Sonnettics

I have no need to be like Bill, the Bard
I have no need to make my world a stage
I have no need to play the “writer’s card”
I have no need to be an empty page

I need to be ironic with my voice
I need to be The Word and Not The Word
I need to be Them Both by simple choice
I need to be a simpleton, unheard

You must be in the mood to read tonight
You must be more than just a nightly mood
You must be or you must not be too bright
You must be hops that’s waiting to be brewed

No need to be must be the sum of all
No need to be must be how couplets fall.

when god was just a kid he used to lie
he told his mom he flushed when he did not
he hit his little sister, watched her cry
yes, god was quite the wicked  little snot

one time i heard god shot his sister’s cat
he shot it in the butt to make it run
i wonder now why god was such a brat
and why he thought i’d think such things were fun

i guess because he put it in the book
the book he told the world was his great “word”
perhaps we all should take a deeper look
at things like this that magnify “absurd”

so god is who you hope will hear you pray?
he hears you, laughs, then turns and walks away.

If Moxie was a poem it would be
A sonnet like the one before you now
It lends itself to such tenacity
The drink became a word more wow than wow

The excellence required to be known
As one with moxie, like the wow-some drink
Is overhead, where countless birds have flown
Above the clouds that fly, that never sink

So fly with moxie; reach the heights you can
Don’t keep your moxie bottled, let it show
Your moxie is the mark of all you span
Your moxie carries you to where you go

A life with Moxie means you’ve lived it well
Your Moxie is a storied word to tell. 

I can’t believe the shit that sets me off
It’s like my fucking head’s a powder keg
The sparks are all around me; you may scoff
But wait until one lands, ‘cause then you’ll beg

You’ll beg me to be decent: I don’t care
My decency is mine and mine alone
You’re just a fucking spark; you’re everywhere
I should have listened, should have fucking known

I should have known my brain would never heal
I should have listened to the voice of doubt
I should have followed fantasy that’s real
I should have lit myself; who’ll put me out

Ka-boom! It doesn’t matter anymore
I guess we know what powder kegs are for.

Importantly you turn to face the thing
The thing that mocks your pain with gilded rage
It knows the words to every song you sing
Regardless of the way you flaunt your age

As young as any seed before it sprouts
As old as any wisdom in that seed
It knows the grief of all its ins and outs
It feels the callous charms of every need

Wait, wait. Go back. Go back to quatrain one
Lets talk of gilded rage and songs once more
A volta doesn’t mean a sonnet’s done
It only means that after comes before

Before the end of poetry we sell
The words that find their way to some new hell.

We wait for words like forests wait for trees
And when we’ve waited long enough, we speak
As quietly as honey waits for bees
A metaphoric jar will crack and leak

Our sense of equilibrium is spilled
In sticky puddles on a shiny floor
In time the time we sense can yet be killed
If killing time is what your words are for

Be quick if you must wait for words to pass
Be more than less, unless you’re anymore
Be anyone you want; be polished glass
Regardless, you can shatter on my floor

If love becomes a word that you must hate
Your words will grow as forested I wait.

The sonnet's Fearful Symmetry is found
Within both forests of the night and day
Where similes and metaphors abound
Where fourteen rows of iambs kneel and pray

The prayers of Fearful Symmetry compose
Pentameter that keeps the form in check
And thus the prayers are forested as those
Who twist their hempen cords around their neck

Alas, a volta turns to find a Lamb
Sonnettics Tygers turn to face the stars
A cry is raised: "I am, my God! Iamb!"
The spears are tears that find they're yours; they're ours

Then back to Fearful Symmetry we're brought
To learn the things the trashy rhymes have taught.