Time’s Wingèd Chariot
~with thanks to Andrew Marvell
Had we but world enough
and time, chocolate would be
our only crime. We’d sit beneath
the cacao tree, shaded by its
fragrant leaves. Wait four years
or more while I’d adore your lips,
your forehead, silken skin
until the farmers rapped the pods
on rock or tree, split them,
scooped them (juicy pulp!). With patience
we’d observe each stage—fermenting,
roasting, all the rest, until
no trace of bitterness remained,
just sugared longing, candied lust.
Our confectioned love would grow
and grow, vaster than a chocolatier’s
estate, my dear. For years I’d stir
the silver pot, while chocolate thickened,
creamy, sweet. Then dribble it over
each glad breast, savor the flavor
my grateful tongue beholds.
But hark, my love, what’s that I hear?
A chariot’s clatter drawing near?
This Hershey bar will have to do.
Lick it
while I devour you.
~Published in I-70 Review, 2024; Honorable Mention, Bill Hickok Humor Award for Poetry
“Time’s Winged Chariot” was inspired by a prompt offered by Laura Augustine, a member of my poetry group, the Runes: “Great writing can come from being stirred by the words of other writers. For our exercise this month, write a poem in which you respond to another person’s poem. Try responding to a favorite poem, a famous poem, or a really annoying poem.” Laura provided several examples, including Kenneth Koch’s “Variations on a Theme by William Carlos Williams,” a response to Williams’ “This Is Just to Say.” I’ve always admired Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress.” I also love chocolate and humor, and this exercise led me to a fun romp with language.
What Inspires You
As a poet, I’m always in conversation with other poets, present and past. Sometimes a word or phrase finds its way into a poem; sometimes a title is followed by “with thanks to . . . .” During the pandemic, I was invited to join an online writing group (the Runes) with five friends from my MFA Poetry program—three of us from different Colorado cities, two living in North Carolina, and one living in Mexico City. Since the 1990s, we’d stayed in touch occasionally, but in 2020, we renewed our commitment to our poetry and each other. We’ve continued to workshop one poem per person per month, and we share prompts and poems by other poets. At times, we attempt a new form, such as the duplex, introduced in Jerico Brown’s “The Tradition.” For the last three years, we’ve added a writing retreat, hosting each other in Colorado, North Carolina, and Mexico.
In addition, several years ago, four poet-friends in Fort Collins formed a poetry book group (the Hildas) and continued to meet online during the pandemic. We’ve discussed recent collections (some in translation) by Louise Glück, Terrance Hayes, Ilya Kaminsky, Diane Seuss, Carmen Giménez Smith, Maria Stepanova, Arthur Sze, Brian Teare, and Mai Der Vang. And I frequently reread my longtime loves: Yehuda Amichai, W.H. Auden, Elizabeth Bishop, Lucille Clifton, Emily Dickinson, Russell Edson, Langston Hughes, Yusef Komunyakaa, James Russell Lowell, Sylvia Plath, Wallace Stevens, Wistawa Szymborska, John Greenleaf Whittier, and so many others. In addition, I read memoirs, short story collections, and an occasional novel. I subscribe to Poets & Writers Magazine and a few literary journals, online and in print. And each year, I pick up the latest anthology in The Best American Poetry series.
One of the most productive workshops I’ve attended was the Community of Writers Poetry Workshop in Olympic Valley, California. I’ve attended several residencies, most recently The Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow, in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. I often create my own writing residencies, in a monastery or convent that rents rooms to individuals not participating in a religious retreat. I often spend time alone in the mountains, and once, when my parents were living, I spent a week writing in their basement. I have a wonderful writing space at home, but a change of scenery, in a place with good walking terrain, offers a chance to enter that sweet space that writing requires and to remain there for uninterrupted hours.
Bio
Deanna Kern Ludwin grew up in Iowa and began moving west at age twenty, landing in Fort Collins, Colorado. Before her retirement, she taught literature and creative writing at Colorado State University. She serves on The Colorado Review advisory board. Her poetry and microfictions have appeared in Cimarron Review, Copper Nickel, Flash, Green Mountains Review, Gyroscope Review, I-70 Review, The Normal School, and other publications. Ludwin lives with her husband, Gary, and their twenty-pound ginger cat, Ollie, who sometimes agrees to serve as her muse.
Find the Spring 2026 Issue HERE
Previous NPM 2026 poets
| April 1 | Amy Forstadt |
| April 2 | Annette Sisson |
| April 3 | Beth Kanell |
| April 4 | Bonnie Proudfoot |
| April 5 | Charles Stringer |
| April 6 | D. Dina Friedman |
| April 7 | David Colodney |
| April 8 | Deanna Ludwin |