A Limerick I Found, Concerning Hamlet

Did Ophelia ask Hamlet to bed?
Was Gertrude incestuously wed?
Is anything certain?
By the fall of the curtain

Almost everyone's certainly dead.
— A. Cinna, found in The Penguin Book of Limericks

The Remainder of the Poetic Cycle

It may seem somewhat late to post the autumn poem, as it has already snowed, and may seem somewhat early to post the winter poem, as it is not yet December. However, I have decided to conclude this poetic cycle at this time, and move to a differently themed series of posts, perhaps one whose subject matter can be reasonably updated more frequently.

Autumn

But as this year's life drags along its path,
A gloomy darkness transfixes the clouds.
The golden wheat is reaped for toil's reward,
But its grey stalks soon crumple in cold dirt.
The sorrowed oak trees drop their brownish leaves
And willows wilt, casting long umbral shades.
The sable ravens croak forth requiems
As everything with life withers away.
The trees are each laid bare, the aster-plants
Turn grey, a sadness to the weathered eyes.
As pumpkins, deathly fruit, grow in night's grasp
The final show of colour's glory dims
As sorrow's heart strikes its dark twilight beat.

Winter

The elder year is crippled, dying fast-
Cold enters bones and nerves of every thing.
Dead grasses fade into black dusty grime,
And limp and leafless trees stand towering high
As sable beacons of this futile age,
While silver clouds are clustered in the sky.
From these white heavens come down an alban shroud
Of snow, a final resting beauteous touch
That glazes the vast world in stabbing cold's
Cruel knives, and wreathes every dark bough.
The old year smiles as its new heir is born
And breathes its last, is buried in soft snow,
And then departs forever to the heights.

Ode to Summer

I apologize for not posting much over the summer. Here is the next poem in the cycle:

The year grows older, to a blazing peak,
A pinnacle, a stony-mountain-height.
The shining sun beams down across the vale,
Its daylight rays bestowing full comfort.
A glorious warmth envelopes every rock
And tree, burning each touching mortal hand.
Long, endless fields of grain-stalks grow- tall wheat
And barley grass, as purple cicadas
Sing heat-born songs from towering maple-trees.
That blinding fire, that great laborious sweat
Is placed, as the worlds weight, upon the ground.
Throughout the rufous meadows, golden larks
Seal this fierce season with heroic cries.

An Ode to Spring

The newborn year shoots up in youthful growth,
With it, the golden tulip-petals sprout-
Each one a beauteous, lively spectacle.
On every tree-twig leaves bud, blossoms flower-
Fair-featured life comes unto everything.
The water-lilies in the wet mill-pond
Bloom as white lanterns, glowing o'er the night,
Their verdant stalks and leaves the thrones of frogs
That hum vivacious, sanguine melodies.
Ambrosial winds of bright new nectar- scents
Blow lightly through euphoric warming air.
The merry year grows fast, the trees grow tall
And bud out forth their sylvan leafy hair.

A Quote from Aristotle's Poetics

"...Comedy aims at representing men as worse, Tragedy as better than in actual life."

Watch This

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euJ0gBaUGAw&feature=related

The Futility of Money

One never knows when he is about to be robbed. I decided to go down to the local supermarket yesterday as I normally do on Mondays to buy soda. Unfortunately, the Coca-Cola machine there has a record for criminal behavior. Fifty cents may be cheap for a can of soda, but one might never know how much he is actually spending until it is too late. In this particular incident, the machine refused my dollar bill five times before accepting it. It finally gave me my soda, which was obviously two months old, due to the fact that it had a Santa Claus picture on it, and then only gave twenty-five cents as change. My remaining twenty-five somehow remained inside. I put my change back in, hoping that with fifty cents in the machine I could get a second soda, but it would not give me one. It would not give me the fifty cents back either.
Money is indeed a thing that can disappear just as quickly as one earns it. One can survive without money, however, as money is merely a representation of one's labor. Money can buy luxury, but if life denies me luxury, so be it.