M. Shayne Bell
Mercy of Charon
I have lost the way to Elysium:
I have no obol to pay
for that flowered shore of River Styx,
and I cannot swim past the gloom.
How the waters sigh by the riverside;
how they loll beneath this pier
where I sit with others moneyless,
where I hear them moan and say
how the vast plains of Elysium
never suffer rain or snow;
how the breezes of Elysium
cool the joyful there who laugh
in cloudless hours,
so they say on these bleary banks,
where sands abhor the fitful winds,
and planks of the pier are rot.
Bio
M. Shayne Bell received a Creative Writing Fellowship from the National Endowment for
the Arts (1991).
Bell's haiku have been published in Blithe Spirit: Journal of the British Haiku Society, Frogpond:
Journal of the Haiku Society of America, Haikuniverse, The Heron's Nest, Mainichi Japan
(where his haiku were listed among the best English-language haiku of both 2015 and 2017),
Modern Haiku, Open Journal of Arts and Letters (O:JA&L), Shot Glass Journal, star 82 review,
Sunstone, Tinywords, and The Wales Haiku Journal, among others.
Bell's poetry has also been published in Amazing Stories, Asimov's, Cathexis Northwest Press,
Dialogue, The Fibonacci Review, The Ghazal Page, High Shelf, Kind Writers Literary Journal
(where his poem, "The Kitten, One Year On," was selected for Notable Recognition,
2019-2020 Kind Writers Contest), Once Upon a Midnight (an anthology commemorating the
150th anniversary of the publication of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven"), Shot Glass Journal,
and Typishly, among others.
Bell grew up on a ranch outside of Rexburg, Idaho. He and his six cats live in Rexburg.