ydegirl 1757 Share Posted April 1, 2023 CHAPBOOK: FIVE POEMS BY A.P. VAROCHE Published 1918 ODE TO THE LANDS An oppressive stone colored sky, Praying over the decrepit, burned Church. A sea of pale yellow Sways in the evening breeze, So it was; my life began, So it is; I’m forever a woman, When my time comes, and my body Is frail, pale, muttering my last prayer Let me go. FROSTED SISTER/NAKED TREE A naked oak tree curves left in winter, My sister prays underneath the tree, Hair the color of winter, she wore the dress Like time swinging around her. Her body unweighted, all her Armor falling off her white skin, She’s a dove in the summer. I crept towards her, hair dark, and tall Like a cypress, to join her in prayer Under the naked tree. EPITAPH The grass bites at her feet, A cruel, rainy cloud covering the sky, She’s clad in a black gown - the dowagers song. Fallen from grace, her under eyes are painted With dulled beige streaks. The desolate mind Of this woman shrieks immortally, tired oak-brown hair flies in the wind. She turns her back to the make-shift grave of my father, Wobbling back into the city. for Anna of Alstion MARCH OF THE MAN Under unusually calm winter skies The men marched, boots crunching in placid snow. They sang a chivalrous war song, Honored and free. Careless corpses, coarse lips. They marched in hollow friendship, Undying and never alive, praying For the Seven Skies to heal the world. Swords plunged into the chests of their Enemies, gutting their hearts and lungs Supped the blood of the Anathema. Holy and knighted, bound by the grace of God. THE MOON, SUN, AND SKY Behold, the cosmos! Splattered with gleaming paint Against a tranquil blue night. A lone, slightly crooked tree on The beach holds the Crescent moon in all her glory, Portraying her as an Augustan-era starlet. A still, unmoving sea sings in the night - Praising the mother moon. And then I give to you, the sun! Furious and beaming yellow, Beating us with senseless violence, Yet he gives life to your kind! So benevolent to beat us down And provide us with life! He is round and fat and angry, Juxtaposed to his wife - the moon, Who’s a shapeshifter in emotions. And finally, I give to you the sky. A mix of it’s mother and father, the placid moon and the raging sun. It houses the stony gray clouds in Its domain. Nourishing our crops, And our love - but the sky is not just kind. Anger it, and you Face the wrath of a million screams! Face the wrath of sharp arrows of Rain piercing your skin! We hold onto feelings, that we Aren’t used to feeling - only to make Us alive. WRITTEN BY A. P. Varoche PUBLISHED 6 of Tobias' Bounty by Herbertine Publishing House 13 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
gohliad 824 Share Posted April 12, 2023 Several years later, a copy of this chapbook is settled down within a still and solitary room. Wistful grey eyes follow every word, every line, to one excerpt in particular; "Epitaph" Anna swallows the word down, a hefty lump settling within her throat. Those same stoic eyes, now, go to her two children fussing about within the courtyard. She sighs out, for they bore his eyes. They bore his hair. They bore his tongue. And, for as long as her aching heart remained devoid of Sigismond Pertinax, she could only hope they bore his same love. 6 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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