Faint Oaths of Naught
36 Haiku Found in A Midsummer Night’s Dream
1.1
showers of oaths did melt
gates have we devis’d
painted blind
quick bright things
unfold both heaven and earth
upon faint primrose-beds
bracelets of thy hair
tempest of my eyes
for want of rain
a paradise to me
your eyes are lode-stars
chanting faint hymns
1.2
nightingale quince
crowns have no hair at all
by moonlight
since a summer’s day
gentle as any nightingale
quince at the duke’s oak
I will move raging rocks
you the lion’s part
quince in our interlude
look to their eyes
speak as small as
any sucking dove
2.1
opportunity of night
anoint his eyes
ill counsel of a desert place
maidens call it
love-in-idleness
ere the first cock
forgeries of jealousy
hold their hips
against her lips
quaint mazes
want their winter
in the wanton green
moonlight revels
long within this wood
of that boy did die
governess of floods
her anger
washes all
2.2
weaving spiders
interchained with an oath
a raven for a dove
who will not change
the deepest loathing
dissembling glass
night and silence
in the musk-rose buds
sing me now asleep
this flower force
their leathern wings
eat my heart away
In The Cedar-Limbs
An Erasure of Wallace Stevens’ “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird”
I
mountains
moving
the eye
II
I was
III
the autumn winds.
IV
one
one
V
beauty of inflections
the beauty of innuendoes,
just after.
VI
Icicles the
glass
The shadow
VII
Why do you imagine
Do you
VIII
know
I know
That
I know
IX
the edge
X
Flying
out
XI
a glass
pierced
The shadow
XII
must be
XIII
It was
was
In the cedar-limbs.
JOSHUA ST. CLAIRE is a CPA who works as a financial controller in Pennsylvania. He enjoys writing poetry on coffee breaks and after putting the kids to bed. His work is published or forthcoming in Delmarva Review, Inflectionist Review, Blue Unicorn, ubu., and bones, among others, and has received nominations for the Pushcart.
MAXIMUS 