‘Elegy for a Blush’ and Other Poetry by Reid McGrath

Elegy for a Blush

No more does she show her flower;
No more does the maiden cower.
Snow-white cheek has turned to tawny.
All the lads are looking scrawny.
On Her cheek she spread her plume:
A roseate revealing bloom,
A fire burning ’crossed a moon…
Naïf innocence iced too soon.

When the people is gone, a man can think

When the people is gone, a man can think.
When the crowd is prattling, he will slink.
When soldiers deploy, their women they kiss;
But when they come back, it’s comrades they miss.
The scholar who’s sitting, dreams of outside;
The man out the window, wishes he tried.
The child who’s lofty, wants to overcome youth.
By the time he’s grounded, he’ll’ve lived what’s true.
The tramp on the track, in the cold on his own,
Suddenly realizes: he does have a home.
The doctor who’s bustling, trying to bend,
His work in a frame, to form a weekend…
The Poet who Writes, can surely not Sing,
Because when he could, Writing meant Nothing.
Man does Evolve, tho he does have a Choice,
Some things are Keepsake, like Spontaneity of Voice.
We think of a place, not this but the next,
Where peoples is ‘appy, where peoples is blest,
Where peoples is different, or more like back then;
We answer our answers with a question.

He Harbors Great Plans for the Girl his Playmate

I walked right thru the cedar copse
When the sky was purple-blue,
And I clambered over rocks
Just so I could play with you.
I peeled some tinder off a tree.
I bellowed at the black-white cow.
I heard the buzzing of a bee.
I heard the grunting of a sow.

I ran right to our secret place,
Where the maples dropt their leaves,
Thinking I would plead my case
On my knobby kneeling knees.
But you had not yet gotten there,
So I had some fire fun:
I cocked my glasses in the air.
I lit the tinder with some sun.

When you arrived I stomped it out,
And thru the wood we hid and played;
And with wood swords we did seek out
The Lion in his den who laid,
The Hoary Wolf, The Black Bear too,
The Snake, The Lizard, and The Shrew.
And when the sky was black and blue,
My shyness I did come to rue.

Reid McGrath is a student slash laborer living in Pawling, New
York. He is a fan of Yeats and Housman and Blake.

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