Sonnet Avorté Sitting to write of all your virtues fair All grace has fled, no inspiration comes. My box of words lies desolate and bare, My nimble tongue to silence now succumbs. I cannot think to where the muse has fled, But all deserted here I sit becalmed. My sorry veins of worship have been bled And quiet lie, as if to be embalmed. And though of passion and of sweet desire I long to speak, my voice does not obey, Croaks feebly as a long-unpracticed choir, And offers naught but this faded bouquet. Alas, my pen has lost facility And leaves me drownèd in sterility.
Blue Ballet When the only sound you hear is your own heart breaking the dancing stops. Stranded, you stand on an icy plain where no music drowns the echo of shattered glass. The dancing stops, leaden legs frozen mid-plié. No music drowns the echo of shattered glass, your only ballet the regularity of measured breaths. Leaden legs frozen mid-plié, a marionette with no master, your only ballet the regularity of measured breaths. Blue arpeggios melt in a blizzard of unshed tears. A marionette with no master, stranded. You stand on an icy plain where blue arpeggios melt in a blizzard of unshed tears when the only sound you hear is your own heart, breaking.
circles the moon a perfect circle shone such a bright silver through the uncurtained window it awakened me from a restless sleep punctuated by dreams of you smiling down at me from wherever it is you are now my face is wet with the salt of sorrow my body an empty shell held together by memories of your arms the perfect circle that puts any moon to shame in the surety of neverending love and this my darling man is what keeps me going enables me to rise and say what needs to be said do what must be done to keep the promises i made
RC deWinter’s poetry is widely anthologized, notably in New York City Haiku (NY Times, 2/2017 Connecticut Shakespeare Festival Anthology (River Bend Bookshop Press, 12/2021), in print: 2River, Event Magazine), Now We Heal: An Anthology of Hope, (Wellworth Publishing, 12/2020) easing the edges: a collection of everyday miracles (Patrick Heath Public Library of Boerne , 11/2021,) The Gargoyle Magazine, Meat For Tea: The Valley Review, the minnesota review, Night Picnic Journal, Plainsongs, Prairie Schooner, Ogham Stone, San Antonio Review, Southword, Twelve Mile Review, Variant Literature, Yellow Arrow Journal, The York Literary Review among others and appears in numerous online literary journals.
Grand Little Things 