Sonnettics

Tonight a small gray bird lay at my door
An omen in the way its feet were curled
It sang at dawn but won’t sing anymore
So, one more song is taken from the world
I wonder if god watched it as it died
Received its soul, its song, with loving grace
I wonder if the cat had been denied
If half the world would now be out of place
Irreverently, I kicked the bird away
To where it would be eaten by the ants
And only vaguely wondered when my day
Would dawn to such a common circumstance
I spent the night in quiet reverie
And stroked the cat which slept upon my knee

First Published on: Sep 16, 2008 @ 6:57

Her breath becomes her voice, becomes her song
The air becomes a beauty to perceive
She shapes it right where others shape it wrong
And silent doubts give way to just believe
My god, She pulls the life from where it starts
Directs it in its rise of fertile grace
True time becomes the Now Her voice imparts
It fills the barren void of empty space
Her song creates the world. Her song is joy
It resonates like something like a soul
Her song transcends devices some employ
Like simple mortal poets, less than whole
Her breath becomes Her voice, becomes Her song
Shaped right, eternal beauty all along.

Is this my life? It still seems so surreal
Who plans to turn reality to “sur?”
It’s just a word like blades are only steel
All words know how to split or else demur
My life depends on all that I perceive
Perceptions twist reality around
This volta is the sonnet I retrieve
Without my feet upon the solid ground
I guess I’m not a song; I’m just a turn
I’ve turned my life to rhythm and to rhyme
I’d turn it to a tree, but it might burn
I’d turn it to a rock, but that takes time
I don’t have time to understand the word
I guess that’s why “surreal” seems so absurd.

The trees at Wolf Run Shoals give peace and shade
To all the runners on the Bull Run Run
The food and water that we brought gives aid
To runners who’ve done more than just begun

The wind blows through the branches to retrieve
Its voice, and by its lofty voice, prevails
It tells a tale that no one would believe
Of runners who traverse these wooded trails

These runners run a race they won’t forget
They come to run for fifty miles of race
For fifty miles there’s power in their sweat
Their sweat contributes power to this place

The trees at Wolf Run Shoals provide their best
To runners and the power they’ve expressed.

Dedicated to the VHTRC for putting on a great race at Bull Run.

Don’t waste your time, or someone’s that you loved
When something’s over, don’t go looking back
Your heart was pushed away or even shoved
Such matters of the heart will fade to black

Don’t waste my time by crying on my shirt
It’s over now; you lost; who gives a fuck
I don’t have time to soothe what has been hurt
Stop acting like your wheels are simply stuck

Your engine is your heart with fuel called blood
Give power to your life; your path is long
Don’t sit with spinning wheels in greasy mud
In broken hearts, the engine still is strong

It’s wrong to waste your time with petty shit
Don’t wait for life; go live it. This is it!

I held a little rose, her soft, pink hand
She took two steps for every one of mine
We walked three blocks from Prince Street down to Grand
She made me read the names on every sign
We stopped in several shops to look at dolls
And several more to find an Easter dress
She asked me if I knew what “plams” were for
I told her that I couldn’t even guess
She smiled at my not knowing her new word
She gave my hand a squeeze then let it go
She fluttered to a window like a bird
Transfixed upon a pretty little bow
“Oh daddy, it’s the perfect shade of pink!”
“I love you daddy. Daddy, do you think . . .”

My words will live forever; people die
I guess that makes my verse immortal words
But more than words or some immortal lie
My life unfolds in quatrains, like three thirds

The past, the present, future are my song
My final couplet waits within its rhyme
A sonnet for a life may not be wrong
Iambically, I mark my metered time

I turn to paths I’ve chosen from the start
On similes and metaphors, I tread
They bleed within the beating of my heart
They bleed until, allusively, they’re dead

With stacks of books, the graveyards have been filled
They live, and yet some verses should be killed.

I thought the loss had left, but now it’s back
I guess it missed the anger on its shelf
The anger and the loss are gray and black
They stain the palette that I call myself
I paint the sky above a darker shade
I stain the fields I walk, with ash and coal
The colors of its flowers will degrade
Their petals mark the wilting of my soul
The loss is worse than weeds; its roots are strong
The anger is volcanic when it flows
I’d like to find the place where they belong
Wherever they belong, my sonnet goes
I think it lost its volta when it learned
That angry words which left, have now returned.

I wrote this sonnet to honor national poetry month, which is April in the USA.

I wonder why they didn’t choose July?
One day of Independence is enough?
The fireworks of poems in the sky
Could fill the month with metaphoric stuff
Like couplets that explode like brilliant flares
Oh wait, that’s just a simile, oh well
In quatrains, couplets often come in pairs
A month of Roman Candles would be Hell!
So April is the month they chose for verse
I guess most people think of rhymes in Spring
A month of rhymes or fireworks, what’s worse?
(That question is rhetorical, both sting)
Let’s take the month to focus on the art
Of words that come from each poetic heart.