Three sang of love together: one with lips
  Crimson, with cheeks and ***** in a glow,
Flushed to the yellow hair and finger-tips;
  And one there sang who soft and smooth as snow
  Bloomed like a tinted hyacinth at a show;
And one was blue with famine after love,
  Who like a harpstring snapped rang harsh and low
The burden of what those were singing of.
One shamed herself in love; one temperately
  Grew gross in soulless love, a sluggish wife;
One famished died for love. Thus two of three
  Took death for love and won him after strife;
One droned in sweetness like a fattened bee:
  All on the threshold, yet all short of life.

Departing summer hath assumed
An aspect tenderly illumed,
The gentlest look of spring;
That calls from yonder leafy shade
Unfaded, yet prepared to fade,
A timely carolling.

No faint and hesitating trill,
Such tribute as to winter chill
The lonely redbreast pays!
Clear, loud, and lively is the din,
From social warblers gathering in
Their harvest of sweet lays.

Nor doth the example fail to cheer
Me, conscious that my leaf is sere,
And yellow on the bough:—
Fall, rosy garlands, from my head!
Ye myrtle wreaths, your fragrance shed
Around a younger brow!

Yet will I temperately rejoice;
Wide is the range, and free the choice
Of undiscordant themes;
Which, haply, kindred souls may prize
Not less than vernal ecstasies,
And passion’s feverish dreams.

For deathless powers to verse belong,
And they like Demi-gods are strong
On whom the Muses smile;
But some their function have disclaimed,
Best pleased with what is aptliest framed
To enervate and defile.

Not such the initiatory strains
Committed to the silent plains
In Britain’s earliest dawn:
Trembled the groves, the stars grew pale,
While all-too-daringly the veil
Of nature was withdrawn!

Nor such the spirit-stirring note
When the live chords Alcæus smote,
Inflamed by sense of wrong;
Woe! woe to Tyrants! from the lyre
Broke threateningly, in sparkles dire
Of fierce vindictive song.

And not unhallowed was the page
By wingèd Love inscribed, to assuage
The pangs of vain pursuit;
Love listening while the Lesbian Maid
With finest touch of passion swayed
Her own æolian lute.

O ye, who patiently explore
The wreck of Herculanean lore,
What rapture! could ye seize
Some Theban fragment, or unroll
One precious, tender-hearted scroll
Of pure Simonides.

That were, indeed, a genuine birth
Of poesy; a bursting forth
Of genius from the dust:
What Horace gloried to behold,
What Maro loved, shall we enfold?
Can haughty Time be just!

It was in wander
   For not lost was she
It was in wonder
   For without sin she led,
The tree bearing sweet fruit
Enticing her
   Forward.
Lust sent a lumber puncture through
her spine.
   Upwards it shot
to the brain, cerebral forms
    into a red beating heart.
It excited her, the
Freedom found in such innocence
    pulsating quivers.
She waited
                  Adam to her Eve
daisy chains falling from her neck
framing a prepubescent chest.
Such tender collar
Bones, hooks temperately fastening
white knotted cotton,
hand sewn dress virginial
White.
Annabelle's life, a melody of
                   melancholic cacophonic
raspers,
from asylums.
Former patients; Briarcliff Manor
residing in her; misery.
Innocent runnings from grave
Dangers of,
                   stark raving madness.
For, today, she wasn't embroiled
                   as Arden's pet.
Instead she was the little girl so born
to be,
before the woman was stolen
bound by a physicians sick
nightmarish reenactments.
For, today she was
Free.
        a starling
                       passionate
                                         darling.

© Sia Jane

Lisa and I’d gone to the bakery for pies. As we arrived home, her younger sister, Leeza, was in the kitchen finishing off a strawberry PBJ sandwich. I knew this because the makings were strewn across the white, granite, waterfall kitchen island like debris from a bombing. “You’re the queen of slobs,” Lisa said, disgustedly, putting the luke-warm milk carton back in the fridge.

“I’ve been HERE before,” I thought to myself and to prevent these sisters from escalating, I asked 13-year-old Leeza, “Anyone at school you’ve got your eye on?”

Leeza turned to me excitedly and blurted out, “Josh Hornby!” With a squeal of delight. Then she took off talking at a hundred miles an hour, listing every little thing about him. His hypnotic green eyes, his brass-colored messy-style hair that he tucks back when it gets in his face. The way he reclines in class when he’s listening intently. She tells us about the time her BFF shoved her into him, one morning in the hall because she knew Leeza was crushing on him and how solid he was, “like a wall.” That collision was clearly her fault but he’d caught her, like spiderman, as she bounced off, keeping her upright and then - HE’d apologized. I couldn’t help grinning, as she rapturously ranted - she was so cute.

Leeza then, in an awkward moment of self-awareness, realized that she’d bared her secret soul and moved to change the subject. “Any interesting guys at Yale?” she asks Lisa.

“Just a herd of Chaz, or wannabes.” Lisa said, dismissively.
“What’s a Chaz?” Leeza asked.
“We augur that one type of guy you find at Yale is a Chaz.” Lisa confided. “Let’s see,” Lisa begins, starting to categorize, “If you’re a guy in a frat or you wear Patagonia, you’re a Chaz.”
“Or wear Canada Goose and boat shoes,” I throw in, chuckling.
Lisa howls with laughter, she’s into it now, “If you’ve ever brought a date to Morey’s because your family has a membership,” Lisa contributes knowingly, “or done coke in the men’s bathroom at Morey’s and consider yourself quite the prestige bang,” she completes, obviously forgetting our young audience.
“We hear tales,” I said, to assure wide-eyed Leeza, while giving Lisa the side-eye and casual *** head tilt.
“Baseball and lacrosse are Chaz sports too.” Lisa added, more temperately, trailing off and chastised.

I think I understand now, how boomers could object to the college debt bailouts. Now that I have my Taylor tickets I don’t want to hear about ticketmaster issues. I HAVE mine, ***** everyone else. Lisa, Leong, Sunny and I will be at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia, PA on Sunday, May 14th, 2023 to see T.Swift in person. I’d be lowkey dreading the trip if my crew wasn’t going with me.
“Taylor’s a filthy, little, capitalist *****.” Leong said, growlingly, when she heard what I paid for the tickets but I know she’s thrilled. She’s a “swiftie” all the way.
“Shake it off,” I suggested.

People live in the shadows
Of each other,
People ride on the coattails
Of each other,
People hand out their
Fairweather friendships
To each other,
(But only temperately)
People build walls around
Each other,
And around themselves,
Some people will **** you
With a smile,
Or a kiss,
That drags you down to
The deepest frozen depts,
Until you're at the bottom
Right with all the rest.

- Jamie F. Nugent