River (a sonnet)

By Eric Meub

[Originally published on February 8, 2014, as “Second Saturday’s Sonnet.”]

An unexpected gust puffs flames into

the candles, blowing suns across the glow

of water. Flashes let the waves slip through

like fabric over muscles in the flow.

Prize (a poem)

Second Saturday’s Sonnet
6 Years & a Month Ago

By Morris Dean

[Originally published on November 15, 2015, here slightly amended.]



“Stately?” she quizzed my comment on her walk,
    her high-heeled shoes exalting shapely limbs
displayed in tights that summoned men to gawk
    and sing out praises fit for churchly hymns.

Second Saturday's Sonnet

Prize

By Morris Dean













“Stately?” she quizzed my comment on her walk,
    her high-heeled shoes exalting shapely limbs
displayed in tights that summoned men to gawk
    and sing out something not for churchly hymns.

Second Saturday's Sonnet

Pinot

By Eric Meub

[Originally published on July 12, 2014]

 


 
 
 
 
 
 
It’s nearly bedtime, but I’m seeing shapes
Beyond the window, on a hill of grapes.

Second Saturday's Sonnet

Theseus

By Eric Meub

[Originally published on June 14, 2014]
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
The king gave me protection, and the god
the body of an ad for underwear,
but on the docks of Troezen in a fraud
of both I tempted every sailor there.

Second Saturday's Sonnet

Rose

By Eric Meub

[Originally published on May 10, 2014]
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Today I found the body of the deer
who used to eat my garden rose by rose.
I recognized her by the ragged ear
she flared once when I sprayed her with the hose.

Second Saturday's Sonnet

Sundered

By Eric Meub

[Originally published on April 12, 2014]

 
 


 
 
 
 
 
High pressure system moving east: the road
continues, but the breakers bury it
beneath their backs, shrugging off a load
of splinters and a broken chariot.

Second Saturday's Sonnet

Munchkin

By Eric Meub

[Originally published on March 8, 2014]
 

 
 
 



 
 
That smile’s not just for anyone. You know
your falling houses, gingham dresses, To-
to too, with flowerbed discernments keen
enough to tell the good witch from the green.

Second Saturday's Sonnet

River

By Eric Meub

[Originally published on February 8, 2014]
 
   

 
 
 
An unexpected gust puffs flames into
the candles, blowing suns across the glow
of water. Flashes let the waves slip through
like fabric over muscles in the flow.

Second Saturday's Sonnet

Vern Oliver Morris Knudsen
(July 12, 1927 - November 13, 2014)

Out of rich memory

By Morris Dean
 
 

 





 
Time was, this Morris touched and changed us all,
he listened and loved us, always handy,
he seemed to hold our fledgling souls in thrall,
he exposed us to writers in flagrante¹,

he aroused our wits to the language game,
he'd laud our Capricorn, Familias,
or something else we didn't know its fame.
Morris fathered well: our four friends² and us.

And very often now we think of him:
Casa Knudsen open for cheese and wine,
everyone bright and eager, in the trim,
"No leftovers!" And now, here at this shrine,

all's left us of our friend and mentor Mo:
many memories of riches he bestowed.

Until I saw this photo or Morris in James Knudsen's
memorial montage, I didn't know that Jude Law looks 
a lot like Morris looked in his youth. Jude is lucky.

_______________

1. The first book Morris brought to my attention (in Latin I or II) was Nabokov's Lolita.
2. Most of us whom Morris touched and changed know and are friends not only with Morris's two children but also with his two step-children. See James Knudsen's column "Mo...m," February 28.

Copyright © 2015 by Morris Dean

Second Saturday’s Sonnet

Will and testament

By Morris Dean
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
Time was, we carved the cello’s Venus mound,
Composed the music for the melody,
And aged the ocher wood to free the sound
To sing the cello’s heart from memory.

Second Saturday's Sonnet

To Valentine's Day

By Morris Dean
 
 

 
 
 
Shakespeare asked whether he should compare "thee,"
and, having considered, decided not.
Than summer's day, he thought that she (or he)
was more lovely and temperate, less fraught

Second Saturday's Sonnet

Hetch Hetchy

By Eric Meub

[Originally published on January 11, 2014]
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
The grasses hissed beneath the oaks that mark
these fields. But now her swimming pool has spread
a net of light up into shadowed bark.
An over-irrigated oak falls dead.

Second Saturday's Sonnet

Chair

By Eric Meub

[Originally published on December 14, 2013]
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
She closed no doors at home. Sometimes they’d shout
at her, slammed by the wind: a single clap
of violent conclusion, like a trap
to seal her in a room. Or keep her out.

Second Saturday's Sonnet

Look

By Eric Meub

[Originally published on November 9, 2013]
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
The altercation takes her by surprise:
same boy, same busy street, same tug-of-war
about authority. Today her eyes,
all by themselves it seems, have shut a door.

Second Saturday's Sonnet

Toby

By Eric Meub

[Originally published on October 12, 2013]
 
 
Of course you’ll dine on anything: Good Dog.
What is the world to you but meat and grog?
According to philosophy you chew
because you’re finite: that’s what finite systems do.

Second Saturday's Sonnet

Epilogue

By Eric Meub

[Originally published on October 8, 2013]
 
 
 
 
 

The raven’s more than hoarse by now, he’s dead
of boredom. Duncan’s come again, fifth time,
and I’ve put fresh sheets on the sofabed
for Mac and me, sleepwalking past our prime.

Second Saturday's Sonnet

Bottom

By Eric Meub


 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
Why bother getting out of bed? It’s not
As if we’re here in season: covered pool
And lounge chairs stacked like firewood as a rule.
I say resort, you think forsaken spot.

Second Saturday's Sonnet

Pinot

By Eric Meub


 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
It’s nearly bedtime, but I’m seeing shapes
Beyond the window, on a hill of grapes.

Second Saturday’s Sonnet

Theseus

By Eric Meub


 
 
 

 
 
 
 
The king gave me protection, and the god
the body of an ad for underwear,
but on the docks of Troezen in a fraud
of both I tempted every sailor there.