A Date with Cinders (An Elizabethan Style Sonnet)

Get in my car with me, I’ll take you out.

We’ll have a super time till midnight’s chime,

when you should go, you mustn’t hang about.

When you’re half naked there lies six months grime.

We’ll leave the dance and get you back home quick;

I wouldn’t want step-mum to catch us here.

You know the sight of me will make her sick

Now that the prince’s wedding’s gettin’ near.

Oh Cinders, curse that stupid little fairy

who waved her wand to get you to the ball.

She got you hitched up with that lisping Mary;

A prince or not, he’s got no brains at all.

I’m sorry love to make you feel so bad,

My first love lost, I’ll always be this sad.

© Justyn W H Rowe 1999

Hope's Passing

Here where the scent of heather blows fine cascades of kisses to meet the fresh dew, I search for you though you cannot be found.

My heart is standing basalt, aching with the thaw of winter’s end.  The pale wanning of solstice echoes in a spasm within this numb frame.

You are gone my love, where no pike or javelin may graze such fairness of head or keenness of limb.  The poem of your breath is fading, spent in its power to call the vessel of my weary mind to harbour.

A kiss for you.  Another.  Brush of lip caresses an eyelid, invoking a smile but alas, the wind is my only lover.

Arms that held sinew and flesh now hang free in weave once distilled of its mire by your hands.  Oh, for the divine slavery of our union to once more bless these rags with your toil.

This day I stood, awash with the noise and spray of the whale roads before me, to search the edge of the word for a sign of your sail.  It was not revealed.

The stone is bare and smooth, there where the ancient pull of earth and these feeble soles have joined in devotion so often.

©Justyn Rowe.  June 13,1999

Hope's Journey

Great wealth for dowry 

beyond the brine sea

My kin will sing

honours for my love

Bright our ship sail

wind song for wine

New land for planting

sacred grove and hall.

Our battles all fought

with fury unbridled

In unearthly waves high,

we yearn for home

Here lies our boat

beyond the brine sea

Oaken belly broke,

burned to blood by sky.

Eyes hoping outward,

throats bare with salt tears

Our rage is spent, lost

in oceans of sorrow.

Brother and sword kin

brine fit for reward

O for timber and branch

for rafting together,

Would see us homeward

to fair Erinn’s fields

I dream of your hair,

soft fern and waterfall

Rushes and ripe fruit

from deep thorn thicket 

You’re not the sun

though land darkens without you

No moon gave you birth,

yet you warm the night

You’re not of the stars,

still you steer this heart

Great wealth for dowery 

my heart bid me bring you

You are my path light

from ocean to home.

©Justyn Rowe.  June 11,1999

Climbing

Gripping violent slipping,

Bleak skin tweaked with fear;

Toes in flows of air grow colder,

Pleading head turned, 

Need to be freed from choice, 

Hanging suspended, play amended, spent

Rescuing mum, excited hum thrum won.

Sammy slips down through the climbing frame

At Eastern Beach.