Here are two more of my poems published in Lyric poetry magazine. These are from the winter 2020 issue. I hope to submit more work to the magazine soon.
SEA SONG
By Rob Crisell
I rest here on the ocean floor,
But once I rode upon the foam,
And carried soldiers off to war,
And bore them safely home.
Now light drifts down to me below
As I gaze up at sapphire sky.
Upon my back bright starfish grow,
Within my chest dwell octopi.
An icy current weaves its way
Across my bones of rusted steel,
Reminding me of thrilling days
When gallant captains turned my wheel.
But I don’t mourn my damaged pride,
Nor for my mortal labors long.
I dream the salt and sigh the tide,
And sing the sea’s eternal song.
HAMLET AT FIFTY
By Rob Crisell
A plot twist—Hamlet reaches middle age:
Claudius is killed at prayer some years before,
Allowing Gertrude’s son to take the stage
With bride Ophelia, at Elsinore.
He trades his scholar’s eye for Denmark’s throne,
His antic disposition vindicated;
His people prosperous, his children grown,
His father’s spirit well propitiated.
And yet he wonders: Did he miss the point?
Did easy living dull his poet’s heart?
No tragic flaw; no time that’s out of joint;
Not even players move him with their art.
He drinks his wine to spur the years along,
Suspecting someone, somewhere, got it wrong.
