Sonnet 46 – The Common Cup by Dennis Allen Lange

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One’s silence in his pain prevents a friend
From helping with a word or tender hand,
Producing with its hush a broken mend,
A shimmering mirage on desert sand.

Was reason for the reticence his pride?
Are self-sufficiency and bearing up
What cause a ship and sailors to abide,
Or is it when they share the common cup?

Perhaps ‘twas shame that dammed the quiv’ring lip,
That stopped the flow that others might perceive
As weakness, as a man who’s lost his grip.
The aid was lost; chagrin began to thieve.

A brave front o’er a private misery
May fill one’s purpose, but he pays a fee.

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photo by Mirna Sentic at
http://www.rgbstock.com/photo/nhnMLRW/waiting+on+the+bridge

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© Dennis Allen Lange and thebardonthehill.wordpress.com, 2017.

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When I Was Small by Emily Dickinson

When I was small, a Woman died –
Today – her Only Boy
Went up from the Potomac –
His face all Victory 

To look at her – How slowly
The Seasons must have turned
Till Bullets clipt an Angle
And He passed quickly round – 

If pride shall be in Paradise –
Ourself cannot decide –
Of their imperial Conduct –
No person testified – 

But, proud in Apparition –
That Woman and her Boy
Pass back and forth, before my Brain
As even in the sky – 

I’m confident that Bravoes –
Perpetual break abroad
For Braveries, remote as this
In Scarlet Maryland –

 

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Dickinson wrote of a mother who had died previously and left an only son who died in a battle on the Potomac River (stanza 1). To her, it must have seemed a long time before the bullet took his life (stanza 2).  Dickinson debated (stanza 3) whether it was right to have pride (which is sometimes sinful) in Paradise.  But as she considered, back and forth, the ghosts (Apparitions) of the two, she concluded that such bravoes (even there) for bravery in bloody (scarlet) Maryland were justified (stanza 4). The link below gives the specifics of a battle at Balls Bluff on the Potomac in October, 1861, as the time and place the “only boy” died.
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https://books.google.com/books?id=53x2cyrkm8oC&pg=PA55&lpg=PA55&dq=scarlet+maryland+dickinson&source=bl&ots=vc5DhO3rMp&sig=ZaVvGauaxAIeo4FpM2jK5gttsog&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiQ6tzG_KrKAhWGYyYKHRR5CsEQ6AEIKzAC#v=onepage&q=scarlet%20maryland%20dickinson&f=false

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Two Lion Haiku by Dennis Lange

Fewer Than 140 Characters

Tweety tweet:
I thought I taw a
Puddy tat!

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Where Are Those Cubs?

Lioness,
In tall grass, looking –
Pride and seek.

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Characters – photo by Iva Villi at http://www.rgbstock.com/photo/ook2s3c/Sleeping+lion

Cubs – photo by Stella Bogdanic at
http://www.rgbstock.com/photo/mmjIHTE/lioness+1

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* The haiku I write are lines of 3-5-3 syllables instead of 5-7-5.

See Haiku article here for explanation, if needed: https://thebardonthehill.wordpress.com/2011/08/08/haiku/

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© Dennis Lange and thebardonthehill.wordpress.com, 2014.

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I Fly The Flag by Dennis Lange

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I fly the flag; no one decreed,
Or with a saber made me bleed
To walk the plank of this small deed.
It is my head and heart I heed
To fly the red, the white, the blue,
The stars and stripes for what is true.
………………Freedom

I fly the flag; it’s slightly furled,
By gentle breezes barely curled,
And when I sleep like children sleep,
There are no fears as I dream deep
That in the night some foreign foe,
With haughty hands will bring it low.
……………….Peace

I fly the flag for those who died,
And those at home who merely cried.
With their hands, too, they raised this flag,
And raised with it, so they ne’er sag,
Our hopes and dreams, like rising tides,
While they surrendered homes and brides.
……………….Memorial

I fly the flag and bosoms swell,
Of those who know our hist’ry well.
I think of heroes on the wall,
Down through the ages gave their all;
And since they trusted God to give,
It is in this great land we live.
……………….Pride

…………..I fly the flag.

       

© Dennis Lange and thebardonthehill.wordpress.com, 2011. 

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