How Beautiful She Is, By Mary Meriam

She climbs the flights of palace stairs

Her gold and silver gown a charm

Whispering gone all troubles and cares

Worries and woes that cause alarm.

Tickled by rushing mountain streams

The gentle mountains kiss the sky

The sky alive with clouds and dreams

Sinking to dusk with one last sigh.

The fiddle sings, the heartbeat drums

While through the swirling, twirling court

The kindly prince of kingdom comes

As if a sailing ship to port. 

Two turtledoves flush from a tree

As prince and maiden hand in hand

Begin to dance, this dance to be

A realm of peace, a fruitful land.

Mary Meriam's poems are published in Literary Imagination, The New York Times, American Arts Quarterly, Poetry Northeast, American Life in Poetry, many other journals, and several anthologies. She is the author of two poetry chapbooks, The Countess of Flatbroke and The Poet's Zodiac; a blogger at Ms. Magazine; and the editor of Lavender Review.

 

Editor's note: Mary Meriam's small poem is alive with imagery. It's a great example of how just a few words can have a lot of impact, which is why it was one of the November 2012 contest winners.

 

 

 

 

Mary Meriam, The Prince of Glass

Editor's note: Below is Mary Meriam's "The Prince of Glass," one of the April winners of the EC monthly contest. It's a lovely poem that uses images of glass in unexpected ways.

He is the prince of shards of glass,
glass bowls with Chinese stamps,
glass crystal balls with legs of brass,
and Tiffany glass lamps.

The prince has chosen to amass
glass window and glass door,
glass shelf and goblet, to surpass
his foes, who might have more.

So when he sees the lovely lass
in glass, he falls in love.
He plinks her coffin on the grass
with his glass-fingered glove.

He hates the forest’s green morass
of trees and shrieking creatures;
with her in glass, they can’t harass
her quintessential features.

The prince pulls out his looking glass
to check his golden locks.
The other things he does,alas,
are unseen from her box.

Mary Meriam's poems are published in Literary Imagination, The New York Times, American Life in Poetry, Measure, Sentence, Think, Light, many other journals, and several anthologies. She is the author of two poetry chapbooks, The Countess of Flatbroke and The Poet's Zodiac, and the editor of Lavender Review. 

Altered image by Carravagio.

Night of Snow, By Mary Meriam

She lives, more lovely than sweet dreams,

Red berry lips, black hair that streams

In tender breezes through the night

Lit by starlight and pure snow white.

Meanwhile, her mother sits and schemes

Suffocating in her screams

At her own beauty’s furious flight,

Old age’s creeping, seeping blight.

She is the Queen, and her regime’s

A bloody plot of swift extremes.

Her daughter’s heart would taste just right.

She opens wide and takes a bite.

Through woods and thickets of thorny themes,

Snow stumbles through a night that teems

With lurking lowlife. Shot by fright,

She runs, and running, learns to fight.

Finally through the gloom there beams

The warm and friendly homelike gleams

Of seven gems. They are polite;

Snow’s safe and snug at last? Not quite.

The lonely door has lost its seams,

Squeaks open for a witch who seems

Kindly, but murders with all her might,

To be the only belle in sight.

The tables turn again. Fate deems

The daughter live. The mother steams

In oven shoes, dancing her spite

To death, ever bitter and tight.

Mary Meriam’s poems have appeared recently in the New York Times, Poetry Foundation, American Life in Poetry, Mezzo Cammin, Measure, Light, Think, Sentence, and Rhythm. She is the author of The Countess of Flatbroke (Modern Metrics, 2006) and The Poet's Zodiac (Seven Kitchens, 2011).