Tag: Sonnets

Let Eyes See

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Let children’s eyes see this, and know the truth:
The world was once a paradise unmarked.
No power lines, or signs, or concrete walls,
Just verdancy to which the soul still harks.

Let urban eyes see this, and feel the pain
Of what the vanity of power has wrought,
As bleak within the prison of our streets,
The living get sold off, or maybe bought.

Let eyes see clear, and heart and tongue give voice:
We have the power, and we have the choice,
To live as were meant to live, or be
The servants of corrosive vanity.

But we can we change, and learn, if we just will,
The lessons of the hills and forests — still

Within the sphere…

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Within the sphere that we can touch there is
The outline of illusory control;
In check marks, or in answers to the quiz,
The thrill of power resonates. The soul

Is born to yearning, stretching; not to harm,
But to increase our aptitude, until
We go beyond what eye can see, or arm
Can compass in, to that which kindles will.

For we would always have what we will have:
Perimeters and boundaries ignored,
The things or friends or gossip that we grab
That signify us greedy, vain, or bored —

  And yet, within arm’s reach, we miss, I fear,
  That all we’d ever needed was right here.

the afternoon

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the curtains barely closed, or maybe clothed –
but either way, too much could be seen through –
within me, all those feelings that i loathed
of giving in, or lastly, giving to.
don’t know why women do the things they do,
or why our passions lead to so much loss:
but boys embrace the girls they should eschew.
i then went over as she came across:
her fingers traced a pattern to emboss
upon the growing need of who we were;
we drank the storm of motion, sweat and gloss,
the screamer of the dream, the whisperer,
the afternoon she had, and hadn’t, planned
that i could never really understand

 

[“the afternoon” – 11-10-1999]

You Didn’t Ask

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You gave because you give. You didn’t ask.
For byzantine as hearts must often be,
For you, there’s rhythm, and there’s melody,
And morning-after sun in which to bask,
And rudiments of lessons that we teach,
When we find learning there, within our reach.

But who am I, that you should favor me?
I sometimes think you chose in too much haste,
But then, the outline of your form is traced
By fingers touching skin-rich piquancy,
And light itself backs off from pride of place
Belonging to the wonder on your face.

  You didn’t ask, because superfluous
  Are words beyond which, there is here, and us.

in love and mist

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a morning comes, in love and mist, alive —
the habitat of all its absentees —
she’ll rise to breathe again and fail to thrive
as long ago were any days of ease

but soft upon the door, the winter knocks,
and hard upon the floor, her husbands sleeps:
her best pajamas, and her favorite socks
make up the company she daily keeps

and coffee greets her as a warming friend,
the flickering screen of comments on her posts –
the hope perhaps today the joints will bend
and she won’t know, again, depression’s ghosts

as coffee to her lips is lightly kissed
the day begins again, in love and mist

The night will always open up its arms…

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The night will always open up its arms
To one like you, ye favored of the earth;
And shield you from the worst of worldly harms,
The way it has since your advantaged birth

Your travels done with such unthinking ease,
Tonight you are in Egypt for a spell;
While others scratch at dust upon their knees,
You’ve gifts unopened too profuse to tell

But why? It isn’t beauty or acclaim,
Although you’ve some of both, but just a share;
Your are not devious or full of shame,
You’re merely you, and mostly, you’re just there –

Perhaps, you’re not what I should contemplate,
But why I look at you, and curse my fate

Poetic Epilepsy

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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…

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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

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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