VILLANNELLE


                I do not have the heart to this love lend,
                For what would be a moment: not, to fade,
                For even you, my distant green-eyed friend.

                I am too set upon my ways to bend,
                Even to save my soul. I am afraid
                I do not have the heart to this love lend.

                There is something wrong, that I must defend
                The reasons I am so, my dreams unplayed,
                For even you, my distant green-eyed friend.

                When we first met, then I did not intend
                To sink so deep into your eyes of jade:
                I do not have the heart to this love lend.

                I do not now desire to this love rend
                To shreds of dream, but will not soul abrade
                For even you, my distant green-eyed friend.

                The time is past that you might comprehend,
                But I must still try, as then, to persuade:
                I do not have the heart to this love lend
                For even you, my distant green-eyed friend.



BALLADE                                1 Feb 77

                This iced, bitter night finds me
                Alone, with but my books to sate
                Desire. Yet now, amid debris
                Of shattered dreams, no words sedate
                These saddened thoughts, to educate
                My mind to this, this silken blow.
                What brought me to this present state?
                My love, why do you haunt me so?
                I look out at the world, and see
                Only the clouds; no stars await
                My vision: No moon, to agree,
                Or to with inner thoughts debate,
                Is in my heaven. Is this fate,
                To only lonely sorrow show?
                Are visions what I must create?
                My love, why do you haunt me so?
                You are now far too far to be
                Even a shadow of that state
                That lured me to you. Yet my plea
                Is but attempt to supplicate
                That shadow in my mind. How great
                The power your eyes hold: The glow.
                In memory controls my fate.
                My love, why do you haunt me so?
                I do not know long I'll wait
                Before I'll understand and know,
                The cause of my sorrow, of late.
                My love, why do you haunt me so?



RONDEAU

                The moon is full tonight, but I can
                Can feel no warmth. Some poets ply
                These images, but I am far
                Too tied in my own thoughts to mar
                My misery with dreams. To cry
                Out for lost love, or even sigh,
                Is much expected, but eyes dry
                Are safer when, to my soul char,
                        The moon is full.

                This evening my thoughts are awry,
                As are my dreams - I now rely
                On what reality would bar
                From even vision. Will this scar
                Last forever? Yet, to my eye
                        The moon is full.




                                                2 Feb 77



ODE III
        

                Do not think that you've lost my love,
                Since I've not seen you for a year:
                I love you still, though the time past
                Has claimed its toll of me, and of
                My dreams. But I must make it clear,
                My love, that, though this love will last,
                 I do not think that I could see your eyes
                 And not, from the past year, know my heart cries.

                I dream about you, love, too much
                To think about you clearly, or
                To realize just how dead these dreams
                Became in daylight's glare. Could such
                Mists last the night? Would such a store
                Of memory survive Life's schemes?
                 E'en dreams are not enough to quench the fire
                 Of my desire, or even words inspire.

                Let me dream on, though: Dreams remain
                Long after Hope has turned to ash.
                Rather the corpse of that past joy
                Than nothing. I should best disdain
                The thought of seeing you, to gash
                My wound so, but with such I toy.
                 If I should see you, though and touch your lips,
                 How long before that moment, too, would slip?


                                                13 March 77