Trust is splintered to so many shards;
How can we know what to believe
When we blithely build a house of cards?
The world can so quickly fall apart;
The price we pay when we deceive;
Trust is splintered to so many shards.
Denying the truth we station guards;
What are we hoping to achieve
When we blithely build a house of cards?
The game can turn and spiral backwards;
At last, alas, we can perceive
Trust is splintered to so many shards.
Empty buildings watch our vacant yards;
Too few trumps remain up our sleeve
When we blithely build a house of cards.
We get no time to mourn and grieve;
We can but pack our bags and leave.
Trust is splintered to so many shards
When we blithely build a house of cards.
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© J Cosmo Newbery
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Well, Cosmo. It's obvious you are not totally lost in that bottle all of the time. Very fine. Excellent form!
ReplyDeleteAnd the subject...appropo.
I hope you have the independent means to give up your day job.
Thank you, Lillie. Doubly so as you introduced me to the villanelle in the first place.
ReplyDeleteLoved your poem- heres what my heart said:
ReplyDeleteBuilding on Sand,
Using Cards for a house-
Is not a safe structure,
Not even for mouse.
Come with me to the shore,
Let me take your hand-
And we'll play Crazy Eights,
While we sit in the sand.
________________________________
In a perfect world- as friends-
One would bring the wine, the other would bring the pick-nic basket...and take the time to grieve over things lost and broken-
And play cards. :)
What strange world is this - have I, inadvertent and amuck, run into some fair dream of English majors, all civility and pluck?
ReplyDeleteAnd such was I, once upon a youth...
We were young and we were runnin' - against the wind. Sometimes breaking it and blushing. Sensitive souls, really, seldom mating, and yet aching with far more than wanderlust.
But I romanticize the past...
"Ooh-oooh spare your heart;
Everything put together
Sooner or later falls apart,
And there ain't nuthin' to it,
Nuthin' to it -
You can lie
And you can cry
For all the good it'll do ya
You can die..."
- Etc. Paul Simon, allegro and with cheer.
What a cynical and strange boy you are, Percy. Are you all "amuck"? But what is there, worthy of breath, but civility and pluck? It beats sparing your heart and lies and crying. It puts roses before thorns, even in the midst of cruelty.
ReplyDeleteLillie, if I appear cynical to you, it can only be because my sheer sentimentalism and vulnerable aesthetic sensibilities - sincere, impassioned, ethereal - must appear ironic under the harsh conditions of our time.
ReplyDeleteFor alas, I was, myself, an English major.
You hide it well.
ReplyDeleteOtter: Ha! Four mere words. Where is the mastery of sentence structure - the form, the grammatical gallantry, the pendulous pedantry; the use, even, of one sheer miserable semicolon?
ReplyDeleteI taunt you with the sibilant syllables and the dancing bantering of a veritable Mohammed Ali of syntax and vocabulary.
Why I otter...
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ReplyDeletePercival: You mock 'civility and pluck'? Well, I don't give a...toss.
ReplyDeleteNea: My mother left me in the rain as a child and my mind warped. I have no other excuse.
I am, however, the product of the School of Engineering which may account for the robustness of my sand castles. But not for my poems, per se. English was taught at my school but I learnt it elsewhere.
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ReplyDeleteI just moved into a house....It's no house of cards....but then again....it could turn out to be...if I don't hold up......I will...I should...
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ReplyDeleteLuxlucisvita: Please, hold up.
ReplyDeleteNea: "...a glass of wine, a post, and some beautiful poetry..." That is enough, don't you think?