January 2023
Bio Note: I studied writing at the University of Minnesota. I am married to a teacher of writing and literature and I subsist by teaching writing and literature. I look toward the day when writing and photography are my principal occupations. My (not so) recent publications are limited to Verse-Virtual and Vita Brevis.
What holds together so slenderly knit...
What holds together so slenderly knit
that takes the dithering fly and clings
to it until it remains only to cease life.
The web we walk through everyday,
if we watch our ways and do not brush
the clinging filaments of habited dross.
Ours is the wings abuzz, ours the course
that circles, gyres, and dives. So close
we challenge while spidering forces wait.
Should our aim be that less considered,
should we nobble the web that spans,
we shall stick, shall cling, shall utterly
be food for bad thought.
A Jester Doffs His Cap and Bells
“Jesters do oft prove prophets.” ― William Shakespeare, King Lear
Should I a jest upon our nature make
and slight the finer aspects of our love
a cad more I should be. A goof for sake
of laughter’s compensation. O, above
all else I’d be a fool who lives for wit,
cavorts across the stage’d heart — who sees
an open door for quip — be swept in it;
but laughing hard I’d lose your love. No pleas
my honor would restore, nor passions fire.
Away I would see my dearest depart
to never return, all love would expire.
And fool I’d be, a jester sans a heart.
Then thus I here now take a pledge, for true.
No jest will come between my lips — and you.
©2023 Charles Lyman
Editor's Note: If this poem(s) moves you please consider writing to the author (email address above) to say what it is about the poem you like. Writing to the author is what builds the community at Verse Virtual. It is very important. -JL