V. 2, #72: June 8, 2013

A princess was imprisoned in a tower
(it happens to a lot of them, you know),
and years on end nobody had the power
to kill the beast that would not let her go.

This beast, of course, was quite a nasty dragon,
a fiery, fiendish brute par excellence,
whose castle no king yet had hung a flag on,
whose roar made most brave knights besmirch their pahnts.

So one day, tired of waiting for defenders,
the princess (who had read some Buddhist texts),
chanted some prayers, then burnt herself to cinders!
Which left her captor shocked, dismayed, and vexed:

"It's brave, and quite a statement, I'll allow--
but folks will think I did it anyhow."

V. 2, #71: June 7, 2013

The columns on the porch are drab and boring.
The drapes and carpeting are out of date.
We'd rank near last if anyone were scoring
our home decor. It would not even rate.

We'll watch a hundred hours of Flip My House
and learn to maximize our curb appeal;
put in a Zen rock garden while we grouse
on House Hunters. (It isn't even real!)

Then, once we have exhausted energy
and funds alike, we'll beam with homely pride,
to see our house as it was meant to be:
perfection in facade, a dream inside!

It makes me misty, dear, even to tell it;
The house we've always wanted--now let's sell it!

V. 2, #70: June 6, 2013

She said her friend Max was invisible,
and only spoke when grown-ups weren't around.
Her parents thought the notion risible,
of course, but cute. And then one day they found

their dining chairs stacked like a pyramid,
and arcane symbols scratched into the floor.
The kitten disappeared, their keys were hid,
and late at night, small hands rattled their door.

Her parents frowned and sent the girl to bed
without her snack. The attic floorboards groaned.
Blood drizzled thick from every shower head,
and something in the basement pitched and moaned.

She giggles in her room. She likes this game.
She knows that Max is really not his name.

V. 2, #69: June 5, 2013

The lobster is immortal, practically,
and all his life he grows and grows and grows.
Just how big one might get, nobody knows;
his only limit is catastrophe.

If neither caught nor eaten, he'll expand
to twenty, forty, fifty pounds or more;
and one who watched the pilgrims come to shore
might still bestir the deeper ocean's sand.

And maybe, further out, beyond the reach
of lobster trap and cage and fishing net,
silt billows from beneath two ancient claws
the size of sunken ships. And one day yet
he'll roar and rise toward the moon that draws
him, like the tide, to crash upon the beach.

V. 2, #68: June 4, 2013

You want to scale the planet's highest summit?
If that's the way you choose to spend your time,
I will not be the one who keeps you from it;
as far as I'm concerned, go on and climb.

Clamp on your crampons, sharpen up your pick,
and acclimate yourself to thinner air.
Suck bottled oxygen if you feel sick,
and tell your friends it's "just because it's there."

While you do that, I'll sit here on my haunches,
imbibe a beer or two and watch TV.
Some folks don't mind if they develop paunches
and let the day drift by. One such is me.

What good to put yourself in God's own nest
in record time, if you can't ever rest?

V. 2, #67: June 3, 2013 (The Creature's Lament)

This used to be a quiet neighborhood,
three million years ago, or maybe four.
Lagoon was clean, fish plentiful and good.
On sunny days, I'd bask right on the shore.

But then the water turned an inky shade--
who knows the reason? Crocodiles appeared
to fight for food. Not many of us stayed,
and those who did turned taciturn and weird.

Now I'm the last to bear my species' name.
I swim these shadowed waters solitaire
and longingly gaze up watch the dame
do butterfly and breast strokes, unaware.

She's lovely...but c'mon. It couldn't work.
Those kind of thoughts make Gillmen go berserk.

V. 2, #66: June 2, 2013

The dog next door is mean and muscular,
with bear-trap jaws and eyes as black as pitch,
disposed to barking jags crepuscular,
nocturnal, and diurnal. Not a bitch

in heat within a one-mile's radius
of our backyard puts pheromones on the breeze,
but this canine town crier has brayed to us
glad tidings of her imminent menses.

He prowls the bound'ry line like Cerberus
alert for souls escaped from Hades' flame.
Step through the patio door--he's there for us,
to growl and howl us back from whence we came.

He stands triumphant, confident he's won;
he can't know yet about the pellet gun.

V. 2, #65: June 1, 2013

I almost missed my deadline for today.
No opportunity to sit and write.
So this is just a placeholder to say
I'm meeting my requirements tonight.

It's hard to write a sonnet in a club,
With amplifiers ringing in your ears.
But I'm still doing it just for you, bub.
So my account will not be in arrears.

Not many compose sonnets while half drunk
And listening to a metal cover band.
But here I am. Because I care, I dunk
my head in cold iambic verse. I stand

by my promise to write, for good or not.
I've done it. Sorry,  but that's all I got.

Supplemental: An Apology for the Previous Poem

I know the poem I wrote today was bad
I really thought about taking it down.
The thing is feeble, childish, ugly, sad,
and scatological. It made me frown.

But if I take down every poem I write
that doesn't live up to my lyric dream,
I'll scarcely have a sonnet left. I might
as well just quit and go out for ice cream.

Not every dog's a champion of its breed.
Some smell, some bite, some might be blind or worse.
Put them to sleep for that? Too cruel indeed;
I feel the same about my mongrel verse.

So let's move on. I fully realize
it sucked. And for that, I apologize.

:)

V. 2, #64: May 31, 2013

It crawled from tile to tile across the floor
I watched and mapped its progress like Descartes--
Each spider twitch, each spasmic fit and start
of its segmented body. Even more,

The whip-slash of antennae, sharp as pikes,
the iron-gray, thorn-studded carapace,
the eyes like cursed jewels in an idol's face
aflame with evil admonition--yikes!

No broom could dent the armor on its back,
no spray snuff out its Luciferan life.
I cowered in the corner, butcher knife
in hand. Consumed with fear, my bowels went slack.

Lucky for me, it seemed to like the scent.
We're roommates now. He helps out with the rent.

V. 2, #63: May 30, 2013

The zombies shamble up and down the aisles,
their jaws agape, their eyes all glazed and red.
Not one will shift his arms nor turn his head
to mark another's passage. No one smiles.

The zombies' brains don't rot. They're not blank slates.
Their skulls are crammed with figures, lines of code
to be debugged. It's neural overload
that keeps them in their sad, subhuman states.

Yes, once they lived. Their hands held warmth and sense--
but that was long ago. Now, fingers curled
to keyboard-scratching claws, they shun the world
and haunt their cubicles like revenants.

They stumble out for coffee, stiff and slow.
Don't look them in the eye--just let them go.

V. 2, #62: May 29, 2013

The man paused at the door and turned to stare
at what he'd leave behind once he stepped through.
The road stretched out for miles--familiar, bare.
What lay beyond this portal, no one knew.

He saw the well-worn paths he'd paced for years,
all long, slow spirals, concentric and clean.
Beside them, choked with weeds and pointless tears,
those left untraveled, unknown, and unseen.

He paused to look, and like Lot's wife he learned
how ruthless God can be to those who stay
too long to reminisce, fearful, unsure.
Perhaps she wept to see how Sodom burned--
perhaps, instead, she merely wished to say
goodbye. He turned around. There was no door.

V. 2, #61: May 28, 2013

Perhaps I'm getting soft in my old age,
my stony stoic front ground down by years.
It seems ridiculous at this late stage
to be so often moved to senseless tears;

The radio brings trite, corn-sweetened pap
that blurs the road until I wipe my eyes;
News stories leave me misting like a sap
for reasons hard to consciously surmise.

A harsh word from my son, my daughter's kiss,
a half-remembered line of poetry,
and I'm a blubbering mess. What causes this
strange flood of new sentimentality?

Rain, wind, and time lay veins once covered bare;
and nerves pain sharpest, thus exposed to air.

V. 2, #60: May 27, 2013

When she was just a child, there on the floor
amidst her building bricks and bits of string,
she learned what many kids had learned before:
with the right parts, you can make anything.

And so through school and university
she studied what things fit, and where, and how;
she struggled on through all adversity
and failed experiments (Bug-Dog; Cat-Cow).

Till finally she saw it in a dream--
amino acids lined like Lego blocks!
She woke and wrote it down--then, gaining steam,
accomplished it, breaking all Nature's locks.

Now Jaguar-Eagle hybrids rule the skies,
and she smiles, polishing her Nobel Prize.

V. 2, #59: May 26, 2013

Upon a time once, far away form here,
there lived a princess known as Scary Jane,
whose suitors screamed and scattered, pale with fear!
The King asked his advisors to explain.

"Could it perhaps be how she spins her head
right the way round?" pondered one trusted Duke.
"Or how she levitates, raises the dead,
and covers all her would-be beaus with puke?

"She summons branches from the Haunted Wood
to tear their flesh and prod them shamelessly.
Of course they run away! Anyone should.
The fault's your daughter's, Sire, it seems to me."

"No one's perfect!" the King said, with a cough,
then asked his men to cut the Duke's head off.

 

V. 2, #58: May 25, 2013

Today it's by the numbers--there's no time
to do it right; just doing it's the thing.
Mechanically slot meter into rhyme
and hope that one or two of them will sing;

But if they don't, if all your clumsy feet
trip on themselves, don't let it get you down.
No drummer never missed a single beat,
and writing's always been more verb than noun.

A stream of water, falling drop by drop
can penetrate the strongest stony wall.
With time, determination not to stop,
and patience, you'll get through too, after all.

That rare bird Inspiration's very nice--
but sometimes Perspiration must suffice.

 

V. 2, #57: May 24, 2013

Connections have a tendency to fail:
some water seeps into the circuitry,
a flash, a little smoke, and suddenly
you're tapping at the keys to no avail;

Or something quieter that doesn't show--
a wire, corroded due to lack of use
or bare neglect, curls up and wriggles loose,
thus severing the current's normal flow.

So many things can disconnect our ends
from what gave them their power, till one day
we find ourselves alone and in the dark,
where once we shared the light with cherished friends.
Thing is, it doesn't have to be that way:
Hold our your line. Here's mine. Wait for the arc.

V. 2, #56: May 23, 2013

My Time is not a maniac scattering dust
as Tennyson would have it; He's a slow
cold monster, covering everything with snow
that makes my machinations stall and rust.

He stretches out His frigid hand and turns
momentum to inertia, blood to ice,
and growth to atrophy, until the price
of Change seems far too great. Whatever burns

in me, whatever dreams he's yet to snuff
between his fingers like a candle's flame
grow fainter day by day and year by year,
while I sit by and watch them disappear
in smoke, till what remains is not enough
to summon into thought, or give a name.

 

V. 2, #55: May 22, 2013

She turned and left the room without a word.
Some stared at him, his thoughtless cruelty
still hanging there like smoke. But as for me,
I coughed and made believe I hadn't heard.

But I could still make out her heels' tattoo
upon the marble tile, still see the way
her mouth convulsed, with nothing she could say
to counter that, and nothing she could do.

He bowed his head, ashamed, and left. I sipped
my gin and thought of her, the lipstick smudge
we sponged off my shirt collar in our room.
The band played. One by one, the guests all slipped
out to their cars. With no one left to judge
me then, I drank, still breathing her perfume.

 

V. 2, #54: May 21, 2013

My inspiration comes from breathing in
and every time I breathe out, it expires
My soul is born, it dies, and lives again
as often as biology requires

My eyes create the world from rays of light,
and then destroy it every time I blink
It crumbles and reconstitutes, not quite
the same it was before, I sometimes think.

And cell by cell my body is replaced
at night when I'm asleep. A year or two,
this mortal coil will crumble into waste
and what remains will be completely new.

So am I me? Or am I someone else,
condemned to replicate these faulty cells?

 

V. 2, #53: May 20, 2013

You boys go on ahead and have your fun.
I won't try to convince you not to go.
Some things won't let you rest until you know,
and in your eyes I see that this is one.

The key is on a ring above the jamb.
Be sure you mind the loose boards on the porch.
There's been no gas for years, so take a torch
or flashlight. It's not like a give a damn,

but if you're fool enough to head upstairs,
the room's third from the right. Set up your glass
and wait till one, not stirring from the spot.
I'm old. There's not much in this world that scares
me now, but I'll say this: I've seen the lass
before. Another time? I'd rather not.

 

V. 2, #52: May 19, 2013

Benny was only seventeen years old
the night he disappeared. An average kid
who did no worse than anybody did
at school, nor better neither, truth be told.

They say he climbed the city's water tower
on some fool-hearted dare. He danced atop
its dome--the girls were begging to stop,
the boys just egged him on. And then a flower

of bright kaleidoscopic brilliance flashed
above his head like some magician's act.
There was a sound like falling, broken glass.
The kids all gaped, waiting for it to pass.
It did. They found Ben's clothes, folded, intact,
right where he'd stood, beside a pile of ash.

 

V. 2, #51: May 18, 2013

The cat sits quiety and licks its fur;
meanwhile the dog is sleeping on the chair.
It's getting late, and no one seems to care,
or else they lack the energy to stir;

Games have been finished, boxed and put away,
the TV dark and silent for a change.
Such sudden stillness counts as something strange
in this house, where it's always noise and play;

There's nothing cooking on the stove--outside,
the sun sinks silently beyond the trees
and soon the sky will purple like a bruise.
So, separately, without a thought, we slide
into the night, completely at our ease,
as though we hadn't anything to lose.

 

V. 2, #50: May 17, 2013

The doctor doesn't know where he went wrong,
but something's got his Creature out of sorts.
He plays his PS3 the whole day long
and never bathes, not even after sports;

He eats five meals a day, as many snacks,
and watches TV like it was his job.
Ask him to clean his room, and he reacts
as if you were some crazed, torch-bearing mob!

Invites friends over without asking first,
throws parties that make matchsticks of the lab,
and when confronted, screams "Dad, you're the worst!
I never asked to be raised from the slab!"

"Oh horrors!" quoth the doc, "That kid of mine
has grown into a Teenage Frankenstein!"

 

V. 2, #49: May 16, 2013

There's never going to be a better time
than now to change your life and start anew.
But that's not saying much--it's no sublime
intelligence says so, nor makes it true;

Just simple mathematics: days subtract
from years, and with them opportunity
for renaissance dwindles as well. Thus Fact
reduces Dream to cold futility.

Moment by moment, changes we've got planned
meet their negation and resolve to naught.
It's exponential; so we understand
the maxim's much less happy than we thought:

"There'll never be a better time than Now,"
because Tomorrow will be worse, somehow.

 

V. 2, #48: May 15, 2013

I was a Monster for the FBI
back in my younger days. The scientists
fused to my back the arms of octopi,
and gave me a gorilla's arms and fists.

For watchfulness while in the field, my eyes
were deemed too weak, so half a dozen more
were grafted on--eagles' and dragonflies'.
For fearsomeness, a lion's teeth and roar.

I'd rustle gangsters, sting spies with my tail,
and cripple crooked cops, given the chance.
Those were the days! You should have seen them wail
in terror, drop their loot and shit their pants!

Now I'm retired, and glory days are done.
Except for Halloween--that's always fun.

 

V. 2, #47: May 14, 2013

It doesn't bother me if no one reads
my scribblings here, these wayward drops of ink
I scatter heedlessly; I hardly think
such service one that any stranger needs.

This wordy stream might bear some specks of gold
that, if I'm lucky, settle in my pan,
but more wash past. I do the best I can;
The water's shallow here, muddy, and cold.

There was a time when, screaming myself hoarse,
I splashed and floundered, desperate to be praised
by all who passed. But now I am content
calmly to watch the river take its course,
kneel down beside it, quietly amazed,
and cup it in my hands, a sacrament.

 

V. 2, #46: May 13, 2013

We helped the doc move boxes--homemade crates
of pine and cedar. Research cores, he said,
extracted from some cave, encased in lead,
and stored. He paid us twice our normal rates.

The next day Peter's leg began to swell.
His foot took on a sickly greenish hue.
The doc said there was nothing he could do
but get some rest and hope all would be well.

And now it's been three days since we've seen Pete,
and one since paramedics found remains
they think must be the doc's, but can't be sure.
But worse: they found footprints out to the street,
three-toed and clawed, that match the bloody stains
I tracked to Pete's apartment's splintered door.

 

V. 2, #45: May 12, 2013

I cannot give you everything you want,
or even most of it--that's just a fact.
My pockets aren't a never-drying font
of golden coins; my mattress is not packed

with Franklins, hidden from you out of spite,
or some perverse desire to kill your joys.
I don't withhold from malice--though I might!
Fit punishment for greedy little boys.

In truth, the little money that I make,
left over after mortgage, bills, and food,
I freely give; you just as freely take,
and call me stingy when it's gone. How rude!

One day you'll have a job, and understand.
Till then, for answer take this empty hand.

 

V. 2, #44: May 11, 2013

Don't need to do the things I do, but still,
I do them just the same, and damn the cost.
Don't care if it be good or it be ill,
I will not be advised, dissuaded, bossed.

I'll wreck my liver, conscience, posture, mind,
with acts most inadvisable and wrong.
Just watch me go wild, feral, crazy, blind--
and if it smarts, it will not hurt for long.

Oh sure, I could watch what I eat and drink,
weigh others' feelings equal to my own,
but where's the gain in that? Do others think
of my emotions, or themselves alone?

Some folks will help you now and then, and smile,
but hope one day you'll make it worth their while.

 

V. 2, #43: May 10, 2013

You see it in the way he sits: his spine
gone strangely limp and strengthless. How he bends
over his desk, eyes focused on the screen
before him, chair sunk lower every hour,
till inches separate him from the floor.
It seems like every day there's something else
to make his eyelids droop, his body sag.

At night he tells the wife and kids he's fine,
pulls himself straight, goes out to drink with friends
or reads. The bathroom mirror shows him clean
and trim. No one would ever guess the sour
black bile he swallows, hid behind this door.
Down in his gut the venom churns and swells.
He wrings himself out like a dirty rag.

 

V. 2, #42: May 9, 2013

Jocephus String is loose as anything;
He shapes his limbs and joints with just his thoughts.
Of all contortionists, Jo ranks as king.
You ought to see him tie himself in knots!

His sideshow colleagues hardly think it's fair
How he can twist his spine into a braid,
Or fix his arms and legs into a square
As tight as any Boy Scout could have made.

His finger nooses never lose their bite;
His Flemish Shin Bend goes without a Hitch.
As for his "Manly Slipknot"--it's a sight
to see. That's why he's so well-known, and rich.

He's got a fiancee named Cindy Snow,
Who says he makes the most delightful beau.

 

V. 2, #41: May 8, 2013

The flood caught everybody by surprise.
One moment sunshine, gentle breezes, birds
singing their hymns; then almost before words
to name it could be formed, the western skies

exploded into darkness. Clouds rolled in
and roared as though in anger, dumping sheets
of rain on hissing asphalt, turning streets
to rivers, yards to lakes, as if again

the Lord had judged the world, His rainbow oath
forgotten in His wrath, and this time none
were marked for mercy. Rising waters swept
down gullies, drowned the ones who tried to run,
destroyed the homes of saints and sinners both.
We climbed up to the roof, sat down, and wept.

 

V. 2, #40: May 7, 2013

There must have been a time in ages past,
when hunters stalked with sling and stone and spear,
a curse that would leave modern man aghast
existed: there was no such thing as beer.

How primitive their lives, without a balm
to salve their apeish brains back at the cave!
No golden brew to make the savage calm,
nor help the fearful brute stand straight and brave!

Was Mankind's progress founded on the dream
of some magic elixir he might drink?
Were boozy bubbles topped with heady cream
the font of Evolution? Makes you think.

A toast then, to the race that tamed the beast
with bigger brains, hops, water, malt and yeast.

 

V. 2, #39: May 6, 2013

The dream he has is always just the same:
he finds himself inside the house alone.
Someone he recognizes, but can't name,
steps from the shadows, holding out a phone;

He takes it, holds it up to his left ear,
and listens as a voice he thinks he knows
says something unintelligible. Near
insane with murderous anger (why?) he throws

it to the ground. It shatters, made of glass.
The shards rebound and pierce his face and hands.
The air around him thickens, a morass
like cold molasses. Now he understands

for one split second everything he's seen--
but waking, can't think what it all might mean.

 

V. 2, #38: May 5, 2013

To ride a woolly mammoth would be fun,
Across the frozen tundra like a king;
Set antelope and bison on the run,
who never saw nor smelt of such a thing.

To harness Nessie like a motor boat
And waterski behind her on the Loch
Would be a hoot--I'd try hard not to gloat,
With Scotsmen gaping from the shore, in shock.

I'd have a Bigfoot be my bodyguard,
And Yeti for the bouncer at my door.
He'd keep the fans away who crowd the yard
to glimpse these things that no one's seen before.

At night I'd lay my weary head to sleep,
And count my Chupacabras, just like sheep.

 

V. 2, #37: May 4, 2013

Hands clamped around the wheel as if Grim Death
were coming up fast in the passing lane,
he pushed the pedal down, near half insane
with fiery wrath against her. Every breath

was laden with a curse most inhumane,
as pictures of their bodies intertwined,
the P.I.'s glossy photos, underlined
and time-stamped, fired the furnace of his brain.

Not soon enough, he would stand in the door
of that venomous snake he'd called his friend
and partner, watch the blood drain from his face
while she would only scream. A moment more,
and he, the last alive, would torch the place,
then eat his gat. And that would be the end.

 

V. 2, #36: May 3, 2013

The cold wind slithers through the Johnson grass
and hisses as if every fibrous blade
had cut it deep. A traveler might pass
and wonder what rough beast lies in the glade

so wounded and ferocious. Overhead,
gray clouds turn lucent from the hidden moon
and cast on living skin the pall of dead
but walking things. Some ancient, mystic rune

engraved decades ago on Palmer's Rock--
which stands the meadow's sentinel, alone
--glows most unnaturally (as if to mock
an absent God), the shade of polished bone.

It's said at midnight haunting music plays
and spirits speak. But no one ever stays.

 

V. 2, #35: May 2, 2013

Brunhilda was the girl who lived upstairs--
abusive father, mother disinclined
to intervene. They woke one day to find
her bath run red--she'd bled out all her cares.

The basement was the home of young Clarice,
who had no problems anyone could see--
found dangling from the age-scarred apple tree
out front. Her note read simply, "Grant me peace."

And now, though life had placed the two apart
by three warped floors and more than sixty years,
it seems each lonely soul has found its friend:
dark footsteps down and up the stairs portend
long nights of echoed whispers, laughs, and tears,
and childish games that never meet their end.

 

V. 2, #34: May 1, 2013

A bad taste at the back of my sick throat,
as if the Toad of My Most Loathsome Thoughts
were squatting there to rub his slimy bloat
against my tongue's most pink, receptive dots;

Or rather if the Sewage Treatment types
who purify the gurglings of my Id
have not repaired the rusted, leaky pipes
that bear the filth away. ("Tough cookies, kid.")

There must be scientific terms to name
the foulness trickling toward my stomach wall
and reasons for its flavor; just the same,
I'd much prefer it not exist at all.

But no--I'll keep on gulping down the crap
until my white blood cells shut off the tap.

 

V. 2, #34: April 30, 2013

The Muse might not take sick days when she's ill,
but her poor servants are not born of Zeus.
We cannot of ambrosia drink our fill
and feel all better. When the phlegm cuts loose,

And poets bark like Cerberus in  Hell
to clear their mucous-riddled Pipes of Pan,
it will take more than verse to make them well--
Asclepius cannot, but Tussin can.

So put a warm compress upon your head,
you versifier. Sip some lemon tea.
Set by your quill; take two of these instead.
Get lots of rest--just read or watch TV.

A day or two and you'll be right as rain,
and maybe fit for poetry again.

 

V. 2, #33: April 29, 2013

Not every day will make a feller glad
He put his big clodhoppers to the floor;
There's plenty sad-dog days he'll wisht he had
Not cast his pear-shaped shadow on the door.

Sometime too hot the Eye of Heaven shines,
And gives a man a sunburn on his head;
Some days are only swerves with no straight lines,
Such as rewards the ones what stood in bed.

And yet we keep on rising with the sun
To pass our hours in turmoil, sweat, and strife,
In hopes this day will be a better one
Than that which come before it. Such is life.

A blind hog roots an acorn now and then;
Take heart from his example: try again.

 

V. 2, #32: April 28, 2013

With one month down, eleven more to go,
I'm feeling pretty good about it all.
They haven't all been great, they haven't all
been gems, but then they can't all be, you know.

But for all that, a couple have been fine
if I say so myself. No masterpiece,
perhaps, but halfway decent ones at least,
and all of them, for good or ill, are mine.

Sometimes I stumble over clumsy feet
(like dactyls or trochees), and sometimes rhymes
are near, or not so near. But there are times
when magically, my sense and rhythms meet.

Still, sometimes there's just nothing much to say,
and you get something like you got today.

 

V. 2, #31: April 27, 2013 ("Dizzy Spell")

Before the spinning world had settled down
to something like the staid solidity
I'm used to, and my consciousness more noun
than verb, under my feet the earth turned free

and liquid for a moment. Suddenly
the tilt of polar axis could be seen;
the house pitched sideways like a ship at sea.
I gasped and clutched the doorjamb, turning green,

when, just as quickly, everything grew still:
angles were thrown back perpendicular,
and Gravity asserted his one skill.
Less time than thought, and things were as they were.

Except that afterward it seemed to me
Prudent to view things more suspiciously.

 

V. 2, #30: April 26, 2013

I used to be a simple plumber, see?
Clogged toilets, leaky faucets, sluggish drains.
I never showed my crack. Not once. Took pains
for modesty (the overalls are key).

So when the weird stuff started, I just shrugged.
Sure, cleaning flytraps out of pipes was strange,
and turtles, mushrooms...still, it made a change--
I stomped 'em down to pulp, and wasn't bugged.

But then they had to go kidnap the dame,
and that was something I could not abide.
Maybe it's just that old Italian pride,
but I was steamed--my brother felt the same.

So off we went. The rest you prob'ly know.
Now, where's that tub you said was draining slow?

 

V. 2, #29: April 25, 2013

She knew we'd all been taught the same hard rule:
you never hit a girl, no matter what;
and with that fact came power--if she caught
a classmate jawing at her like a fool,

Her wrath was swift and ruthless: scratches, slaps,
and punches beat down on his head like hail.
Impotent and humbled, he'd turn tail
and run away, beg mercy--cry, perhaps.

We were just kids. I couldn't even dream
that someday I would have to bite my tongue,
sit on my hands while those I could not fight
stepped over my bruised head. Now, it would seem,
I owe her thanks. She taught me, while still young,
how to stay low, and keep my mouth shut tight.

 

V. 2, #28: April 24, 2013

Don't be in such a hurry to get older--
it's nowhere near what it's cracked up to be.
More rain in Spring, the Winter just gets colder,
and things begin to cost that once were free;

Adulthood seems a party never-ending
to kids who're forced to go to bed at eight,
but all those bills to pay, collections pending,
are what we fret about, and stay up late.

If you knew what I know, you wouldn't hurry--
You'd swing and hopscotch every single day,
jump rope and watch cartoons, and never worry
'bout anything but how much you can play.

You'll get to where I am before you know it.
So have some ice cream, kid; try not to blow it.

 

Happy Anniversary to The Sonnet Project

I just realized that yesterday was the 7-year anniversary of the first sonnet of The Sonnet Project, and thus the 6-year anniversary of the original project's completion. I'm still very proud of that year of sonnets, and am kind of amazed it's been so long ago since it all began. Here's hoping Volume 2 will give me the same occasion for pride, once it's done.

Oh, and also yesterday: the birthday of William Shakespeare--definitely one of the greatest inspirations for anybody still writing sonnets in English. Happy birthday, Will.

--SS

V. 2, #27: April 23, 2013

I'd know you even if God took my eyes:
my fingertips would trace your forehead's peak,
your eyebrows' line, your nose, your lips, your cheek--
such contours I would surely recognize;

In darkness I could reconstruct your face
from memory, a likeness true and sure
as any sculptor's skill. I could endure,
almost, the long blind years, with this one grace.

There yet may come a time you turn away
from me, my love, and never more bestow
your sparkling glance on me, your smile, your kiss.
Abandoned in the pall of that black day,
I'll build your shadow in my sightlessness,
And thank my vanished stars I studied so.

 

V. 2, #26: April 22, 2013 ("I Can't Get No")

If Mick grew discontent with girlie action
Back when he was as hot as ice is cold,
What hope have we for any satisfaction
When we are half as hot and twice as old?

It matters not what cigarettes you smoke when
Your hair's gone gray and wrinkles scar your cheek;
No girl will make a man who's tired and broken,
Whether he will or won't come back next week.

The chords of Time go strumming ever forward,
Much faster than Keith ever played guitar;
And we, like ships the wind is driving shoreward,
Break on the reefs before we cross the Bar.

Youth's music fades too fast; we mourn the loss,
Sit in our rocking chairs, and gather moss.

 

V. 2, #25: April 21, 2013

The world has never seen their like before--
abominations from a distant star;
They make Death, Famine, Pestilence and War
look tame--and they go by the name of GWAR.

Monstrosities bred only to destroy,
Balsac, Beefcake, and Oderus the Vile,
Jizmak and Pustulus--their only joy
derived from smoking crack and spewing bile.

They roam the earth, annihilating towns
with metal, figur'tive and literal,
rejoicing in the gurgling, dying sounds
of fans, the very Earth their urinal.

"What are you?" Mankind asks. "Demons or Gods?"
Cthulhu's Cuttlefish just smiles, and nods.

V. 2, #24: April 20, 2013

Someone is reading poetry tonight,
and folks are listening most attentively;
he's got a podium, a reading light,
a glass of water near at hand. To see

him standing in his spot, reciting lines
he birthed as painfully as any child,
the crowd has traveled miles, dressed to the nines.
They've ordered drinks, in homage to this wild

young worshiper of Euterpe, this odd
interpreter of universal themes,
this tireless troubadour, picked out by God
to shape the world through fevered songs and dreams--

While I count syllables and sip my tea,
in hopes that next year, maybe, he'll be me.

 

V. 2, #23: April 19, 2013

He was encouraged from an early age
to see himself as greater than the rest,
and took the training well--at every stage
of life, grew more assured he was the best.

No matter how his friends tried to convince
him otherwise, he knew that he was blessed,
especially approved by Providence
and marked for glory--till (you might have guessed)

One day another managed to upstage
him on the field; his world stopped making sense;
he crumbled inward, choked with fear and rage.
He wept, tore at his hair and beat his chest
and died. His simple lesson must be stressed:
Parents, don't teach your kids self-confidence.

 

V. 2, #22: April 18, 2013

Let's clean this filthy room--no arguments!
It looks like a tornado hit this place.
There's never been disorder this intense--
I bet this mess could be observed from space!

There, underneath the bed--what is that thing?
A sculpture made of dirt, or year-old fudge?
How long have these used plates been festering?
A scientist might test the mold, and judge.

There's laundry strewn around like autumn leaves
after a hurricane. Is that a sock
stuck on the mirror? I might get the heaves!
Except by now I'm steeled against the shock.

No groans! The time has come--lace up your boots.
I'll get some Lysol, and the Haz-Mat suits.

 

V. 2, #21: April 17, 2013

The honeysuckle waves its sinuous strands
at me, so near it almost seems to mock
my separation--like it understands
the glass between us, solid as a lock.

The branches of the oak tree softly sway
just inches from my face, bedeviling me;
and on its arms the squirrels bark and play
oblivious to all my jealousy.

It's cruel, almost, to let the sunshine flow
through windows that don't open, by design;
to torture office denizens who know
how near fresh air and Spring are, and how fine;

A few more hours to go till our release;
till then, you Lords of Nature, give us peace.

 

V. 2, #20: April 16, 2013

Today I want to think of pleasant things:
of flowers jeweled with dew and ringed with light;
hundred thousand butterflies in flight,
the shimmering perfection of their wings--

Let me have kittens tangled up in string,
and puppies gnawing on their masters' shoes;
Lt's play a game where no one has to lose,
nd nothing is at stake. Let's dance and sing.

Tomorrow there'll be time enough for hate,
for blackened bodies lying in the street;
or worlds where nothing can survive that's sweet
and innocent. For now though, let it wait.

Let me have one last day where life seems kind
Before the Truth forever strikes me blind.

 

V. 2, #19: April 15, 2013

Like Hamlet said, the readiness is all:
so rub the sleep out, friend, and be alert.
You never know when Chance will make the call,
so sitting by the phone's not going to hurt.

Clear everything between you and the door;
Lace up your shoes, stretch out your legs and calves,
hydrate, and wait, fingers pressed to the floor,
eyes up and open--don't do things by halves.

Stay tense, notched like an arrow in a bow,
and when you hear it, take off like a jet!
Maybe you'll miss it still, but not for lack
of heart. Life takes some things you don't get back,
and hesitation only breeds regret,
which is the worst. Believe me, kid--I know.

 

V. 2, #18: April 14, 2013

The color of the sky was odd that night--
a yellow glow sat on the eastern cloud
that covered Pliney Mountain like a shroud.
It wasn't natural. It wasn't right.

Jim Thompson's dog would not step foot outside.
It cowered in its corner, whined, and shook.
Melinda read a page from her Good Book;
Her sleeping newborn, Blake, woke up and cried.

Then suddenly, a preternatural gloom
flooded the sky, and everything went dark
Jim ran to get his gun, Melinda screamed
I, driven perhaps by some internal spark,
ran almost in slow-motion, like a dream,
and found the horror waiting in Blake's room.

 

V. 2, #17: April 13, 2013

This afternoon, it's just the two of us:
kids are away with grandparents or friends,
and we're alone to reap the dividends
we're due on our account of pent-up lust;

Let's rip each other's clothes off, feel the sun
on our unmentionables! Let's christen each
and every room, make such love as would teach
Eros a thing or two 'bout how it's done!

What's that you say? Come on, housework can wait!
No need to do the dishes now. Oh please!
I'll scrub the toilets later. Let's just--jeez.
No, never mind. It's fine. In fact, it's great.

You take a nap. I'll tidy things down here.
No, I'm not mad. Why would I be, my dear?

 

V. 2, #16: April 12, 2013

If things don't change, they're going to stay the same.
Inertia's more than simple gravity--
it weighs down thought and possibility
and causes cherished dreams to pull up lame;

Resolves to ash the brightest burning flame
and drowns ambition in humility;
turns fervent hymns to sleepy homily
in which things never change, but stay the same.

Kept fed, denied the hunt and liberty,
even the wildest beast can be made tame.
And after years of toothless lethargy,
he may not even mourn what he became.
Sit still, you'll find it's true, eventually:
If things don't change, they're going to stay the same.

 

V. 2, #15: April 11, 2013

With thoughts all dandelion down, my brain
flung to the four winds like a sailor's song
I sit to wring the ink out once again,
from wrinkled sheets of poetry. All wrong,

But like the sacrifice of Isaac, asked
to test his father's heart and check his pride.
I offer to the Muse this daily task
In hopes that when She pleases, She'll provide.

So let the wretched ink flow from my pen,
in Voynich, beautiful and meaningless;
If I keep at it, maybe now and then
a little treasure will my crimes redress.

Tonight I might have nothing fine to say;
but I will live to write another day.

 

V. 2, #14: April 10, 2013

This place should not be able to contain
your loveliness within its drab, gray walls;
as soon hold back the sea or stop the rain,
catch each blue diamond drop before it falls

and weave them all together in a veil
to frame the golden glory of your face
as, if I could, I would--and for your trail
I'd knit the silver moonbeams into lace.

But here fluorescent bulbs emit a glare
devoid of warmth, and rain can't penetrate,
nor moonlight shine. And so you must stay bare
of all these ornaments I contemplate.

A shameful lack, and one I can't correct;
it's probably just as well you don't suspect.

 

V. 2, #13: April 9, 2013

Decisions made without a second thought
Change you--a million possibilities
Are born and die with "Yes" and "I Will Not,"
Provide and rob you of such liberties

As you might never dream were yours to take:
That woman from Accounting you've admired
For years, had you delayed your coffee break
A moment, might have snapped and had you fired

For making eyes--a moment earlier,
She might have noticed your designer pants,
Said so, you'd pay a compliment to her,
And soon become her lover. Wicked Chance!

To show the paths we missed while unprepared,
And kingdoms we'd have won, had we but dared.

 

V. 2, #12: April 8, 2013

Don't think about it--just look straight ahead
and jump. Anticipate the upward thrust
of air against pure gravity, and trust
the panicked voices screaming in your head

Are wrong this time. If you believe your wings
can bear your weight, are more than clumps of wax,
some feathers, and a balsa frame--relax,
and put away such fearful reasonings.

You cannot think how Death perhaps awaits
below, his claws outstretched to clasp your soul.
Think only of the glorious azure sky.
For he is surely lost who hesitates,
and should you fall, at least you'll perish whole,
not piecemeal over years. Go on now. Fly.

 

V. 2, #11: April 7, 2013

So once upon a time there was this fish
(called Glubblubdub--but friends just called him Mike)
who had the power to grant a single wish
to any fisherman come down the pike;

One day a young girl caught him, using worms
(you prolly figured such would be the case)
and Mike, to save his tail, laid out the terms
to his amazed captor (whose name was Grace).

After a moment's pause, she shook her head.
"If you could grant a wish, why would you stay
like this? Why not become a king instead,
and rule creation till your dying day?"

"By George, you're right!" Mike said. "I'll do that thing!"
And this is how a catfish became king.

 

V. 2, #10: April 6, 2013

The girl, suddenly radiant, as though
in some god's ecstasy, began to sing
with no real melody. She started low,
the soft notes disconnected, wandering,

A young child's tuneless song. And yet we all
stood still and listened. She struggled to climb
to higher notes, a strange, hypnotic call.
The way her body swayed to keep the time,

Not metronomic--rather like a blade
of grass cuaght dancing in the gentle wind
before a storm. Then her crescendo, loud
and keening--and whatever spirit played
through her brought its weird music to an end,
while she stood mute, just smiling at the crowd.

 

V. 2, #9: April 5, 2013

Look busy--someone told me our new boss
is coming round to visit. Clack those keys!
He's said to be the kind who might get cross
to find his faithful code monkeys at ease.

Pull up a spreadsheet! Maximize it fast!
The more arcane the better--that's the stuff.
With any luck he'll nod and amble past,
convinced our current workload is enough.

Let's print him out a stack of fat reports
that would make Archimedes shake his head;
then we can surf the web, talk about sports,
and catch up on our Words with Friends instead.

I mean, it's not as though we're lazy slobs--
it's damned hard work pretending we have jobs!

 

V. 2, #8: April 4, 2013

Sometimes the storm clouds roll in like a train,
with thunder like steel wheels on iron rails
that throw off lightning sparks. Sometimes the rain
falls like a judgment. Other times it hails.

Sometimes the wind feels like it wants to tear
the clothes right off your back; the dry leaves hiss
and rattle like a snake. Sometimes it's fair,
the breeze as gentle as a lover's kiss.

Sometimes the sun beats down like it's perturbed
at all us crawling creatures here below.
Sometimes it leaves us cool and undisturbed.
(Don't even get me started on the snow.)

If you don't like the weather, wait a minute.
That's how it is in Arkansas, now innit?

 

V. 2, #7: April 3, 2013

The smell of motor oil still makes me think
of fish. My uncles pulling up the drive
with river water pouring out the back
of that flat, dented boat they always took
to check their trot lines; then they'd lug the chest
of bluegill bream and channel cat on ice
into the dingy, cinder-block garage

Where old petroleum mixed with the stink
of doomed aquatic creatures, still alive,
mouths gaping as in shock. The men would smack
the catfish with a mallet. Wrenches shook
on pegboard, vicious pliers bit down to wrest
the skin from flesh. The bream they'd scale and slice,
while I crouched down beside the bench to watch.

 

V. 2, #6: April 2, 2013

A few things I can do: brew my own beer,
change out the oil and filter in my car,
cook macaroni, keep the sink drain clear
of hairballs, and play mini-golf near par;

Strum half a dozen tunes on my guitar,
hold down a barre chord, sing almost in tune,
and belt it when I can't; find the North star,
identify the phases of the moon;

Define "frugivorous" and "picayune,"
recite Macbeth's "Tomorrow" speech by heart,
refrain from drinking whiskey before noon,
and finish almost everything I start.

Which may not seem like much, but that's okay
by me. It's more than some folks, anyway.

 

V. 2, #5: April 1, 2013

We never use the back room anymore,
not since the night Dave spent there, years ago.
Just what he saw I guess we'll never know,
but I'm no longer curious. That door

will stay boarded and shut. The keening wail,
the growling thing that scratches at the jamb
on winter nights--I do not give a damn,
just so it never learns to bend a nail.

I let Dave out that morning, afterward--
his hair streaked white, the blood all down his face,
those empty eyes. That was enough for me.
There's no one in this world who needs to see
what that poor bastard saw, hear what he heard.
Whatever haunts that room can have the place.

 

V. 2, #4: March 31, 2013

Hey, pardner! You--the one with mutton chops!
The lady said get lost, so let it pass.
Don't make me come down there and kick your ass!
Somebody's sure to freak and call the cops,

And neither of us needs that--least 'ways you.
(I figure you're no stranger to the law.)
So if you like the way God made your jaw
fit in its place, take my advice: go screw.

There's always one like you, can't let it be:
some rooster thinks his tail's the best in town,
till some other old cock spurs him right down
to blood and feathers. Friend, that cock is me.

That's what I thought. See, darlin'? He's all show.
Could I buy you--goddammit, where'd she go? 

 

V. 2, #3: March 30, 2013

Now and again, a sudden shift of clouds
will let a little sunshine in to chase
the shadows from the dusty attic shrouds
that cover up my memory of your face.

I pull the sheets away, and there you lie--
so still, perfectly frozen in my mind;
Love in your smile, and mischief in the eye
that long ago to me turned cold and blind.

There was a time our days were filled with light,
and all our nights with passion, heat, and cheer;
But now it's just this half-remembered sight
of you, preserved but fading, year by year.

And I, curator to lost love and lust,
pull up the sheets to save you from the dust.

 

V. 2, #2: March 29, 2013

The aliens aint' comin'. If they was,
I figure they'd of been in touch by now.
No circled crops, no mutilated cow,
no colored lights at night, nor eerie buzz.

The lines I chalked out back, straight as a rail,
to help them land their ships, done blown away.
And if them E.T.'s got something to say,
my dish ain't picked it up. The grade is "fail."

I thought they'd come. I scrimped and saved and planned
for when they'd liberate me from this dirt,
where everything is hate, and fear, and hurt,
and nothing good can be allowed to stand.

But now I know I'm stuck here, just like you.
I don't know what in hell I'm gonna do.

 

V. 2, #1: March 28, 2013

I feel like I've been powerless for years,
Or optionless, which comes out just the same.
All rooted in routine, stock still with fears,
Till choice is even less now than a name.

I've let the things I loved go slipping though
My grasp, like water held in shaking hands;
The days pass into months, and nothing's new.
And nobody I talk to understands.

I don't know if I've been dead, or asleep--
If waking resurrection's on the card
Or not. I just know things I thought I'd keep
Have disappeared, and finding them is hard.

I'm searching, though. It's tiresome and it's tough,
But something has to change. Today. Enough.

 

"Sonnet XI" by Pablo Neruda

I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.
Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.
Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day
I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.

I hunger for your sleek laugh,
your hands the color of a savage harvest,
hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,
I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.

I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body,
the sovereign nose of your arrogant face,
I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes,

and I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight,
hunting for you, for your hot heart,
like a puma in the barrens of Quitratue.

--Pablo Neruda

Where Have You Gone?

(This is one I wrote some time ago, but didn't post, for whatever reason. I found it in a notebook and thought I should put it up here before I lose it, as I don't think it's *entirely* terrible.)

Where have you gone? I've searched and searched for years
with no result. An obsolete e-mail,
an out-of-date address; the track gone stale
and no new clues. Still, no one disappears--

The world's not half as big now as it was
when Fate threw us together that first night
and we our bodies; touch and taste and sight
remain as sensual memory always does.

On college websites, Facebook--lost, I try
to find you, in my dotage looking back
to where the ghost of you burns like a flame;
I still can feel your heat, and hear your cry
of pleasure--then your form dissolves to black
and leaves me in the dark, Googling your name. 


--SS

Berta

You always kept some water by the bed
in case you woke up thirsty in the night.
I still remember that—and how the light
cut fault-lines through the glass. And once you said
you felt just like the white stray cat you fed
with scraps on paper plates you left outside.
When she stopped coming round, Lord, how you cried—
the water down your face, eyes puffed and red.

I think sometimes about the night you tried
to make me say I loved you—how the bright
blue tears stood in your eyes, where gold light bled
its heart-breaking refraction; how the sight
drew out my ugly truth; and how instead,
now knowing what I owe—I should have lied.

--SS

Happy birthday, Berta, wherever you are.

-----------------------------------
Original version on The Sonnet Project, December 29, 2006 (link)
Published at The Hypertexts, November 2008 (link)

"XVIII. Oh, when I was in love with you..." by A. E. Housman

OH, when I was in love with you,
Then I was clean and brave,
And miles around the wonder grew
How well did I behave.

And now the fancy passes by,
And nothing will remain,
And miles around they ’ll say that I
Am quite myself again.


--A. E. Housman

"Another Dark Lady" by Edward Arlington Robinson

Think not, because I wonder where you fled,
That I would lift a pin to see you there;
You may, for me, be prowling anywhere,
So long as you show not your little head:
No dark and evil story of the dead
Would leave you less pernicious or less fair --
Not even Lilith, with her famous hair;
And Lilith was the devil, I have read.
I cannot hate you, for I loved you then.
The woods were golden then. There was a road
Through beeches; and I said their smooth feet showed
Like yours. Truth must have heard me from afar,
For I shall never have to learn again
That yours are cloven as no beech's are.

--Edward Arlington Robinson
 

"Acquainted with the Night" by Robert Frost

I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain -- and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
O luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.

--Robert Frost
 

"I Have Longed to Move Away" by Dylan Thomas

I have longed to move away
From the hissing of the spent lie
And the old terrors' continual cry
Growing more terrible as the day
Goes over the hill into the deep sea;
I have longed to move away
From the repetition of salutes,
For there are ghosts in the air
And ghostly echoes on paper,
And the thunder of calls and notes.

I have longed to move away but am afraid;
Some life, yet unspent, might explode
Out of the old lie burning on the ground,
And, crackling into the air, leave me half-blind.
Neither by night's ancient fear,
The parting of hat from hair,
Pursed lips at the receiver,
Shall I fall to death's feather.
By these I would not care to die,
Half convention and half lie.

--Dylan Thomas
 

"The Frankenstein Poet" by Billy Collins

Pursued by the mob of townspeople
and the shaky glow of their torches,
he finds refuge crouching under a mossy bridge.

He takes a notepad from his huge jacket
and feels inspiration arriving
like a forking of electricity.

He fingers one of the wooden pegs
the doctor tapped into his temples,
little handlebars of the imagination now,

and his pencil moves in the darkness
to a jostling of vocabulary.

He is starting to write an elegy
for all the people whose bodies
are now parts of his body.
It opens with the eyes.

--Billy Collins
 

"Siren's Song" by Margaret Atwood

This is the song everyone
would like to learn: the song
that is irresistible:

the song that forces men
to leap overboard in squadrons
even though they see the beached skulls

the song nobody knows
because anyone who has heard it
is dead, and the others can't remember.

Shall I tell you the secret
and if I do, will you get me
out of this bird suit?

I don't enjoy it here
squatting on this island
looking picturesque and mythical

with these two feathery maniacs,
I don't enjoy singing
this trio, fatal and valuable.

I will tell the secret to you,
to you, only to you.
Come closer. This song

is a cry for help: Help me!
Only you, only you can,
you are unique

at last. Also
it is a boring song
but it works every time.

--Margaret Atwood
 

"Ethics" by Linda Pastan

In ethics class so many years ago
our teacher asked this question every fall:
if there were a fire in a museum
which would you save, a Rembrandt painting
or an old woman who hadn’t many
years left anyhow? Restless on hard chairs
caring little for pictures or old age
we’d opt one year for life, the next for art
and always half-heartedly. Sometimes
the woman borrowed my grandmother’s face
leaving her usual kitchen to wander
some drafty, half-imagined museum.
One year, feeling clever, I replied
why not let the woman decide herself?
Linda, the teacher would report, eschews
the burdens of responsibility.
This fall in a real museum I stand
before a real Rembrandt, old woman,
or nearly so, myself. The colors
within this frame are darker than autumn,
darker even than winter—the browns of earth,
though earth’s most radiant elements burn
through the canvas. I know now that woman
and painting and season are almost one
and all beyond saving by children.

--Linda Pastan
 

"Underground" by Seamus Heaney

There we were in the vaulted tunnel running,
You in your going-away coat speeding ahead
And me, me then like a fleet god gaining
Upon you before you turned to a reed

Or some new white flower japped with crimson
As the coat flapped wild and button after button
Sprang off and fell in a trail
Between the Underground and the Albert Hall.

Honeymooning, moonlighting, late for the Proms,
Our echoes die in that corridor and now
I come as Hansel came on the moonlit stones
Retracing the path back, lifting the buttons

To end up in a draughty lamplit station
After the trains have gone, the wet track
Bared and tensed as I am, all attention
For your step following and damned if I look back.

--Seamus Heaney

"I Have Not Loved the World" by Lord Byron

(from Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, stanzas 113-114)

I have not loved the world, nor the world me;
I have not flatter'd its rank breath, nor bow'd
To its idolatries a patient knee, --
Nor coin'd my cheek to smiles, -- nor cried aloud
In worship of an echo; in the crowd
They could not deem me one of such; I stood
Among them, but not of them; in a shroud
Of thoughts which were not their thoughts, and still could,
Had I not filed my mind, which thus itself subdued.

I have not loved the world, nor the world me, --
But let us part fair foes; I do believe,
Though I have found them not, that there may be
Words which are things, -- hopes which will not deceive,
And virtues which are merciful, nor weave
Snares for the failing: I would also deem
O'er others' griefs that some sincerely grieve;
That two, or one, are almost what they seem, --
That goodness is no name, and happiness no dream.

--George Gordon, Lord Byron
 

"The God Who Loves You" by Carl Dennis

It must be troubling for the god who loves you
To ponder how much happier you’d be today
Had you been able to glimpse your many futures.
It must be painful for him to watch you on Friday evenings
Driving home from the office, content with your week—
Three fine houses sold to deserving families—
Knowing as he does exactly what would have happened
Had you gone to your second choice for college,
Knowing the roommate you’d have been allotted
Whose ardent opinions on painting and music
Would have kindled in you a lifelong passion.
A life thirty points above the life you’re living
On any scale of satisfaction. And every point
A thorn in the side of the god who loves you.
You don’t want that, a large-souled man like you
Who tries to withhold from your wife the day’s disappointments
So she can save her empathy for the children.
And would you want this god to compare your wife
With the woman you were destined to meet on the other campus?
It hurts you to think of him ranking the conversation
You’d have enjoyed over there higher in insight
Than the conversation you’re used to.
And think how this loving god would feel
Knowing that the man next in line for your wife
Would have pleased her more than you ever will
Even on your best days, when you really try.
Can you sleep at night believing a god like that
Is pacing his cloudy bedroom, harassed by alternatives
You’re spared by ignorance? The difference between what is
And what could have been will remain alive for him
Even after you cease existing, after you catch a chill
Running out in the snow for the morning paper,
Losing eleven years that the god who loves you
Will feel compelled to imagine scene by scene
Unless you come to the rescue by imagining him
No wiser than you are, no god at all, only a friend
No closer than the actual friend you made at college,
The one you haven’t written in months. Sit down tonight
And write him about the life you can talk about
With a claim to authority, the life you’ve witnessed,
Which for all you know is the life you’ve chosen.

--Carl Dennis

"Ave Maria" by Frank O'Hara

Mothers of America
           let your kids go to the movies
get them out of the house so they won't
know what you're up to
it's true that fresh air is good for the body
          but what about the soul
that grows in darkness, embossed by
silvery images
and when you grow old as grow old you
must
          they won't hate you
they won't criticize you they won't know
          they'll be in some glamorous
            country
they first saw on a Saturday afternoon or
playing hookey
they may even be grateful to you
          for their first sexual experience
which only cost you a quarter
          and didn't upset the peaceful
            home
they will know where candy bars come
from
          and gratuitous bags of popcorn
as gratuitous as leaving the movie before
it's over
with a pleasant stranger whose apartment
is in the Heaven on
          Earth Bldg
near the Williamsburg Bridge
          oh mothers you will have made
              the little
                         tykes
so happy because if nobody does pick
them up in the movies
they won't know the difference
          and if somebody does it'll be
              sheer gravy
and they'll have been truly entertained
either way
instead of hanging around the yard
          or up in their room hating you
prematurely since you won't have done
anything horribly mean
               yet
except keeping them from life's darker joys
          it's unforgivable the latter
so don't blame me if you won't take this
advice
          and the family breaks up
and your children grow old and blind in
front of a TV set
          seeing
movies you wouldn't let them see when
they were young 

--Frank O'Hara

Note: column width limitations prevent me from showing what is probably the poet's preferred version with white space intact. To read the poem in that format, click here for "Ave Maria" at FrankOHara.org.

"Searching" by Billy Collins

I recall someone once admitting
that all he remembered of Anna Karenina
was something about a picnic basket,

and now, after consuming a book
devoted to the subject of Barcelona—
its people, its history, its complex architecture—

all I remember is the mention
of an albino gorilla, the inhabitant of a park
where the Citadel of the Bourbons once stood.

The sheer paleness of him looms over
all the notable names and dates
as the evening strollers stop before him

and point to show their children.
These locals called him Snowflake,
and here he has been mentioned again in print

in the hope of keeping his pallid flame alive
and helping him, despite his name, to endure
in this poem, where he has found another cage.

Oh, Snowflake,
I had no interest in the capital of Catalonia—
its people, its history, its complex architecture—

no, you were the reason
I kept my light on late into the night,
turning all those pages, searching for you everywhere.

--Billy Collins

"The Stairway" by Stephen Dunn

The architect wanted to build a stairway
and suspend it with silver, almost invisible
guy wires in a high-ceilinged room,
a stairway you couldn't ascend or descend
except in your dreams. But first--
because wild things are not easily seen
if what's around them is wild--
he'd make sure the house that housed it
was practical, built two-by-four by
two-by-four, slat by slat, without ornament.
The stairway would be an invitation
to anyone who felt invited by it,
and depending on your reaction he'd know
if friendship were possible.
The house he'd claim as his, but the stairway
would be designed to be ownerless,
tilted against any suggestion of a theology,
disappointing to those looking for politics.
Of course the architect knew
that over the years he'd have to build
other things the way others desired,
knew that to live in this world was to trade
a few industrious hours for one beautiful one.
Yet every night when he got home
he could imagine, as he walked in the door,
his stairway going nowhere, not for sale,
and maybe some you to whom nothing
about it need be explained, waiting,
the wine decanted, the night about to unfold.

--Stephen Dunn
 

"Insomniac" by Sylvia Plath

The night is only a sort of carbon paper,
Blueblack, with the much-poked periods of stars
Letting in the light, peephole after peephole ---
A bonewhite light, like death, behind all things.
Under the eyes of the stars and the moon's rictus
He suffers his desert pillow, sleeplessness
Stretching its fine, irritating sand in all directions.

Over and over the old, granular movie
Exposes embarrassments--the mizzling days
Of childhood and adolescence, sticky with dreams,
Parental faces on tall stalks, alternately stern and tearful,
A garden of buggy rose that made him cry.
His forehead is bumpy as a sack of rocks.
Memories jostle each other for face-room like obsolete film stars.

He is immune to pills: red, purple, blue ---
How they lit the tedium of the protracted evening!
Those sugary planets whose influence won for him
A life baptized in no-life for a while,
And the sweet, drugged waking of a forgetful baby.
Now the pills are worn-out and silly, like classical gods.
Their poppy-sleepy colors do him no good.>

His head is a little interior of grey mirrors.
Each gesture flees immediately down an alley
Of diminishing perspectives, and its significance
Drains like water out the hole at the far end.
He lives without privacy in a lidless room,
The bald slots of his eyes stiffened wide-open
On the incessant heat-lightning flicker of situations.

Nightlong, in the granite yard, invisible cats
Have been howling like women, or damaged instruments.
Already he can feel daylight, his white disease,
Creeping up with her hatful of trivial repetitions.
The city is a map of cheerful twitters now,
And everywhere people, eyes mica-silver and blank,
Are riding to work in rows, as if recently brainwashed.

--Sylvia Plath

"Charles on Fire" by James Merrill

Another evening we sprawled about discussing
Appearances. And it was the consensus
That while uncommon physical good looks
Continued to launch one, as before, in life
(Among its vaporous eddies and false claims),
Still, as one of us said into his beard,
"Without your intellectual and spiritual
Values, man, you are sunk." No one but squared
The shoulders of their own unlovliness.
Long-suffering Charles, having cooked and served the meal,
Now brought out little tumblers finely etched
He filled with amber liquor and then passed.
"Say," said the same young man, "in Paris, France,
They do it this way"--bounding to his feet
And touching a lit match to our host's full glass.
A blue flame, gentle, beautiful, came, went
Above the surface. In a hush that fell
We heard the vessel crack. The contents drained
As who should step down from a crystal coach.
Steward of spirits, Charles's glistening hand
All at once gloved itself in eeriness.
The moment passed. He made two quick sweeps and
Was flesh again. "It couldn't matter less,"
He said, but with a shocked, unconscious glance
Into the mirror. Finding nothing changed,
He filled a fresh glass and sank down among us.

--James Merrill
 

"A Bigfoot Poem" by Dave Bonta

would have nothing whatsoever
to do with, you know — those interlopers.
It would have, I suppose,
a cold mountain stream in it,
a rock shifting in the current,
the too-loud splash of a trout.
It would have loose bark
ticking in the wind
& a saw-whet owl’s discrete
requests for clarification —
that kind of persistence.
It would have the hush
when the crickets suddenly stop
& your pulse makes such a racket
you’re sure it will give you away,
you whose knees
are incapable of bending,
whose feet grip as much of the ground
as they can still lay claim to.
It would cry, that poem,
possibly for joy.
It would hiss.

--Dave Bonta
 

"Dracula's Housecat" by Anna George Meek

More lithe I am, and living,
than he who also hunts by night.
We whisper the fields where titmice quiver;
we sip black water from the kills.
I leap the grass blades, the air unsheathed,
moon the shape of my eye. He's quick
for a little bat, but I feast first:
mortality coils in my haunches.
I eat and bare my belly in bloodroot
to tease the lean eagles who desire me.
And still, the bat is suckling his corpse.
I would rip off his wings and roll his soul
immortally between my paws,
but he alone lets me in before dawn
to climb the castle drapes. Later,
I rapture in sunlight while he sleeps
in his box—which I have only once
misused. I love my warm body thrumming.
I love my delicious short life.

—Anna George Meek

"After Love" by Maxine Kumin

Afterward, the compromise.
Bodies resume their boundaries.

These legs, for instance, mine.
Your arms take you back in.

Spoons of our fingers, lips
admit their ownership.

The bedding yawns, a door
blows aimlessly ajar

and overhead, a plane
singsongs coming down.

Nothing is changed, except
there was a moment when

the wolf, the mongering wolf
who stands outside the self

lay lightly down, and slept.

--Maxine Kumin

"Wild Orders" by Jack Butler

Let me look on nothing like myself --
let me look on wild orders.
There are always wars at the borders,
there are always borders.

What keeps plant from animal but a name
hidden somewhere inside?
What keeps saint from murderer but a refusal
to accept the blame?

-- I came as close as any came.

O tongue of seeded flame,
O visitant of the rank and tattered petals,
let me be butterfly, or blank

as the heart of a star, heart of water:
come battering
the gates apart, lord hawk, lord frog, lord thing,
but teach me how to sing.

--Jack Butler



A great poem by one of my all-time favorite poets. Read more of Jack's work at The Hypertexts.

"I'm Really Very Fond" by Alice Walker

I'm really very fond of you,
he said.

I don't like fond.
It sounds like something
you would tell a dog.

Give me love,
or nothing.

Throw your fond in a pond,
I said.

But what I felt for him
was also warm, frisky,
moist-mouthed,
eager,
and could swim away.

if forced to do so.

--Alice Walker

"A Man Saw a Ball of Gold" by Stephen Crane

A man saw a ball of gold in the sky;
He climbed for it,
And eventually he achieved it --
It was clay.

Now this is the strange part:
When the man went to the earth
And looked again,
Lo, there was the ball of gold.
Now this is the strange part:
It was a ball of gold.
Aye, by the heavens, it was a ball of gold.

--Stephen Crane

Update, and Something New

So the Sonnet Project is done, restarted, and done again, but I still can't seem to stay away from the place. I don't flatter myself that anyone is still checking in here at all, though a few might stumble across the monument to past achievements it's become thanks to web searches for "bad sonnets" or some other vagaries of the Google. But just in case anyone *did* happen to wonder: I'm alive, physically if not creatively. I haven't written much poetry in the last several months, despite my desire to do so. I toy periodically with the thought of starting the Project yet a third time, but haven't had the energy or impetus up to now. Maybe that will change.

But until such time as it does: because blogging abhors a vacuum, I thought I might do something new with this space to keep it from sitting here disused and depressing. Over time I have collected a large number of poems that I like a great deal by people other than me, both online and in anthologies. Since I do love poetry even when I'm not actively producing it, I thought I could use the blog to share these with any readers who might chance to wander by. I also like the idea of discussing these poems and Poetry in general with any interested readers, or even just life, philosophy, and everything.

So anyway, that's the idea. I'll be posting one or two of these poems a week, either until I start writing my own stuff again, or till I run out. If anybody finds them, I hope you enjoy, and please feel free to comment--I'd love to get discussions started with like-minded folks.