https://www.online-literature.com/forums/blog.php?60754-just-mercedes The largest classic literature discussion forum on the Internet. Read Write Teach Share. en Fri, 05 Jun 2026 11:24:31 GMT vBulletin 10 https://www.online-literature.com/forums/images/misc/rss.jpg https://www.online-literature.com/forums/blog.php?60754-just-mercedes https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?9066-growing-pains Thu, 15 Oct 2009 00:13:35 GMT she doesn't trust colours
since she learned they can't exist
independently

now she finds this spring display
distasteful

like stale perfume
in a ball gown

fretful she strikes
random piano keys

in time with quivering shadows
falling from unseen world
across the library carpet's
faded pattern

fade
shade
stale
jade

almost she wants to crush
that vase of roses
hates blind mouths of flowers
drinking light
like nipple-latched babies

tears gather
in corners of her eyes
shadows thrown from an unknown
future

day and night the sea
says the same thing
now she'll never learn
the words ]]> just mercedes https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?9066-growing-pains https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?9051-no-apple-exists-alone Tue, 13 Oct 2009 00:32:19 GMT that apple glowing in the blue glass dish vibrant in its is-ness sacred to Apollo that apple

glowing in the blue glass dish

vibrant in its is-ness



sacred to Apollo

font of Avalon



offers itself

from the first garden

sweet as knowledge

bitter as wisdom



from Iduna's box

food to keep gods

forever young

or food for the dead



stolen by Hercules

from Hera's orchard

dragon-guarded

in the Hesperides



given by Aphrodite

to Hippomenes, to win

fair Atalanta in an unfair race



Discord-rolled

into a wedding

so the prettiest one

began a war



yet standing for happy

union in marriage

fertility



fire-bird's prize

on snowy steppes

food for Europe's golden bird



mermaids and peahens

pass it on

through Wandering Aengus

and Johnny Appleseed

down to me



strange as any symbol

unknowable ding an sich



homely as pie, cooling

on suburban window sill



golden apple of the sun

history of gods and man

desire and temptation

mystical, forbidden



all of these

all of this



is apple ]]> just mercedes https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?9051-no-apple-exists-alone https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?9035-one-picture-exists-of-my-great-grandmother Fri, 09 Oct 2009 07:48:17 GMT returning home to find, of
course, it's moved elsewhere
in the meantime
maybe back over
seas that brought them
here
last century
or the one before - grey mists
gather in cracks of time
thyme colonises land where
rushes once grew rampant

in an aunt's album
never before shown
a century-old photo
of a cloak-swathed Maori woman
outside a raupo hut
noted 'grandma'

no wonder home is hard to find
when history has been hidden
in lies of black and white

who am I now? ]]> just mercedes https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?9035-one-picture-exists-of-my-great-grandmother https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?8399-wheatfield-with-crows-II-(villanelle) Sat, 20 Jun 2009 00:19:58 GMT black crows call me from sentient sky ripe wheat awaits the autumn blade to live forever, first I must die hues of bright immortality lie in... black crows call me from sentient sky
ripe wheat awaits the autumn blade
to live forever, first I must die

hues of bright immortality lie
in sunshine mortals never made
black crows call me from sentient sky

loving you is a treacherous tie
that binds me fast in sacred glade
to live forever, first I must die

madness lies in your soft velvet sigh
like siren, singing from the shade
black crows call me from sentient sky

deaf to daybreak, I’ll pluck out an eye
if frenzy helps this torture fade
to live forever, first I must die

withered passions pulsate and pass by
earth will receive me undismayed
black crows call me from sentient sky
to live forever, first I must die ]]> just mercedes https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?8399-wheatfield-with-crows-II-(villanelle) https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?8393-wheat-field-with-crows Fri, 19 Jun 2009 01:57:36 GMT twenty one black birds fly in a sentient sky over fields of ripening wheat where the path turns from view twenty one
black birds
fly

in a sentient sky
over fields
of ripening wheat

where the path
turns from view


disappears




written from van Gogh's painting of the same name, the last he painted before shooting himself. ]]> just mercedes https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?8393-wheat-field-with-crows