Violets after Midnight: A Sequence

By Bob Zisk

An exquisite sequence featured in our winter 2025-2026 issue of New Lyre (days away). May the spirit and fire of making continue to grace and bless our world.

I

Morning Violets

nec meum respectet, ut ante, amōrem,
quī illĭus culpā cecidit velut prātī
ultimī flōs, praetereunte postquam
tactus arātrō est.

Let her not look back on yesterday’s love,
Which she let fall like a flower at the meadow’s
Edge, cut down by the turning plow’s sharp blade.
(Catullus, XI)

Like Merlin I’ve been swayed by youth’s first bloom,
And a girl’s sweet lies seemed to lift the gloom

That hovers near the silver edge of age,
Smudging the blood-red ink on my life’s page.

It’s early morning, and a lonely mist
Enshrouds moist lips that I have never kissed.

Dewdrops sparkle on my Violet’s leaf,
They are cool, morning droplets on my lief.

I seek her violet flesh among tall trees,
But find her token on a passing breeze.

As sunlight filters through the canopy,
I know her beauty cannot be for me.

II

Scrawl on Smirched Paper

When I was young and easily
Broken on the wheels of love
And desire, I was not free,
But stumbled where blind passion drove.

There I was, a foolish boy
Beguiled by promise in a girl’s eyes,
Made crazy by the simple ploy
Of furtive looks sweetened with lies.

Well, time passes with the breeze
That won’t return, and I give in
To newer foolishness, and seize
The errant nib of a wandering pen,

And, on scraps of dried coffee stains,
I write new songs in ancient strains.

III

Morning Droplets

I will not flood my eyes with tears,
Nor will I mire my heart in fears.
I’ve scratched and wounded my veined hands
Hoisting myself from time’s quicksands.

In the morning’s prismatic light,
Beyond my reach, purple and white
Lady slippers, free of pomp,
Kiss the mist that hugs their swamp,

Where I was wont to clip sweet girls
And smell their morning-scented curls.
I hear their laughter, taste their breasts,
And breathe their puppy-scented breath.

They are the sparks of yesterday,
That glow in the stream’s silver spray.
Those lips I used to nip and kiss
Are water in the years’ gray mist.

IV

A Birthday Thought

I could have sent a blood-red Côtes du Rhône,
Or sweet tea Roses. So why a telephone?

Good wine goes down and out. The rose’s smell
Is swift to fade, and soon its blossoms fail.

If it’s true love comes in through eye and ear,
Then, through our phones let our hearts see and hear.

V

In Search of the Lode Star

Below bent branches of the old elm tree,
Out of the depths of midnight’s ebony,

I looked for you among the fallen stars,
But I found only char of old burn scars:

In an oubliette of bone moonlight,
You were absent from that bitter night.

Under night’s baldachin of sprawling darkness
I hung alone, spun in your silk of dark loss,

Below bent branches of the old elm tree,
Out of the depths of midnight’s ebony,

I looked for you among the fallen stars,
But I found only char of old burn scars.

VI

Surprise at Lauds

This good night may yet carry some surprise
For Violet, who shivers in its breeze.
Will plum-skinned sleep weigh purple on her eyes,
And call her to her Springtime of moist dreams?

VII

Shriveled Leather

Once I was a silly old boy
Who served as fragrant Beauty’s toy.

She snared me in love’s poppy guile,
And crushed me in her garnet smile.

Now nothing much remains of me --
Just some dark frass and dry debris.

VIII

Late Autumn among the Violets of Spring

These woods are blanketed in silence,
And dust of last year’s fallen violets.

Gray rocks are glazed by icebound moss,
And withered roses (kissed by frost),

Once maiden red, have turned to rust,
And I sing with the widowed thrush.

IX

Treebound Ruin

In Autumn woods a broken plinth,
And faint lies of sweet terebinth:
Here shredded capsules of airborne seeds
Spread their fine dust on dried-out weeds.

In the blue-gray light of late Fall,
From dark, dry boughs, scarlet leaves fall,
And as clumps of spent stalks are withering,
Autumn’s last dark crickets are singing.

X

The Solitary Violet
(After Leopoldo Lugones)

Beside an open spot, where I had set
My shotgun, in a fallen patch of leafy red,
I saw a reclusive, kindly violet.

I heard a shot from out past the glade,
But, soon, a discriminating silence
Restored the scarlet refuge of that bed.

Time ran by, free of any purpose,
And the winter season came with sweetness,
And there, in its blue and pensive droplets,
The flower reflected that which is timeless.

XI

Winter Flower

And David slept with the young Shunammite,
And she brought comfort and fire to his night.

Youth and age, they lay in the nakedness
Of Eden, and he burned in her caress.

She stirred his tinder in the violet dark,
And David died, a cinder in her spark.

XII

Faded Colors

Now you call me by my birth name
Instead of some familiar pet name.

By the light of a pearl-white
Moon we used to talk through the night,

Until sandbags pressed on our eyes,
And we saw Lady Venus rise.

As we sow, so shall we reap:
Love’s hours now belong to sleep.
Time carried us in love’s soft dreams,
But must love prove not all it seems?

XIII

Once upon a Time

When you are old, and lost in dreams and sleep,
Remember, you were young and beautiful
Before Love sunk down into death’s dark keep:
Then you were seen by your old, silly Fool.
When you are old, and hear Love’s sparrows cheep,
And see daybreak where once you saw Love’s Fool,
Remember that Old Shell who once peered deep
Into Sweet, Violet shadows of your soul.

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Details

• 202 pages

• 24 contributors

• New original short story, dialogue and essays

• over 150 original poems and translations

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