Sample Poems
Videos with text are best viewed full screen.
PULLED FROM THAT SPINDLED TRACK
published in "The Lion and the Golden Calf", SkyWing Press, 2008
i.
In shades we shape and shift 'though light flows 'round,
not knowing where we'll be, who we'll become;
some greet the sky, some bend t'ward the ground -
believe each quest to be the final one
but gyres twist and turn, then call us back,
bare clothes reworked, made new with threads of gold
brought through the gap, pulled from that spindled track
through bleary infant eyes - soon to grow old.
ii.
Darwin sculpted apish evolution,
Heraclitus taught that our souls self-unfold,
Jung claimed that ego forms in revolution
as trait meets situation, is unfurled.
These schools of thought were taught to me in childhood
when I cared not to think of soul's deep measure
but search, instead, for faeries in the deep woods
and dream the dreams all youngsters dream with pleasure.
iii.
In shades we shift 'though light comes flowing 'round
and chase our scarecrow days through vast life-fields,
slipped forward on a gyre that makes no sound
when, in hindsight then, we see our dance revealed
but even then the characters keep changing
and music agilmente ends up as largo,
the crescendos rise and fall, keep rearranging
the dancer and the dance - so on we go...
~ Ronda Wicks Eller
'The Henge's Kiss' was first published in "The Lion and the Golden Calf" in 2008
"No Defence" is an example of the sonneteer exercise called Fifth Lines, in which sonnets are connected as a chain, each one beginning with the fifth line of the one preceding it. It can be quite a challenge but also a lot of fun after you get the hang of it.
Ronda reads a Chaucer styled English Madrigal called "Silent Flight" (copyright 2010)
SHE SPEAKS TO HIM OF PERFECT UNION
published in The Lion and the Golden Calf, SkyWing Press, 2008
Sad soul that breaks upon the rocks of time
and longs for rest in arms along the shore
where uttering lips may speak of nothing more
arrested in the breach, so left behind.
May you, in places time can’t comprehend
see your heart’s desire to make its peace;
‘though all the glittery starlight there must cease
and all ambitions must give up their hand.
No lover there to want, no pain to hold,
for lovers all are blended in the tide—
a perfect state of mind fulfilled inside
the banking of a spirit bright and bold.
No currency for entrance at the pass
or labouring soul achievements to remit
for, bound in time, their measures don’t submit
to any law such perfect union has.
Oh soul that drifts through moods on open sea
and harbours all it hopes in undertow,
may you and I surrender all we know
in placid bays that time cannot conceive.
~ Ronda Wicks Eller
FOR CLOSURE
published in The Lion and the Golden Calf, SkyWing Press, 2008
The ink washes down, pooling
by the freshly dug grave
and I, in my quest for closure,
hold the shovel ready
to dig deeper— not to study
dirt, dust or the ashes that made me
but to know the comfort being sewn
into a bed like the one where I
will eventually lie. My pen
must know how to write for the future,
to cleanse itself with the salty eye-stream
of mourning, turn up the nitric sod
that contrives decomposition
until it mulches into fertile loam
that will feed my soul
through the coming slumber
and sprout fresh lilies
by the pool.
~ by Ronda Wicks Eller
By a long shot, this video is the most popular on Ronda's YouTube channel? Why? It's a good question - you decide.
Ronda reads her chapbook 'My Harmonic Perfection', published 1995 by HMS Press, London (14 min)
There are more videos on Ronda's Youtube channel... it often gets overlooked but if you know that in advance...
