I Can Only Reach The Black

Hope, the fire of pending morrows
Once burned soft but bright as day.
Now the merest flicker borrows
Time to sputter, waxing fey.

'Lo my canvas unappointed
Born to stretch the light itself
Now with monochrome anointed
Paler shades of former self.

Not the pall of charcoal dusting
Nor the grey of sidewalk crack
Color bled from life by trusting
I can only see the black.

Glamours die with wounded whispers,
Summoning like ringing vespers--

I can only reach the black.

Measured Meaning (Terzanelle)

My grand attempt, though doomed to fail, to write a terzanelle
To feel the feet progressing and anticipate the rhyme
I mean a work with meaning, measured breath (and measured well)

To know with certain stillness that the verse will end on time
I try, in tracks made long ago by poets more than I,
To feel the feet progressing and anticipate the rhyme.

The questions, they besiege me, "Do I have the poet's eye?"
And "Will my Muse enable me to tame this daunting Form?"
I try, in tracks made long ago by poets more than I.

Perusing in my musing to coerce cold words to warm,
I fill the verse with metered hope I learn my lesson well
And will my Muse enable me to tame this daunting Form.

My pattern now established I progress with tale to tell
Only to find too quickly that I now approach the end
I fill the verse with metered hope I learn my lesson well.

So here lies my conclusion, judge it kindly, would you friend?
My grand attempt, though doomed to fail, to write a terzanelle
Only to find too quickly that I now approach the end
I mean a work with meaning, measured breath, and measured well.

Terza Rima: Heat, Measured in Candlepower

When shadows dance upon an amber wall,
The light suffices not to shame their play
Nor countenance the cause of shadows' fall

For light itself compels the shadows stay.
Intrigued by this arousing circumstance,
The candle flickers, teasing interplay

To tame the wall on which the shadows dance
And would distract the lovers from their cause
Were they not so compelled by love's own trance

Their passion cares not for physical laws,
As two are lost in each other entire,
Unbound by light and uninclined to pause

Their show compels observance by that fire,
That light and feeble flicker of the flame,
Which watches shadows prosper and perspire,
To never think of heat the same again.