This posting consists entirely of new poems. All are of recent creation, the oldest being “The Guild Meets Its Match” which was written in December 2021. The New Year started auspiciously. Scruples #19 was completed in January. Months later, after multiple revisions ” A Repertoire of Baroque Opera” was ready for posting.
The Guild Meets Its Match
In closed ranks they sit
or stand around the table,
united not by blood, but as kindred members.
On display’s a lump of clay
which’ll stay that way, unless
the Meister decides otherwise.
Evening lamps brighten the hall,
darkness shrinks into shadows,
on his watch time goes slower…
What one of a kind vessel, rendered
from start to finish with perfection,
might he have in mind?
Tonight the artisans expect more
than their dues’ worth.
On the agenda’s an attempt
to hand make a man, body and soul,
out of the likes of clay.
19.
The peasants arrive early,
armed with hoes, spades, shovels.
Day after day their livelihood
is tending to a field of millet.
If all grows well, by summer
it’ll be blooming;
come autumn ripe for reaping a harvest
that yields no chafe,
just grade A golden grain
after months of labor.
A Repertoire of Baroque Opera
The prince looks lost—which is how he feels
in a forest growing dim, where come moonshine
or starlight, spirits unseen but overheard resound.
As his lot appears more and more hopeless
he renders an aria that, moving beyond words,
rises to the occasion…
Purcell’s artistry should settle the score:
night mimicked by violins paired with cellos,
woodwinds playing from glade to glade
tweeting high and low, an oboe hoots.
Then hark the archangels—harps on hand
poised to pluck out an enchanted passage…
The last act’s staged within a clearing.
Light casts a halo around the Prince.
Hosted by trumpets, he finds his voice
in a clarion call that says and sings
about the tenor of fate — heaven help
any mortal, even a noble, who ventures
too far, too late, while hunting a unicorn.
As always these new poems are both lyrical and accessible. A Repertoire of Baroque Opera puts me right in that starlit glade with the prince. My favorite line: heaven help any mortal, even a noble, who ventures too far, too late, while hunting a unicorn. I’ll be quoting that one 🙂