The HyperTexts

Keith G. Balser

Keith G. Balser is a retired copy editor and freelance writer, originally from Long Island, currently residing in Northeast Florida. His preferred poetic forms are the sonnet and villanelle. His poetry book, Girl of My Autumn Dreams, is a collection of 250 traditional rhyme-and-meter verse form poems. It is available on Amazon.

GIRL OF MY AUTUMN DREAMS
 
O warm me when the coming cold winds blow;
Gone are the days when youthful skies were blue.
Girl of my autumn dreams, I love you so.
 
In life’s late fall, can budding love still grow
When even dying leaves are none or few?
O warm me when the coming cold winds blow.
 
Comfort me with the honey-golden glow
Of love’s sweet sunshine; waken hope anew,
Girl of my autumn dreams … I love you so.
 
When autumn amber fades to winter snow,
Your eyes will shine like summer morning dew:
O warm me when the coming cold winds blow,
 
Refresh me when the weary sun is low
In lonely skies and make my wish come true,
Girl of my autumn dreams … I love you … so
 
I pray for springtime streams of hope to flow,
Your eyes to light up when I say to you,
“O warm me when the coming cold winds blow –
Girl of my autumn dreams, I love you so.”
 
COASTAL CRAFT
 
My sentimental lines may seem too shallow,
Cresting no new literary wave;
Expressing thoughts that some may see as callow,
Lovesick lyrics won’t make critics rave.
Literary adventurers may crave
Avant-garde verse that’s rhyme-and-meter-free,
Cutting tradition’s mooring lines to brave
Some bleak and murky existential sea.
But I prefer the kind of poetry
That anchors in the sheltered bay of form –
Shunning the depths of cold reality,
Floating in dreamy shallows where it’s warm.
Far from the raging of dark passion’s ocean,
My verse plies the sunny waters of devotion.

TIME CAPSULE
 
Sonnets are suited to the way I write:
Rhymes are more tailored to my poetry
Than chic new modern verse that’s labelled “free” –
Though rhymes may seem unfashionably trite
And, like loud clashing plaids and paisleys, might
(If clumsy) seem a clownish parody;
But if they fit the topic to a T
And if they’re smooth as silk, rhymes bring delight.
Though verse dressed up in rhyme may seem to be
Outdated, like a bow tie or fedora
Purchased at a haberdashery
That specializes in what people wore a
Century ago – how comfortably
A shy love-poem can wear a bygone-era aura.
 
DANCE PARLOR
 
with “Minuet in G” by Bach and “Minuet in G” by Haydn
 
The villanelle is like a minuet –
For it’s a formal kind of poetry
Abiding by poetic etiquette
 
That stipulates a structured movement set
To strict linguistic choreography.
The villanelle is like a minuet
 
Where paired refrain lines, having newly met,
Waltz through exacting stanzas gracefully.
Abiding by poetic etiquette,
 
Two rhyme sounds sing a delicate duet
While form and feeling glide in harmony.
The villanelle is like a minuet
 
And if I’m very careful not to get
Tripped up on clumsy metric feet, I’ll be
Abiding by poetic etiquette.
 
Expressing whirling thoughts that pirouette
Around my dream that you will dance with me,
The villanelle is like a minuet
Abiding by poetic etiquette.

The HyperTexts