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- OLDER SONNETS -



Ford Rancheroback to top

My ford Ranchero is painted gray
There's a three fifty one under the hood
I put money into it every day
It is unstoppable when it run's good

I take it to the many Jaspers car shows
Everyone asks who owns this?
They look around and answer, who knows
Can it be his, or his? No it is his!

The primer not shiny but just right
The radio playing only the best music
The wheel's all shiny and very straight
I'm glad it's a Ford and not a Buick

The number of the horses under the hood
It can be heard all through the neighborhood

 

The Wonderful World of Sea back to top

Sea World was a glorious adventure
The talk was vivid about the walrus
Who was obscene and scarred my mind for'ver
The laughter was plentiful among us

And Andy and Andrew and Paul luck'd out
They got to rub a penguin's soft belly
He was excited, short and stout no doubt
Though the cold weather made the trip helly

The weath'r caused hypothermia all 'round
Hot pizza seemed the only salvation
We went on countless rides around and 'round
While Austin led us back to MASTation

Though nothing on this earth can ever quell
Having Shamu splash us well into hell

 

9/11 back to top

I remember the day of 9/11.
School was open just like any day.
Many people are going to heaven.
This image of this day will stay.
I think about why this had to happen.
Two buildings are falling to the ground.
As all the sky begin to blacken.
Many people are crawling all around.
They raise the American flag on the pole.
Fireman and policeman run around.
I see and feel the people souls.
The city is making many sounds.
It is very silent for many are dead.
Here I am and the future is ahead.

 

Time Creeps By back to top

Just two more months, that's not so long a time
To have to wait before my wife is here.
But every day feels like an uphill climb;
A single hour lasts longer than a year.

I sit at work and watch the seconds pass
Upon the clock that's mounted on the wall.
And as I stare outside, I swear the grass
Grows faster than the leaves die in the fall.

And in my bed at night, when I'm alone,
Frustration mounts - I know I have no choice.
It's not enough to hear her on the phone,
And listen to her disembodied voice.

I cry myself to sleep and curse my life,
And wake up one day closer to my wife.

 

Ode: To the Infinite, the Finite & Our Foolishness back to top

Life's bitter irony is that we believe we benefit
from that which gives us but physical, material delight
as though nothing exists except all that's felt, heard or in sight
while we fail to invest into what our need's desperate,
to concern ourselves with what really should count -- the infinite;
a mistake we'll continue till it's all too late, and despite
that the instinct within us we ignore is actually right,
regardless of the fact life's contents are so inadequate.
Yet knowing these truths I still stubbornly cling onto life tight
likely because only the physical appears definite;
my concern over the material prolongs my fight
a vicious mind cycle requiring a strong barbiturate --
as I place the Great Hereafter way behind the finite
since such skewed core values are but all that my mind will permit.

 

Don't Rain on My Parade back to top

Oh what a day this day has been today
The lovely flowers go on a parade
Oh no! It is to rain. What a dismay!
I feel like I am going to be betrayed

Oh why rain do you come from the clouds
falling from the sky will make us depressed
This will leave our parade in many shrouds
All of the crowds are getting distressed

"Oh No" they shout, but it must be stopped
The balloons, clowns, and fair goers go home
And the skydiver can not be dropped
The rain is about to begin to foam

But wait, is that the sun? It is, Hurrah!
Oh what a day this day has been today

 

"One day I met a boy..." back to top

One day I met a boy named Matt
We went to Carlos o Kelly's
He looked so cute in his clean white hat
but me and Jess had to pee

Then one day he broke my heart
but I still liked him even though
he hit me with a really sharp dart
and I thought that it was really very low

On Friday night were going out
with Jess and her man
he might not go and I will pout
but who cares I'm TAN!!

This is the end of this rhyme
and it was really a major waste of time.

 

Troydale, Pudsey back to top

The sun spills golden radiance on the trees
that clothe the distant hillside, leafless still.
The warmth has left the gentle evening breeze,
though ruddy skies suffuse the blackbirds' trill.
The scent of garlic flowers by the stream
rises with gnats, still hazing out their day
along the footpath, like a lazy dream,
from muddy path to track, then stone causeway.
Clogs clattered here, some sixty years ago,
in moonlit darkness, well before the dawn.
Bustling along beside the waters' flow
young girls, still children, to their labours gone,
where thundering looms enforced lip-reading skill.
Now, silent silhouette, sepulchral mill.

 

"My wounded heart still bleeds into the vein" back to top

My wounded heart still bleeds into the vein,
For poets, deemed immortal, I do heed.
Their precious words I've used to gild my pain,
And sacrifice myself in word and deed.

For all their words I've dearly bought in book;
These books I've read and re-read time and time.
And this eternal monument I took,
A soul that incarnates their golden rhyme.

It sparks and crackles, falls as dust and smoke,
The moth that flutters blindly to the fire,
Yet I arise a phoenix, flame my yoke,
Consumed not once but more (through blind desire).
I bear it when her fires burn my eyes,
While each flame spent doth multiply my cries.

 

To My Very First Girlfriend back to top


My very first girlfriend did not exist;
I made her up and called her Alice.
In the tender age of twelve's hormonal mist
I conjured up and wrought a graceful chalice
From which to drink and dream of love's delight,
Of tenderness and burgeoning desire,
Of lips so sweet, of amber eyes so bright
With trust and promise from a glowing fire.
Yes, love was warm when first imagined,
Warmer then perhaps than ever since,
For sweet fictitious Alice, fully fashioned
Came from the daydreams of a boy, a prince,
Roaming freely through his royal realm
With eager trust in Fate's hand on the helm.

 

The Watcher Within back to top

My watcher is out to observe
The what and why and how of things
Power of love, desire to serve

Master within who pulls the strings
Messy problems out and in
Ways and means to shed the skin.

Fight between the opposite poles
Balanced view of different goals
Amount of fun the players deserve
Need to check the passion springs
Drown in cravings frozen preserve
To transform the beggar into the king of kings.
My watcher with the well wisher beside
Is my one and only guide.

 

The Beastly Thinker back to top

My beast is out of the den
It is basking in the sun
The chain that ties its legs
To the age old rotten pegs
Is made of sugar and fire and tears
And devouring waves of imaginary fears.
My thinker is out to work out
Its gnawing everlasting doubt
Considering ifs and buts and could and should
Getting tangled up in the beastly wood
Forever wishing to reach someone above
Drinking its own blood of animal love.
The cattle pull and the ambitious push
Have ploughed to plant a peaceful wish.

 

"He's spent well over sixty years of life" back to top

He's spent well over sixty years of life.
He understands the foolishness of war,
is free of debt, knows how to please a wife,
has built a house himself, and owns a car.

Surprised the younger generations moan
at his suggestions, doubting things he's said,
he feels invisible. Quite like a stone
with no potential, weighted down and dead.

It passes through his mind that he should die,
eliminate the displaced space he holds.
Who needs a world of complicated lies,
or wants all wisdom dwarfed by youthful gold?

The twenty somethings in their cocky prime
still feel a need to strut in front of him,
as if they think the threat of valued time
will somehow cause their treasured youth to dim.

He comes to terms that obstacles survive
reminding him that he remains alive.

True Face of Love! back to top

Love's a mistake, it can never be right,
It can be as deep down as an ocean,
It can also be as bright as a light,
But at end it destroys your emotion.

People say love's a sweet poem of one's life,
And hence you look for the one in haste,
The "one" ends up breaking apart your life,
At end you see the time was a complete waste.

Now you see your heart has broken away,
But its too late as the one million parts,
Have scattered yet more across the day,
In the end the silence has broken hearts.

So now you know love is not worth a fight,
As you'll be alone at the end of night.

 

Job's Despair back to top

Sick of life, my home a nest of wild birds,
In ashes I sit and scratch my leprous skin;
I curse the hour at which I was conceived,
The day on which I was delivered, born.

For God has slayed my sons, took all I own,
And struck me with disease from head to toe.
My slave mocks me as though I were a clown,
And my wife shuns me as though I were a crow.

But what error, insult, or heinous crime
Am I guilty of? What sacrilege, what sin?
Look, I've been eyes to the blind, a stronghold
To the weak, a sanctuary to the orphan.

I dare Almighty justify my fate! -
His silence tortures me; for death I wait.

 

Dreaming While Crossing the Ocean at Night back to top

In Technicolor dreams I seem to know
that I can fly with ease as well as walk
on air. No wings, no magic suit, no glow
of pixie dust supports me; no one gawks
because we all are floating freely, bound
by nothing. Still, we understand quite well
that hearing dawn's first apprehensive sound
we'll fall again, awaking in a hell
of travel slow and steady over earth
in sheets of steel and thundering machine,
our gasping vivisecting tarmac berth
expelling us from wombs of gasoline.
But some of us remember that we fly.
We mock the birds. We know who owns the sky.

 

The Penback to top

To hold it like the pregnant thing it is
To dandle like a well acquainted toy
Or trust it as a conduit bearing, this,
A captured little thought, stillborn with no envoy.

To know it as companion to a row
Of words shyly struggling to emerge
Greeting the paper with intermittent flow,
Is to hope that thought, imprint and transference converge.

Whether images of melancholy, verbal fire,
Humdrum narrative, or rhythmic pandering -
Electricity generated, conducted through a wire -
The path of poem, hand, ink, paper, eye and understanding.

So enlightenment, of genius or fool,
Is realised by inspiration's marriage with a lowly tool.

 

"A painter-I'm not..." back to top

A painter-I'm not, but surely inclined
her portrait would drain accounts of crown jewels
if captured in some vunerable kind:
laughter, gloom, quiet, alert, are the tools

But who experience them one on one
unplanned, or in a tight group setting,
(will not find allure from an auction won,
which only captures one part true telling,)

will be one to remember long and hard-
by seeing with eyes and hearing with ears,
can understand her pure courage unscarred.
Yet if you listen more sensations rise.
These few words done without toll, reflect
what no fall predicts true, for you-Janet

'Stilnovista' sonnet, in D.G. Rossetti's translations' manner back to top

Dedicated to my friends.

Antonio, I wish that Steven, thou and I
could be by Mr Tambourine with spells
conveyed upon his ship, and where Love tells
and bids us to go, there we went on by.
And that would be companions in Love's way
that red-haired Dame who's my own sweet Mistress
our Lady Squaw with her light fancy dress
and Isis, married on the fifth of May.
That's what I'd want, that we, in pride of youth
could travel upon vast, marvelous seas
while the Great Bard sings his eternal song:
how happy would we be then, staying among
such glorious Ladies, in harmony and in peace
though they're no more than mirrors of the truth.

 

Passion XXIX back to top

I very often get much
Passion for You burning inside of me,
But rarely around, or unable to touch
You; I cannot share this passion with Thee.
I've found the only form of release,
Is to form that passion into thought;
Though the burning does increase.
Then — though tears are sometimes brought,
Words for those thoughts I then find.
Then, as I often must do,
Form a sonnet from those words in my mind;
In the hopes that one day I'll share with You,
The sonnet that I did fashion;
Thusly, sharing with You my passion.

For Merlin, Arthur, Schroeder, Elmo, and Arlecchino, with no rancor intended. back to top

How many times I've wished I were a cat
And had no great responsibilities
Save to track and torment th'occasional rat
And contemplate life's grand complexities.

Those times, I'd trade human accessories -
Grey matter and the opposable thumb -
To spend days smelling roses on the breeze
And grooming Me from tip of ear to bum.

To come and go according to my will
To play with string and think it sufficient
To lose awareness of the world's evil
Ah, then my time would be fulfilled spent!

Alas, I must a clumsy human be
And spend my days accommodating thee.

 

Flexible Aches back to top

My muscles reflex, constrain, and contain strength
They give me more to endure for what's in store
With prayer my focus is deep. I go the extra length
Cause hope does not open the doors
It slows me down, it speeds me up, like a coffee cup
My muscles are strong and fed to the bone
They lift, they push, they pull, they rub, they're grownup
Now all the people watching them are stoned
Amazed at the way they look, the eyes they took
Feeling grandeur I took my arm creating a bend
With a tool from the fitness center pen: hooks
Connect me to the machine giving me a friend
But this friend of mine gives me enormous pain
For everyday I wake in the same ole vain

 

Sacrifice of Love back to top

When I was just a small, small girl and yet
So wise to know how hard my father worked
I sacrificed and little did I get
His time divided and some duties shirked.

My eyes and thoughts admiring all he was
His muscled arms, his rough carpenters' hands
Work stole his time, because that's what it does
When you're a small child you don't understand.

I know that he loved us with all his heart
Worked hard just to feed his family of ten
He wanted them all to have a good start
All his time was spent taking care of them

The biggest sacrifice was his I'm sure
The love that he showed to us will endure.

 

A Winter's Tale back to top

Winter is the season for contentment.
Hearth ablaze, boots hung up, toddy in hand.
Soundless flakes fall, white swirls of shifting sand
on new life and forms that now lie dormant,
on fragrant firs and bells in merriment.
A monk's cloak of peace softly shrouds the land.
No other life here, no creed, class or band,
neither past nor future, just this moment.

Missed beginnings, buried lives, woeful end
Surely, winter is the time for lament?
Doors left locked, knocks unheard, boxes opened.
Some shed like leaves, others like paper rent :
matinee reruns of lost dreams torment.
The truth- its time not to reap but repent.

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