believe that? You can take me out to dinner.
That's what we tell all the husbands.
There sure are a lot of dangerous birds around.

Not that anyone here
but you would understand.
The rest of them would like to watch me
and feel nothing. Reduce me to components
as in a clock factory or abattoir.
Crush out the mystery.
Wall me up alive
in my own body.
They'd like to see through me,
but nothing is more opaque
than absolute transparency.
Look--my feet don't hit the marble!
Like breath or a balloon, I'm rising,
I hover six inches in the air
in my blazing swan-egg of light.
You think I'm not a goddess?
Try me.
This is a torch song.
Touch me and you'll burn. 

Margaret Atwood

Langston Hughes had an amazing life with two parents who basically didn’t want to raise him. His poetry opened up discussions about race and helped bring about the equal rights movement.

Genius Child

This is a song for the genius child.
Sing it softly, for the song is wild.
Sing it softly as ever you can -
Lest the song get out of hand.

Nobody loves a genius child.

Can you love an eagle,
Tame or wild?
Can you love an eagle,
Wild or tame?
Can you love a monster
Of frightening name?

Nobody loves a genius child.

Kill him - and let his soul run wild. 

Langston Hughes

STEPH: What inspired your poem?

MELISSA: My poetry is inspired by taking a unique look at the fairy tales and stories we heard growing up. I have poetry that focuses on the part Disney played in our life as well as how media’s emphasis on looks has warped our images.

A Twisted Fairy Tale

By Melissa Keir

Little Red Riding Hood?

Boy, they got that all wrong.

She was hot, you know, what a looker-

Not at all little, nicely rounded.

And she had hair to match that temper

like the sun, all fiery and golden.

After looking at her,

I never even noticed

a basket of goodies.

She walked in the woods everyday

with that wiggle and bounce in her step,

Trying to get my attention.

But I was too busy

with my work, and couldn’t

stop for her.

One day last week, maybe Tuesday?

She gave me that smile, you know the one.

And asked for my help picking

flowers for her sick Grandma.

Just the thought of her sick Grandma,

I had to help.

Then it happened-

As we were picking flowers,

She laid her cape on the grass-

She was all over me

like a treat to a starving man.

She was like an animal.

But when her boyfriend,

the Big Bad Hunter saw us,

She freaked- And blamed me.

She called me a Wolf

and said that I was after her basket of goodies.

So that’s the story, officer.

I’m innocent, not an animal

just misunderstood.

It’s girls like her who give

Fairy Tales a bad name.

FIND MELISSA AT:

http://www.melissakeir.com

http://www.melissakeir.com/blog.html

http://www.facebook.com/authormelissakeir

http://www.facebook.com/melissaakeir

http://www.twitter.com/melissa_keir 

Welcome Guest Poet: Linda Swift #poetry #npm

STEPH: Linda, it's great to have you here on the blog. How long have you been writing poetry?

LINDA: I first wrote poems when I was ten. Don't ask how long ago that was! And at that time I can recall reading one to the entire church membership at Sunday morning service celebrating Children's Day. I also read for a group of my mother's grownup relatives who had invited me to lunch to share my poems. I've written poems sporadically throughout my life and I'm currently putting together a collection of my poems spanning several forms and subjects which I am aptly calling "A Potpourri of Poems."

STEPH: Do you have a favorite poetry style?

LINDA: I like and write a variety of styles. Among my favorites are sonnets, ballads, and haiku, but overall I'd say lyric poetry--rhymed or unrhymed-- is my choice. I currently have two published poetry books at Amazon. One is prose poetry about flawed characters and puzzling events in the Bible titled Humanly Speaking: Conversations With God.  The other is a collection of haiku  arranged by four seasons titled Song of Every Season. Both books are beautifully illustrated and available in print ($11.99) and ebook ($1.49)

STEPH: Who is your favorite poet?

LINDA: Emily Dickinson because her poems contain so much in so few words. But Edna St. Vincent Millay is a close second. Then there's Sara Teasdale, Robert Frost, Henry W. Longfellow and so many more from the past. My favorites, as you can see, are poets who write simple, understandable poems about ordinary people and things but their words touch me.

STEPH: What is their favorite poem of yours and why?

LINDA: Oh, dear, how can I choose a favorite of Emily Dickinson when there are so many I love? Without titles, I will just mention first lines of a couple.  "Hope is the thing with feathers…" and  "Success is counted sweetest…"   And for Edna St. Vincent Millay it is her short poem that begins "My candle burns at both ends…" that is so memorable to me.

STEPH: What is your poem about?

LINDA: Moonflower is about love with an image of nature in the background. I have many more poems that include autumn, my favorite time of year (and season when I am most creative and have written the most poems). But we are romance writers and it is spring so I have chosen a poem which includes both.  The poem doesn't have a deep meaning; it is just a moment caught in time by a word picture that I hope will speak to your heart.

 Thanks for inviting me to participate in your celebration of Poetry Month. It's always a pleasure to share my poems with old friends and new.

MOONFLOWER

We stand together in the night
Shadowed by the gnarled old tree
Spreading its blooms of silver-white
To form a scented canopy.
A soft warm wind
Throws a blossom in my hair
And you stay my reaching hand
With a whispered, "Leave it there.
It's a moonflower for a moongirl,
Playing hide-and-seek with moonlight."
Silver silence fills our moonworld,
Two moonlovers in the night.

Bio:
Linda Swift and her husband divide their time between their native state Kentucky and Florida, stopping en route to visit their children in Nashville. She currently has thirteen books available in ebook and print, with seven short stories in ebook only. These include poetry, contemporary, historical, and speculative fiction. Linda invites you to visit her website for more information.
http://lindaswift.net/

Links to:

Song of Every Season
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=+Song+of+Every+Season+by+linda+swift&rh=n%3A283155%2Ck%3A+Song+of+Every+Season+by+linda+swift

Humanly Speaking: Conversations With God
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Humanly%20speaking%20by%20linda%20swift

Styles of Poetry - Sonnets and Kyrielles #poetrymonth

I thought I'd share some of poems and some different styles of poetry with you in celebration of National Poetry Month.

Poem #1 - The Storm
This is meant to be a tradititional "Shakespearen" Sonnet. I wrote it in 1986 and it was published in my high school literary magazine, "The Oracle." There are a lot of thunder/lightning storms in New England and I often enjoyed just watching them from my window.




The Storm
by: S. Burkhart 

All around me the wind is blowing
As raindrops hit the ground, they prance.
Down in front of me, the river is rapidly flowing
Everywhere I turn, bushes and trees dance.

As I stand here the storm calls to me
And I, compelled, can not turn away.
Nature says let her be
But I know her tempest will end by day.

The darkness surrounds me, the biting wind
The wet, the damp… is all around
And I wonder, have I sinned?
As lighting and the trees fall to the ground.

The Storm surrounds me, causes me to turn,
The Storm engulfs me, causes my passions to burn.

Poem #2 - The Spell of the Sea was Forever

A Kyrielle is a French form of rhyming poetry. It is written in quatrains (a quatrain is a stanza with 4 lines).

 Each quatrain contains a repeating line or phrase known as a "refrain."
 Each line is 8 syllables.
 There are no limits to the quatrains, but the minimum is 3.
 Rhyme pattern is up to the poet.

The Spell of the Sea was Forever
By: S. Burkhart

Sad, I stood on the shore today.
The swift waves lapped on the bay.
I clutched my heart wanting better.
The spell of the sea was forever.

On the horizon was a boat.
In a bottle floated a note.
I closed my eyes wanting better.
The spell of the sea was forever.

His kisses were a fickle thing.
Sea salt, coral and brine, dolphins sing.
Magic, earth and air spin wetter.
The spell of the sea was forever.

He left me empty, hallow, raw,
My heart heals under nature’s law.
Bewitching beauty bittersweet.
The spell of the sea was forever.

Question: Which do you prefer sonnets or kyrielles? 

April is National Poetry Month! Let's have fun #poetrymonth

Welcome to National Poetry Month! Throughout the month, I'll be sharing some of my favorite poems along with my favorite poets and poems from several authors including Linda Swift, Melissa Keir, and Joan Leotta, so sit back, get comfortable, and enjoy the poetic word play!

Robert Frost

Robert Frost is one of my favorite poets. He's mainly known for setting his writings in rural New England (and that's why he appeals to me), but he was born in San Francisco, California on 26 March 1874. When Robert was 11, his father died of tuberculosis and his family moved to Massachusetts.

He attended college on and off, never earning a degree. In 1894, he sold his first poem, "My Butterfly, An Elegy" for $15.00.

 

Frost as a young man

He married Elinor Miriam White in 1895. Tragedy stalked Frost and his family. His younger sister, Jeannie, was committed to a mental hospital in 1920. In 1947, his daughter, Irma, was also committed to a mental hospital. Frost often suffered from depression. He had six kids, but only 2 outlived him. In 1940, one of his sons (Carol) committed suicide. His wife developed breast cancer and died in 1938.

Yet in the face of all this heartbreak, Frost developed his poetic style and became an accomplished poet, winning his first Pulitzer Prize in 1924. He went on to win four Pulitzers during his lifetime.

Robert Frost spoke to his readers using an honest voice as he depicted the actions of ordinary men. He could write about a wide range of human experiences, capturing a conversational style that appealed to many. My favorite is "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening."

I love how his words paint a very visual scene and growing up in New England, I can close my eyes and use my other senses to depict the poem. I especially liked his use of repletion to drive home his themes.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

By: Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.   

His house is in the village though;   

He will not see me stopping here   

To watch his woods fill up with snow.   

My little horse must think it queer   

To stop without a farmhouse near   

Between the woods and frozen lake   

The darkest evening of the year.   

He gives his harness bells a shake   

To ask if there is some mistake.   

The only other sound’s the sweep   

Of easy wind and downy flake.   

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   

But I have promises to keep,   

And miles to go before I sleep,   

And miles to go before I sleep.

Question for you: Who is your favorite poet?  Why?

Author Bio: Stephanie Burkhart is a 911 dispatcher for LAPD. She's published with Desert Breeze, 4RV, and Victory Tales Press. She loves coffee, adores chocolate, and writing poetry.

National Poetry Month - meet poet Barbara Edwards

Barbara Edwards

I’m Barbara Edwards and I’m so happy to celebrate National Poetry Month with you.  In fifth grade, Mrs. Robinson assigned a poem a week to memorize and I began my love-affair with the beauty of the written word. If you gave me time, I could still recite many of those poems and tell you what they mean to me. It was a wonderful gift from a wonderful teacher. 

STEPH: How long have you been writing poetry?

BARBARA: Since I was a young girl, so it’s been a life-long love.

My poems are about me, my feelings, my emotions, so I never tried to have any of them published.

STEPH:What type of poetry do you like to write? free form? villianelles? Quatrains, Sonnets, hiakus, etc...

BARBARA: Oh my, what a selection of types. Since I wrote for my pleasure, I never settled on a specific format. I did what sounded best to me. Probably free form fist my best.

STEPH: Who is your favorite poet?

BARBARA: I love Robert Frost, another New England native.

STEPH: What is your favorite poem and why?

BARBARA: Frost’s “The Road Less Traveled” is one of my favorites.

 

STEPH: Can you share a poem of yours or two with us? 

**copyright notice** 

The poems on the blog are copyrighted to the author. Do not use without permission from the author

****

BARBARA So many poems, so little space. How about these? 

    

        Winnie

The damned cat died.

Old age, I suppose,

That mangy hair-ball.

Remember her silly kitten act?

Chasing dust balls from under the bed

To scatter tatters across the rug

And sneeze pieces clinging to her whiskers.

How many times did she drop an offering

At my feet or on the back step?

Mighty hunter of baby birds and mice

And once a two foot long snake.

Grooming in a ray of sunlight,

She’d stare contemptuously at my entrance

When I opened the door

Her tongue a tiny pink raspberry.

A purring lump against the small of my back

On cold,  lonely nights.

Her raspy tongue would lick my chin

And tickle before I pushed her away.

So the damned cat died.

And I’m putting her ragged toys,

Bowl and collar into a brown bag.

To dispose of. Maybe.

I’ll miss the damned cat.

Much more than I ever miss you.

So tomorrow I’ll get another kitten,

Although I can’t think why.

Tonight there is an empty doorstep,

And a cold hollow at the small of my back.

And I’ll cry again, for both of you.

But mostly because the damned cat died. 

Or for a change

   TRAVELER

Come

Join me on my journey

Share a way with me

A mile, a league, a pace or two

Time matters not, I am with you.

At a twist in the path

Where a fork split the way

Hushed by the silence

My soul heard yours say

Don’t hurt me, Don’t love me,

Don’t leave me alone...

The words didn’t match

Your expression of stone.

With laughter, caresses, I gave gentle care

Fearful myself, I gave what I dare.

Confused by my feelings,

Lacking a map, sign or guide,

I need to move onward,

Come, walk at my side.

Thanks for hosting me Stephanie. I enjoyed it. Barbara

Please visit me at www.barbaraedwards.net for excerpts from my books,

Buy links and free reads.

If you like my poems, I’ll post a few more on my site.

It's National Poetry Month - welcome poet David Russell

David Russell

STEPH: How long have you been writing poetry? 

DAVID: Since the late 60s

STEPH: What style of poetry do you like to write? 

DAVID: Free form

3. What are the themes of your poetry? 

DAVID: sensuality, politics, geology

STEPH: Who is your favorite poet? 

STEPH: Ben Okri

STEPH: What is your favorite poem.

DAVID: Coleridge's Christabel

STEPH: Share you share a poem or two of yours with us.

Seduction

He, muscles taut, off springboard thrust

Resilient in buoyancy,

Slow sweep to surface, breathe.

She, lithe, with back-stroke rippling, Firm breasts cresting mild waves,
Thighs, ankles, near-straight, undulating,
Her back held spirit level,
Plane ideal Eyes closed and face serene in sensual thrall.

All there was foretaste, nuance,
All chaste - the changing rooms demure.

--------------------------
Warm evening's loose allure drew both
To unintended rendezvous,
A mutual friend's, both wished to stay away.

The place had room enough; their glances met -
Under two spells, all garments turned diaphanous;
Morning's disrobing kindled thoughts,
Fed impulses, hands touched.

One soft-shut door the cue;
Now lips met eyelids, cheeks, each other, clinched.

Her hand pressed on his crown, massaged
Through long-held breath; Tongues, lips were coiled, half-melted;
Squeeze of waist, they sank To tender press of thigh, of hips,
Drew back face to face, eyes' pools immersed:

"You're fleshed just right; a young girl's form;
Would you undress?"

"I saw you in your trunks; you're lovely; stay with me."

------------------------

Brief promenade, waists linked again,
Fast heartbeats deepened footsteps with suspense;

A whispered, tiptoed entry.

Pause for bathroom, care assuaged;
Last clothed embrace.

Heady the quivering ritual!
Each other answering,
Matching that morning's
graceful bathing strokes
Each touch of shedding nurturing the fires,
Each pull of buckle, lace, so lissom
In counterpoint iwith one soft lamp.

Aglow, with ardent youth restored,
Deep torso, shapely limbs
Emerge as sunrise, sunbathed, fresh;
Full muscles toned by swomming's lathe,
Crescendo's throbbing, Two beauties, one revealing,
Beholder and Beheld!

She, supple, haunches swung, Tights loosened, Down wardrobe obstacles!

He seized waistband elastic, swept
To open freedom, took the hand
That edged towards her bosom, up her arms
To ratify surrender, clip; asunder,
The final black cascade.

Flesh, bone and muscle interlocked
Shoulder to shoulder raised, clutched,
Borne to couch;
Breasts, armpits, cupped caress
Of tender skin over those thrusting orbs.

Now passion's tide makes each wave overlap;
Slow motion's generation;
Two sighs, one lunge, a soft rotation;
Slowing, near-stop; resume, deepening breath
Floating four full diminuendos.

A moment of near sleep; Sure premonition of fulfilment;

Now second wind's tornado
Sweeps through exhaustion's trough
With power of ether's depth beyond their bodies;
The sluicegates yield; one mighty flood In fusion melts volcanoes!

Brief satiation's lull, unveiling heavens;
With dawn's beams, morning replay,
Enhanced in fulness;
Two strengths, by first flames tempered,
With delicacy pure plumbed ocean's beds.
------------------------

On dressing gowns, warm-robed, unrobed again
To plunge into the other end
Of water's hot communion, splashing laughter.

A placid walk through petalled glades,
More smiles, more kisses;
Then wistful looks, and hints of jealousies,
And thoughts, as if to say
"Let's not detract from this perfection".

At length, fond waves and distances

David Russell

**************

The First Adventure

That shadowy entrance, subdued glint, spark of eyes!

You trod all cultures with your classic grace

Of posture, figure, profile

The breathy touch, so tentative,

The answering squeeze

All beams and tiptoes as we trod

Unspoken message:

“The dream’s come true”

The curtain nearly volunteered

To close itself.

I was poised to give the word;

Fired by our kisses, you took it from my mouth

Each garment spoke surrender as it fell

A flower-show of fabrics

Adoring those limbs which they had covered;

Warm air on new divested skin

Near liquid in its heady density

Our bodies new-revealed, dreamed up

A gallery of art-figures,

Our mounting breath

Kindled their animation in our honour

Those facing entities suffused with mutual nourishment

The rising sun the backcloth of our dual climax

The bathing epilogue

The farewell walk

A froth of blossom round our tender steps

That fleeting perfection was the purest art

Framed in an idyllic memory.

David Russell

Welcome Guest Author - Poet Barri Bryan

Barri Bryan 

      STEPH:    How long have you been writing poetry?

BARRI: I began putting rhymes together when I was in the second grade. I have always loved poetry. When I was not yet three-years-old, my little brother had a baby powder can with nursery rhymes on it. My mother read them to me over and over again. I never tired of hearing them. 

STEPH: Are there any distinct themes to your poetry?

BARRI: Most of the time yes, occasionally, no. The theme of Chapter and Verse is love. Brush Country was inspired by the sights and scenes of the Brush Country of South Central Texas. Four Part Harmony has four separate and distinct themes within one book. What Will Suffice is an eclectic collection of many themes.

STEPH:     What forms/types of poetry do you prefer to write?

My style of writing does not lends itself to free verse. I write mostly in couplets or quatrains.  I write poetry as some individuals play the piano, by ear. The contents of the poem dictates the form, or forms. I often mix forms in a poem.  Occasionally I attempt an English sonnet. I love haikus, but I seldom attempt writing one. On the surface they seem simple, but they are extremely difficult. I have never attempted the villianelle form, but I love its strength and intensity. I think Sylvia Plath uses this form superbly. So does Elizabeth Bishop.

STEPH:    Who is your favorite poet?

BARRI: That's like asking who my favorite child is. I love Christina Rossetti's poetry. I delight in reading John Donne. I like Wallace Stevens and Algernon Charles Swinburne. I enjoy Emily Dickenson, Coventry Patmore, and Ted Hughes…

STEPH: What is your favorite poem?

BARRI: That, once more, is a difficult question to answer. If I absolutely had to select one poem, I would choose John Wilmot's Love and Life. He captures in three short verses the inability to change the past, the brevity of the moment, and the uncertainty of all tomorrows.

STEPH: Barri, can you share one of your poems with us?

BARRI: This poem is from my latest poetry book titled Four Part Harmony. It's from section two titled, Highway 35 South.

SCENERY AND SEASONS

Between McHarvey’s Auction Barn

And the cut-off to New Algiers

Lies a stretch of fallow farmland

That hasn’t been planted in years.

 In summer a blazing, blistering sun

Turns its crop of weeds to brown.

Once a strike of August lightening

Set a fire that burned to the edge of town.

In autumn it’s a tangled maze

Of undergrowth and stubble.

As now-and-then a brave green sprout

Rises from the decaying rubble.

In winter frost cuts to the ground

Every green and growing thing,

Leaving death and desolation,

Until one day in early spring

New life nudges through the sod

And changes the dismal scene

From gray and bleak and dreary

To a hopeful new-born green.

Oh the wonder, oh, the magic

As slowly from death and confusion

Wild flowers bloom and blossom

In grand and glorious profusion.

Oh beauty, for all your brevity

I see in your short-lived perfection

How brief is life, how sure is death

How splendid the hope of resurrection.

This poem is from Brush Country.

TEXAS TOWN

In the east a blazing ball of fire

Climbs ever steadily higher and higher.

Overhead, a jet plane soaring high

Cuts a vapor incision across the sky.

Up and down the awakening street

Dance limpid waves of shimmering heat.

Stench of garbage, smell of gas    

Mix with the scent of fresh-cut grass. 

The humid air is sweltering.

Catholic Church bells begin to ring

Above the din of an auto horn;

Small Town Texas Sunday morn.

Love and Life

By John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester

All my past life is mine no more,

The flying hours are gone,

Like transitory dreams giv'n o'er,

Whose images are kept in store

By memory alone.

The time that is to come is not;

How can it then be mine?

The present moment's all my lot;

And that, as fast as it is got,

Phyllis, is only thine.

Then talk not of inconstancy,

False hearts, and broken vows;

If I, by miracle, can be

This live-long minute true to thee,

'Tis all that Heav'n allows.

FIND BARRI AT: 

You can find a link to buy Four Part Harmony at my website

http://barribryan.com/

 or go to  http://www.whiskeycreekpress.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=61&products_id=971

You can find a link to buy Brush Country at my website

http://barribryan.com/

Or go to

http://www.whiskeycreekpress.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=61&products_id=130

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/?ref=tn_tnmn

Twitter

https://twitter.com/texpoet

Blog

http://barribryan.com/blog/