Three Poems
Janice D. Soderling

In Defense of Hedonism

Outside my open window, the reckless lilacs bloom.
From dark-dipped roots, sweet essence drifts into a wider room.
Uneasy scents entwine and twist and foul the fierce perfume.

Decay curls tense in tender buds, death lurks in early May.
But languid purple opening holds me pawn and prey.

Extravagant abandonment can only end in grief.
I’ve watched it flare in other years. I know its span is brief.

But feral beauty, derelict, a wild and wanton thing
now seizes me, and teases me, my thin heart ravishing.
Outside my open window, the wretched lilacs cling.

- - -

Another Spring

Bouncing like a jumping bean,
the green
unfurls on twigs and ferns.
Returns,
rolling like a wagon train.
Again!
It beautifies the drab and plain.
But jealousy abounds as well.
Love’s lusting is a living hell.
The green returns again.

- - -

Consumer Advice for Spring Lovers

Two years at most, true love will last.
So carpe diem, have a blast.
Roll those drumsticks, toot that fife.
First comes folly, then comes strife.
Short the spoon, but long the knife.

Before two dozen months have passed,
he won’t stand calm; he’ll stand tight-assed.
She’ll be a carping, dour fishwife.
Two years at most.

So when you view the twain, aghast:
their fizzless beer, flags at half-mast,
recall my warnings, dire and rife;
Love in the laundromat of life
is not preshrunk or colorfast.
Two years at most.

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Janice’s notes: “Show me the poet who has not sharpened pencils to document love or lust or a ponderous thought when winter gear is shed to expose an ankle or dreadlock; or who has not felt so invigorated at the return of the sun and blue skies that he tries to find a rhyme for sprout (lout, drought, pout, get out); or who has not felt interior sap rise in pace with that of the maple tree; or been undone at the sight of a beloved somebody on someone else’s arm. The possibilities for spring poems are endless.

“The ovillejo above has not been published before, but the other two found excellent homes.

“‘In Defense of Hedonism’ was published in The Flea, an Australian journal created and edited by the much-loved Paul Stevens, sorely missed these many years by friends in a variety of countries. All issues of The Flea are archived at the National Library of Australia.

“The rondeau ‘Consumer Advice for Spring Lovers’ first appeared in the monthly Rotary Dial, a Canadian journal for formal poetry which came and went like a blazing comet. Rotary Dial was founded by the award-winning poets Pino Coluccio and Alexandra Oliver and ran for 50 issues. It was greatly esteemed.”

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Janice D. Soderling has work in a variety of international journals, some defunct, others, like her, still chugging away. She is represented in anthologies wth prose and poetry. Her most recent collections are The Women Come and Go, Talking (poems), and Our Lives Were Supposed to Be Different (short fiction and flash), both under the imprint of Kultivera Productions.

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Three Poems Janice D. Soderling

Three Poems
Janice D. Soderling