Odin

THIS SIDE

~~by Sigurd Peterson

All rights reserved

This side paradise

dousing I went times long ago

bright douse and witchwood aldering,

loosing adders long of fang and bitter

venomous, unrepentant seeking gleaming

nonpareils and gleaning parities

arrayed of seeming majesty, in quest

of perilous and peerless dowsabelle;

dawed misbehavior of an evening,

niggled all the cluttered mischief

of a dazzled starry night, dispelled

as ever of the morning’s light, proved

as proved it must an arid waste of snow

I came to know, smooth grey stones

and pebbles by dawn played out

at odds inample to hazards borne

lissome as they were sundry likely

villainies that storied drift me

Dulcinea, mine dulce Isabel, douce

Isabeau, digne dowsabelle;

so sent for Pontus, this side paradise,

now go cold in the quietness minivered

less of royalty than penury and clad

of stylite’s hair shirt, glad thereof,

not even dusty footed for companionship:

alone undoused, undowsing and undowsabelled,

alone to earn my scallop-shell

upon a different seashore

this side hell.

XXXXXX

The spell check is going crazy!

Wish I could center it, but alas, I cannot.

A Memorial of Herons

By Sigurd Peterson

All rights reserved

We were herons once,

and lanner both and lanneret,

wheeling whipped and spun, tearing

in silent easy flight

across the promise of incredible night

aslip the streaming air above.

One quiet night’s afterflight

when starlight dapped abright an ocean

only partly real,

we ploved and soared and gulled and scrayed

the silentness of sky, falconed lanterns

of all their mourning

only to find atip the tide atoe.

We were herons then, bright and brittle all,

crisp and warm and moist of plumage,

and white withal the night’s long harm and wait.

And wait we did, a brief long while,

until the flickering vanity of feast was guttered

and the candle whiteness of our webs whole waled

where lingering hurts had spent their mark:

what were we then but snipes and pipers

left to gledes and kites, left all alone

adew, amourning, unworthy,

unmeriting of cynosure?

VESPERS IN MILAN

~~by Sigurd Peterson

Published, all rights reserved

I lack the means and strength to seek new stars

though dear would have possessed

those which found proved fragile

as harmless snow flecked mouse at caught

cats’ paw play: I am alone, rare and a brother

to dragons, honored but as a companion to owls,

abstract and unable to demonstrate my theorem.

Of no great moment, as scholars find much fault

therein, though they be fools no less than I,

they too seek mysteries in bagatelles and bags of shells.

Had I time to go to Milan, had I all

the wherewithal to seek shopkeepers,

millers, weavers, lovers, reivers,

could I recoup a courtier’s rage of pavanry

by candlelight or stars, then could I well recall,

recall too well what the haunting music hesitates

to state overdistinctly,

overprecisely,

overclearly.

In Milan, in the game of angels,

kits and ladies’ slippers vie

as trumps through mercies count for little

seldom more than pebbles, and rarely

half as welcome, sparkling jewels for less;

and yet lackluster pearls and flame-stained opals

outscore hearts. All this perhaps is

as it should be, at least at vespers.

I too, I too

falchioned as needs rose and rued

rosemaries, all long autumns past

and in the duchies less imperial,

less empirical, and so all the more,

than Milan whose clouded pleasantries are sham

duplicities and false as halls of mirrors

looking forward, looking backward,

looking glasses simply.

In Milan, so it seems,

souls are mint and vespers,

nothing more, no more at all:

there is no end to such a journey.

VESPERS IN MILAN

~~by Sigurd Peterson

Published, all rights reserved

I lack the means and strength to seek new stars

though dear would have possessed

those which found proved fragile

as harmless snow flecked mouse at caught

cats’ paw play: I am alone, rare and a brother

to dragons, honored but as a companion to owls,

abstract and unable to demonstrate my theorem.

Of no great moment, as scholars find much fault

therein, though they be fools no less than I,

they too seek mysteries in bagatelles and bags of shells.

Had I time to go to Milan, had I all

the wherewithal to seek shopkeepers,

millers, weavers, lovers, reivers,

could I recoup a courtier’s rage of pavanry

by candlelight or stars, then could I well recall,

recall too well what the haunting music hesitates

to state overdistinctly,

overprecisely,

overclearly.

In Milan, in the game of angels,

kits and ladies’ slippers vie

as trumps through mercies count for little

seldom more than pebbles, and rarely

half as welcome, sparkling jewels for less;

and yet lackluster pearls and flame-stained opals

outscore hearts. All this perhaps is

as it should be, at least at vespers.

I too, I too

falchioned as needs rose and rued

rosemaries, all long autumns past

and in the duchies less imperial,

less empirical, and so all the more,

than Milan whose clouded pleasantries are sham

duplicities and false as halls of mirrors

looking forward, looking backward,

looking glasses simply.

In Milan, so it seems,

souls are mint and vespers,

nothing more, no more at all:

there is no end to such a journey.