Kikodinho Edward Alexandros

Nov 2018

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Time

Unfathomable Sea! whose waves are years,
Ocean of Time, whose waters of deep woe
Are brackish with the salt of human tears!
Thou shoreless flood, which in thy ebb and flow
Claspest the limits of mortality,
And sick of prey, yet howling on for more,
Vomitest thy wrecks on its inhospitable shore;
Treacherous in calm, and terrible in storm,
Who shall put forth on thee,
Unfathomable Sea?

Nov 2018

John Keats

His Last Sonnet

Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art! -
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night,
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like Nature's patient sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors -
No -yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,
Pillowed upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever -or else swoon to death.

Kikodinho Edward Alexandros Nov 2018

ODE TO MY LOVE (III)

Thou, long lost lover,
Oh sweet lover long lost
As a worm neath wilted stover
Or leaves neath the frost,

Upon what distant shore
Dost thou now dwell?
By what shadowy moor,
By chasms of what dale?

Thou, long lost lover,
Oh sweet lover long lost
As a worm neath wilted stover
Or leaves neath the frost,

By what pleasant stream,
Oh sweet lover I implore?
Lustrous than my love's cream,
Oh sweet lover I implore?

Thou, long lost lover,
Oh sweet lover long lost
As a worm neath wilted stover
Or leaves neath the frost,

By what pleasant glade
Dost thou now rest?
By what slumber shade
Dost thou now nest?

Thou, long lost lover,
Oh sweet lover long lost
As a worm neath wilted stover
Or leaves neath the frost,

By what serene bower,
Oh queen of celestial orbs?
By what strange tower,
Oh queen of celestial orbs?

Thou, long lost lover,
Oh sweet lover long lost
As a worm neath wilted stover
Or leaves neath the frost

By what novelty fountain,
Oh sweet lover I implore?
By caverns of what mountain,
Oh sweet lover I implore?

Thou, long lost lover,
Oh sweet lover long lost
As leaves neath wilted stover
Or leaves neath the frost

Unto my dreams whisper
Wherever thou might be,
By sun, by moon or by star,
Like waves unto shores I'll gravitate.

Thou, long lost lover,
Oh sweet lover long lost
As a worm neath wilted stover
Or leaves neath the frost.

Kikodihno Edward Alexandros,
Los Angels, California, USA.
11/27th/2018

Unto she who will never read it.

NOTE:

STOVER is the leaves and stalks of field crops, such as corn (maize), sorghum or soybean that are commonly left in a field after harvesting the grain. It is similar to straw, the residue left after any cereal grain or grass has been harvested at maturity for its seed.

Nov 2018

Paul Hansford

To a cyber-ladyfriend

Knowing you, as I do, in cyber-space,
not in the world that we consider "real,"
I have no way of knowing how I'd feel,
if I should chance to meet you face-to-face.

Looking at you, I wonder would I be
embarrassed, mute, uncertain what to say,
and end up wondering why I'd come this way,
not really sure if this was right for me?

Or would we hit it off right from the start?
Two minds that share their innermost ideas
of poetry and life, their hopes and fears,
like two souls with one single beating heart?

(In case you think by cyber-love I'm smitten,
I'll make it clear - it's fantasy I've written.)

#sonn99

Nov 2018

Paul Hansford

End of Autumn

(a minute poem)

October turned the leaves to gold
but now the cold
November wind
rustles their thinned
and tattered remnants on the trees.
No kindly breeze,
this bitter blast
will tear the last
few faded leaves from oak tree's crown
and cast them down
onto the earth
for spring's rebirth.

Not a minute (very small) poem, it has sixty syllables, like the seconds in a minute, arranged 8-4-4-4-8-4-4-4-8-4-4-4, in rhyming couplets.

Nov 2018

Paul Hansford

Golden Wedding -- sonnet *

When we first stood, those fifty years ago,
outside the church together, man and wife,
we had no way of knowing if our life
was bound for sun and smiles or tears and snow.
In the event, we had our share of each.
When children came, as we continued longer,
the highs and lows made our love all the stronger,
and happiness was never out of reach.
Together, then, we've weathered many a storm,
and having lasted now for half a century
I think we're justified to call it victory
to know our love continues just as warm.
(Although age may reduce youth's fiery passion,
a long, slow smoulder's never out of fashion.)