Poems

For a short while in the Spring of 1895, one could find, if one were the sort to visit not-entirely-respectable purveyors of books, a slim volume bound in red leather and embossed, simply, with Poems. If one were to open said book, one would learn that it was authored by Lady Sapho L. Byron. The table of contents of said book are reproduced below; included, for the benefits of those not in possession of said book, are annotations.

[ooc: If your character has the initials B.M., C.d.W., D.W., E.D., I.J., J.S., K.A., L.M., M., M.B., N.A.-F., O.S., S.A.-F., Q.Q., or V.R. a signed copy has been sent to him, her, or it.]

Bandages
In which a Tomb Colonists muses on the meaninglessness of a slowly decaying life. In the end, he sits passively as the years first cover him with dust and then transform him into dust.

Cats
In which the poet celebrates the family Felidae, from its smallest to largest members with particular attention to domestic (not domesticated!) cats, ocelots, and tigers.

Valkyries
In which the poet treats her subject matter in the métier for which she is best known.

Heroes
In which the meeting of Alexander of Macedon and Diogenes of Sinope is portrayed.

Poets
In which the poet dreams of meeting Sappho of Lesbos. The two disport vigorously.

Viands
In which a lavish breakfast of Surface victuals is minutely and deliciously detailed.

Delights
Coffee, a cozy fire, and a good book.

Dances
A poem in three parts, in which the poet contrasts the movements and rhythms of the waltz, the galop, and the tarantella.

Pools
In which the poet describes her physical sensations of swimming in a cool forest pool below a waterfall and in a warm mountain spring. One may infer the narrator is sans habiliments.

Waters
In which the heroine rescues, from a Neath-filling deluge, seven pairs of each animal by building an enormous zubmarine. Eventually the flood recedes and the Neath is repopulated.

Buoys
In which parallels are drawn between the utter loneliness of the light-buoys and the utter loneliness of the human condition, viz., that ultimately, all women and men are alone.

Charcharodons
A poem about sharks.

Oysters
In which the poet explores the many ways and delights of eating oysters.

Pearls
In which the poet expounds upon the beauty of an oyster’s enfolded jewel.

Stones
In which the poet’s tears at her parents’ death are unshed. They fossilize inside her; eventually tiring from their stony weight, she herself dies.

Strata
In which a certain physiological process is described, in Huttonian terms, as the formation of geological strata … but in which the theory of Catastrophism is not entirely rejected.

Mirrors
In which the poet takes as her lovers her reflections in a room of mirrors. Descending from ecstasies (described in rather more detail than is entirely appropriate), she finds she can no longer tell if she is real or if she is a reflection of some other’s real self.

Ghosts
In which the phantoms of a haunted mansion are reveled to be, in truth, a brigade of clever Rattus fabers.

Cards
In which the poet visits a sibyl and asks her to casts London’s fortune. Revealed are the Five of Cats, the Nine of Mirrors, the Neath.

Ode to the Pre-Emptive Guinea-Pig, Asleep
Oh laconic missile so brightly gleaming,
Of shattered foes so sweetly dreaming,
Nestled deep within my pocket,
Ready ever, my deadly rocket,
etc., etc.