Tag: Sonnets

the shades are drawing, sight is leaving me:
i’m told it’s just the way it has to be.
a day must run its course, from east to west,
and light is just a thing we lease, at best.

through eyes, a thousand touches we receive;
some pure and true, while others may deceive,
still more may make us think, perhaps, a spell,
while some sweet few will kiss our hearts as well.

acceptance sounds so wise, so right, so fine,
but seems a crime on this side of the line —
for natural things we deal with as we must.
it’s cruel man, not nature, who’s unjust.

  but even cold enclosed within the dark,
  i’ll think of you, and still discern a spark

Poetic Epilepsy

So kneeling there unseen amid the dark
In prayer not, nor supplication made
He back-sore, rather, hears the morning still
And knows for too long too much he has weighed

As words pour in like water from a jar
To mix with chemicals of imagery
The short attention span of modern life
And long-attenuated apathy

For no one thinks in sonnets any less
And no one speaks in riddles but the blank
The space filled in with all not written down
By some old-caste poetic mountebank

And everyone will gather there to cheer
To seek the vanished truth, the last frontier

Alive: and through the prism…

Alive: and through the prism we must go –
  The variegated shades that we conflate,
  The wanderings that form our fixed estate,
The feelings that will ebb, and then will flow –
The pageantry and beauty of the show
  That proves itself ebullient, sedate,
  Or otherwise; as we our tales relate
To those who do, or maybe, do not know.

Awake: and into all that shines and breaks
  We rush headlong, and into fate and chance
We pull up, or we put down, all our stakes:
  We stare intent, or maybe merely glance —
We see the shifting lines: the loves, the aches,
  Those colored patterns – all our circumstance

Seclusion

Armed only with one’s own experience,
We have to face the worst that life can deal;
So many stories, major but untold,
That make up everything that’s whole, or real,

And still, we have to navigate our ways,
Along whatever paths we may avail,
And cram into however many days
Whatever steps upon whichever trail

That leads us to becoming. For we’ve seen
There is no place in this life we arrive
That isn’t temporary. Restless souls,
It is upon the journey we must thrive,

And draw strength from seclusion where we can —
Then find our way without a master plan

Nothing to Wear

She can’t go out – she’s got nothing to wear:
At least, nothing to match the mood she’s in.
The presentation must be whole: the hair,
The clothes, the lips, the eyes, the nails, the skin

An artist does not show till art is done,
For reputation’s lost by shoddy stuff:
She must attend each detail, every one,
For “almost there” is simply not enough

You might not sympathize, but this is real.
Frustration of an almost keening kind
With naught to wear is all that she can feel
And dominates the focus of her mind.

She has a lot to choose from, that is true:
That matters not, when none of it will do

= = = = = = = = = =

Picture / Photo credit : © Sovatu | Dreamstime.com – Nothing To Wear Photo

When I Am Old And Struggling…

When I am old and struggling to move,
I’ll think about you here, upon this beach;
Though many sorrows, pains there be that prove
That youth and all its warmth are beyond reach,

But only physically. For in my mind
I’ll see your hat, your tan, the lotion smell,
And know that while we left such days behind,
They live in those who still recall them well.

For I’ve known pain. I’ve known it by the hour;
It never leaves except to come again —
But memories of what is good have power
To lighten, some, the ladenest of men.

    By this small thing, to spare your skin from rays,
    I get the gift of better older days

Alabama – 6 (of 10)

(Part 6)

Unitasking: that is is this year’s theme.
It was the best-I-could-come-up-with scheme
For maybe less anxiety and stress,
And being more by trying, doing less.

The hay is in the barn, and now some care
Is taken for it’s safety; it’s the phase
Where farmers must be cautious and beware,
For barn-burner’s not just some made-up phrase.

But this is how it is when storing things:
We think of them inert, only to find
They may catch fire, in a barn, or mind
With all that flaming devastation brings.

  So keep your vigil, let not heed abate,
  What seems inocuous may deflagrate