His True Love

 

 

 

 

 

  

I have lost my turtledove.
Is that her I hear? What joy!
I’ll go after my true love.

You are grieving your lost love.
Grief is all I can employ;
I have lost my turtledove.

If your love has faith above...
A firmer faith I will enjoy;
I’ll go after my true love.

In complaint recall your love.
Plaints are what I must deploy;
I have lost my turtledove.

I can't see my lovely dove;
beauty here gives me no joy.
I’ll go after my true love.

Death, I’ve called on you above,
take me into your employ.
I have lost my turtledove;
I’ll go after my true love.

 

Villanelle by Jean Passerat

I'ay perdu ma Tourterelle:
Eft-ce point celle que i'oy?
Ie veus aller aprés elle.

Tu regretes ta femelle,
Helas! außi fai-ie moy,
I'ay perdu ma Tourterelle.

Si ton Amour eft fidelle,
Außi est ferme ma foy,
Ie veus aller aprés elle.

Ta plainte fe renouuelle;
Toufiours plaindre ie me doy:
I'ay perdu ma Tourterelle.

En ne voyant plus la belle
Plus rien de beau ie ne voy:
Ie veus aller aprés elle.

Mort, que tant de fois i'appelle,
Pren ce qui fe donne à toy:
I'ay perdu ma Tourterelle,
Ie veus aller aprés elle.
         

Dog and Man

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You see that lead that leads to his cold hand?
It zizzes in and out of the roll he holds
and never drops. No freedom; that he withholds.
He says it’s safer. It’s not. I’ve been damned
to staying leashed for life, allowed to trot
beside him, short-legged, chained, feeling my life
isn’t my own. It’s more I’m like his wife,
obedient, cheerful; in looks, a dumpy blot
on the landscape. Inside is raging fire. It’s wild
to splatter the mud-deep fields under my paws,
to catch the jolt and splosh of it in my claws
raking the sticky earth. All’s outwardly mild,
much pant and snort on the path, but still un-free,
reined in. Snuffle and tug are all I’ve got
to let him know that I still care – a lot.
I’ll not be pulling away. He’s old, you see.
  

Butter, Fly

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“My love is like a butterfly,” he says.
Ha! More like buttered flies, I think,
another desperate rutter seeking praise,
a glitter-flitter now and then ablaze,
soon slumped.

All crooning’s done. The flutter-by? He stays
stuck to my sheets a-snore and live stars sink
as daylight blooms; the swanky admiral splays
its comma-ed wings over the rose’s gaze,
much pumped

up by this dope’s dreary, muttering ways.
I’ll give them futtering flattery, trying to slink
past my aesthetic eye! The stink I’ll raise
before they blink means one’ll be dead in days,
one dumped!


Oi! Why’ve you flipped me out of bed
and left me floored? I’m not a pile of trash
for you to chuck, not scraps for you to shred
to rags. My wings are clipped? So you’ve said.
We’ll see.

I live to love wherever I lay my head;
it won’t be here again. You’re much too flash,
can’t trap me in your raging coils. I’ll spread
my wings then quit your plotted ways. Instead,
I flee,

I flit your hearth fire and your homely bread
for tulips’ belling blooms, their flags a-splash
with rain that dribbles deft where reds are shed,
where stamens shiver spry. To me, you’re dead.
I'm free.


So, like the butterfly they touch and part,
ephemeral as the day in God’s long sight
(let’s lop the ‘metaphys.’ a mite; depart
from Johnson’s catch-all tripe. This time, we’ll chart
what’s true;

the thrust of conceits. They’re images at heart,
though Donne has Mannered up the form with light-
weight loves and maunderings entwined to impart
a sense of higher things. It’s all art
all askew!

Enough! Our pair’s in view.), they fly, each smart-
ing from the other’s taunts, afield, one right,
one gone, each pursued by Love’s cruel dart,
did they but know it - all lovers end apart.
Adieu.