Draw Me a Spirit

By Blake Townsend Romanov

A note from the author: I have written two books under the name Blake Townsend Romanov, which I consider literary soul-mates, Pare My Heart and Draw Me A Spirit, both specializing in an imperfect attempt at meter and or form, mainly Shakespearean Sonnets, also some Petrarchian as well as Villanelles and finally a number of Limericks in addition to metrical or rhyming poems of unnamed form. I say that the meter is imperfect, but also that meter is often imperfect by nature as for instance in the question of whether The Nile and Denial have the same number of syllables though certainly they rhyme. I have taken advantage of these equivocal moments of rhyme and meter to befuddle my critics, flattering myself that such people exist. There may be actual mistakes of course for which I can’t account.
I would like to give some further explanations of the books the author and the muses. My first admission will be that my pseudonym is silly and takes up space in syllables. However my own real name is equally silly and has always felt to be a tall shadow or a funhouse mirror simultaneously enticing me with a pompous view of myself and enabling moments of bruising disappointment. As for the name I chose, Towsend because it is the name outsiders, Romanov because it is the name of tragedy, excess and passion, and Blake because it means to both light and dark, but not an amalgam as in gray, but light here and dark there as in chiaroscuro. Sheen upon a lake at night is an example of blake. Thus it is the color of both balance and conflict. It also a first name which women finds sexy (if not overdone); the sometimes squeamishly received adjective is of no small value. Neither the author nor the muses, Maggie Burnes and Emily Gray are to be taken as real, nor are the very facts of the stories these books tell meant to be scrutinized, but rather, imagined.
As for my own beliefs which are often left to the reader, allow me to admit that I am Unitarian by faith, meaning that I believe in God without authoritative revealed religion placing demands on how I characterize his or her spirit. I am Unitarian of the Romantic, Transcendentalist bent and I believe that God’s Spirit is most present in moments of spontaneity inspiration or originality rather than in the retaining of laws, rules or protocol. I have more than dabbled in its antecedent religion, Christianity, and have come to hold in high esteem the story and teaching of Jesus as a representation of God’s nature. I do not reject revealed religion but would rather have held even the most intoxicated prophecy to the same scrutiny as any work of natural religion (philosophy). I have also taken some interest in Zen and the Tao which you may notice in my writing. I am no master of anything but rather an inspired dilettante, in short a poet. Enjoy my poems.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 20, 2015
• ISBN: 9781499053203

Blake Townsend Romanov

I am only going to divulge a little biography because I value privacy (enough so that I publish under a pseudonym). I am in my thirties, born and raised in New York City. I am more or less caucasian, a mixture of Irish, Scottish, Russian, Austrian, French Canadian and Swedish. My parents are not native New Yorkers, and I have roots in the West, the South, including New Orleans, and also in Boston. I am to some extent a scion of privilege, having gone to private school, though politically I defy privilege. I am Christian, more or less liberal tolerant Christian, but with some Evangelical fervor behind it all. My favorite metered poet is Ralph Waldo Emerson, and my favorite free verse poet is Wallace Stevens. I also love Emily Dickenson and Edna Saint Vincent Millay is certainly an inspiration. I also love Dylan Thomas, owe a lot to Shakespeare, and am lately given to Robert Lowell. My favorite novel is The Rainbow by D.H. Lawrence. I love fantasy novels, such as the Lord of The Rings, and the Earthsea series (I have never outgrown my love of magic and fairy stories). I love nature and have benefited in this respect from my parents' house in the country as well as time spent in communal organic farm settings. I love animals and children and all things that have not been through the assembly line of social consciousness.

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Copyright © 2015 by Blake Townsend Romanov.

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Rev. date: 11/11/2021

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Contents

Limerick of The Willow Tree

Freedom, Love in Verse

A Small Wish

The Waking Day

The Three Wise Men

Rain Dance

Hymn To Love

Game

The Stolen Rose

The Marsh Reed

Beliefs

Poetry

For Her

A Little Talk About Leaves

Autobiography of a Romantic Poet

Regarding Her

Possession

Feeling and Knowing

Destiny

Limerick of the Wily Lady

Talking

The Hike

Zen in the Art Of Christian Failure

Not Even For Me

Heart-Song

Image

The Lone Gull

Evolution

The Circular Duet

A Crush

Pique

Limerick of The Fairy Who Wouldn’t Tarry

Tough Girl

To a Girl Who Was Once Mistreated Before I Knew Her

Reminisce

A Spiritual Poem

My Weakness

Please Love Me

Heal Me

Love Is Material

Love’s Senility

Kiss Me

Love’s Illusion

Sweet Girl

Light

God and Stevens

The End of The Day

Traffic Light Dappling

Worship

Walking

Valley

Nature, Love and Reasons

Post-Mortum

Pleas to the Sublime

For Whom I Loved Before I Met You

Believe

Cell

The Self Caused Cause: An Argument

Historical Jesus, A Monologue

Peace of Mind

Limerick of the Christian Muse

Beauty

Rest Your Frame In My Heart Like a Hammock

Left In Love

High School Poem

A Stupid Rhyme

For a Girl I Know

The Pine Branches

Lonely

The Darkening Picture

Romp

Quest

Critique of Tulips

Conundrum

Forfit

The Mean Limerick

Weeknights

Bleak Manhattan

The Hidden

The Cow By The Road

The Field

For The Girl I Love

For the Girl I Love The Most

The Return

Forgotten Prometheus

Cold Distance

A Night at Home

The Limerick Of Desire

The Limerick of Blind Love

Over the Bridge

Passing

Untouchable

My Only

Life

Recalling

Love

Over The Cliffs

Wanting

Frozen Memory

Window At The Door

Sister Sky

Love, Always

Reach

Incessance

To Forget

Are Other Hearts Like Mine?

Relationship

Apology

Return To Me

Do You Love Me?

My Tygress

The Deer

Rainy Day Orphan

Letting Go

You Know My Eyes

Trademark

Blue Manche, Blanche Wench

New York Mindstream

Storm Warning

The Lights

The Escape

Repetition

Decision

The Waking Day Revisited

I Forgive You

Marriage

Timepiece

Forgive Me

Contrapasto

Picture

Postcard

Meditation

Never

Conviction

Opinion

Poem From A Ward

Religion

Play

Tragedy Queen

Resting Place

Eclipse

Flower

To My Love An Apple Tree

The Front Porch At Night

Story

On A Lake

Star

A Poem About Bathing

Bouquet

If This Could Be The Last Poem

Limerick for My Lost Love

But then suppose he takes her hand. This act of her

companion risks changing the situation by calling for an

immediate decision. To leave the hand there is to consent

in herself to flirt, to engage herself. To withdraw is to break

the troubled and unstable harmony which gives the hour its

charm. The aim is to postpone the moment of decision as

long as possible. We know what happens next; the young

woman leaves her hand there, but she does not notice that

she is leaving it.

-Being and Nothingness,

John-Paul Sartre, translated by Hazel Barnes

Ae fond kiss and then we sever,

Ae fond kiss and then forever.

-Robert Burns

For Emily Grey, the Queen Bee

Limerick of The Willow Tree

There once was a wonderful willow;

In the breeze its leaves did billow.

The wind made it pretty,

And it sang like a ditty;

And its ground was soft like a pillow.

Freedom, Love in Verse

They say a man’s speech should be terse,

But I cannot say which is worse,

To be in thankless love forever caught,

Or to be enthralled by nought.

I loved you from the first,

Now write of freedom, love in verse.

A Small Wish

For every leaf that rises on the wind,

For every flower that falls upon a lake,

For every word uttered to not rescind

And for every love found to not forsake,

You will know in kind that this life is yours,

A gift given without line of interest;

Falling, falling you will land on a word;

Collapsing in openness you’ll find zest.

The Waking Day

I’m wrapped in thoughts but wake to find a field

In which I stand among networks of life,

Grey green pods and forest around us wheeled.

The planted field within each row is rife.

This oat-field in which I work is still wild

Growing freely within ordained stations;

The perfect plan hides musings of a child.

In this moment of the minds vacation,

My view turns to the tree at the center

That’s surrounded by sun as though on fire,

Dark, a gap in sight you cannot enter,

This tree a shadow, all darkness and mire,

Though sun tinges the edge of each black bough,

The one star I see or care of right now.

The Three Wise Men

There once was a man who dreamed and did dare,

Combed the wrinkles beneath his eyes and stared,

A stare