
William Blake often has a really great rhyme scheme but many of his poems are dry on the imagery…this one is different. I love the images in it.

This one is too long to find on a graphic. I loved it so much from High school that I have always kept is as a fave,
By WILFRID WILSON GIBSON
“And will you cut a stone for him,
To set above his head?
And will you cut a stone for him–
A stone for him?” she said.
Three days before, a splintered rock
Had struck her lover dead–
Had struck him in the quarry dead,
Where, careless of a warning call,
He loitered, while the shot was fired–
A lively stripling, brave and tall,
And sure of all his heart desired . . .
A flash, a shock,
A rumbling fall . . .
And, broken ‘neath the broken rock,
A lifeless heap, with face of clay,
And still as any stone he lay,
With eyes that saw the end of all.
I went to break the news to her:
And I could hear my own heart beat
With dread of what my lips might say;
But some poor fool had sped before;
And, flinging wide her father’s door,
Had blurted out the news to her,
Had struck her lover dead for her,
Had struck the girl’s heart dead in her,
Had struck life, lifeless, at a word,
And dropped it at her feet:
Then hurried on his witless way,
Scarce knowing she had heard.
And when I came, she stood alone–
A woman, turned to stone:
And, though no word at all she said,
I knew that all was known.
Because her heart was dead,
She did not sigh nor moan.
His mother wept:
She could not weep.
Her lover slept:
She could not sleep.
Three days, three nights,
She did not stir:
Three days, three nights,
Were one to her,
Who never closed her eyes
From sunset to sunrise,
From dawn to evenfall–
Her tearless, staring eyes,
That, seeing naught, saw all.
The fourth night when I came from work,
I found her at my door.
“And will you cut a stone for him?”
She said: and spoke no more:
But followed me, as I went in,
And sank upon a chair;
And fixed her grey eyes on my face,
With still, unseeing stare.
And, as she waited patiently,
I could not bear to feel
Those still, grey eyes that followed me,
Those eyes that plucked the heart from me,
Those eyes that sucked the breath from me
And curdled the warm blood in me,
Those eyes that cut me to the bone,
And cut my marrow like cold steel.
And so I rose and sought a stone;
And cut it smooth and square:
And, as I worked, she sat and watched,
Beside me, in her chair.
Night after night, by candlelight,
I cut her lover’s name:
Night after night, so still and white,
And like a ghost she came;
And sat beside me, in her chair,
And watched with eyes aflame.
She eyed each stroke,
And hardly stirred:
she never spoke
A single word:
And not a sound or murmur broke
The quiet, save the mallet stroke.
With still eyes ever on my hands,
With eyes that seemed to burn my hands,
My wincing, overwearied hands,
She watched, with bloodless lips apart,
And silent, indrawn breath:
And every stroke my chisel cut,
Death cut still deeper in her heart:
The two of us were chiselling,
Together, I and Death.
And when at length my job was done,
And I had laid the mallet by,
As if, at last, her peace were won,
She breathed his name, and, with a sigh,
Passed slowly through the open door:
And never crossed my threshold more.
Next night I laboured late, alone,
To cut her name upon the stone.

I find myself judging me
for things done in anxiety.
The things I should be doing
eat at me, whispering in my ear deafeningly.
I cannot grow a care…
Though I know the reasons that I should.
The things that would happen
are just as bad,
telling me how important it is
and why I should be sad.
Instead the urging only
reverses my mind to anger quixotically,
making a monster of the rage building deep inside of me.,
The could be is somehow worse,
for in me, these are the ones that hurt.
I feel like I am not enough,
because I can not make them happen
no matter how hard I try.
So the should, the would, and the could,
each have their place
in stretching my anxiety
into another day.
They make me into a nervous wreck,
weighing each mistake
as a possibility.
Fighting the trio
I become a careless me.

Hello, My Lovelies! This is my Saturday Tea Today I am drinking a peach cold tea.
Tomorrow (Well tomorrow when this releases…lol) is my 47th birthday. Due to a lot of stress, I really have been hit or miss posting. I spent nearly two weeks fighting a stress migraine that I would never want to face again. I am going to try to get back onto a semi-normal schedule, but I have a lot going on. Most of it is for Fae Corps.
We are doing a poetry contest this year… And we are as busy as one-armed paperhangers otherwise.
If you missed it Ashira Datya released her second book in the Magik Saga – Evil resists on the 10th.
Raz T. Slasher is releasing Book two in his Riverside Chronicles – Silence is Crimson Homecoming on April 20th. I don’t have the link for that yet…
Gathering Teardrops is done being written – But my schedule is crazy…so I will be releasing it May 6th.
My Next Volume will be split between Handprints on my soul and Fighting Ignorance. This is because with the state of the world I am writing more political poetry than I ever expected myself to…But I am not writing only politics. Handprints will be everything else. Fighting Ignorance may take longer than a usual volume…
In April I will be releasing the next Pip the Pup story. I chose the release date because it is my mommy’s birthday. I felt like it was appropriate.
Fae Corps Has two anthologies releasing June 1st. One was my project from the beginning. Grandmother’s Wisdom. It is a gorgeous book. I love how it came together. I am going to be meeting with representatives from No Kid Hungry next week to find out how to give away half of the proceeds from that anthology. (I reached out because I want to do it the right way, and they are going to help me to do the work to make it shine.)
The other anthology, Seeking Stories, is in the edit stage. So I am working on that. It is filled with fun adventures.
That leaves me very busy when you add in life, writing, and other responsibilities. I have done half decently considering. 47…Yeah I never expected to make it to 30, so each year just brings more surprises.
I am going to post my random if ya wanna’s not because I am asking for anything…but in case anyone is interested..
Paypal : iampublishd@gmail.com
Cashapp: $pattimouse
Kofi: https://ko-fi.com/pattimouse
I find that the thing I would love most for my birthday if I am honest is someone to review my books, or tell me what they liked or disliked about what I have wrote. It means so much to know what I am doing matters.