Sonnettics

There’s time for one more glass and then one more
as time begins to fade into the taste
of complicated sweetness which we pour
in timelessness, devoid of bitter haste.
Aromas gather slowly in the dim
quintessence of the presence of the thought
of lips that linger lightly on the brim
of sweetness and the essences now caught:
the musk of sunlight captured in the skin
of fruit from fertile vineyards far away,
the tang of inspiration from within
a bottled soul, consumed like night by day.
The soft and subtle glow of nurtured bliss
compels her to release a Riesling kiss.

With music.

He turned the fourteenth glass and said, “Begin.”
and I had fourteen minutes left to live;
and I had fourteen unrepented sins,
and fourteen people whom I would forgive,

and fourteen unread books upon my shelf,
and fourteen loves I knew I’d loved in vain,
and fourteen dreams I’d kept within myself
(the fourteen I’d most wanted to explain.)

But fourteen minutes quickly passed away.
I filled my pen with fourteen drops of ink-
the fourteenth glass had offered one delay;
and fourteen final grains retained the brink.

This sonnet flowed like fourteen final breaths-
the fourteenth line, the fourteenth grain, then death.

I am my song, my pulse, my turn, my scheme
If that constricts your mind then you should leave
I’m more than just a vision or a dream
In which some simple acolytes believe
And yet, I’m not a temple on a hill
I’ve seen too many temples come and go
To make pretenses which I can’t fulfill
Pretend I sound like somebody you know
I wear a modest dress, but I’m a whore
Reach just beneath the fabric and you’ll find
I’m rutting hot and eager for some more
You know I’m only fucking with your mind
And in the end I only give a damn
Because I am the sonnet that I am

Analysis:
“The Sonnet That I Am” is a bold, self-reflective poem that dramatizes the tension between the sonnet as a fixed literary form and the sonnet as a living, evolving voice. From the opening line, the poem asserts its identity: “I am my song, my pulse, my turn, my scheme.” The speaker here is both the sonnet itself and, by extension, the poet, declaring that the poem is not an inert structure but a heartbeat, a shifting rhythm of thought and emotion.

The sonnet challenges traditional expectations by pushing back against attempts to confine it—“If that constricts your mind then you should leave.” The voice rejects the idea of being merely a “vision or a dream” or a sacred monument, reminding the reader that too many such “temples” have risen and fallen. In place of reverence, the sonnet offers a performance of provocation and disruption.

Lines 9–12 are especially striking, as the sonnet adopts a startling metaphor: “I wear a modest dress, but I’m a whore.” Here the form insists on its duplicity—it appears restrained, dignified, and conventional, yet underneath it pulses with raw desire and irreverence. The metaphor turns the sonnet into a trickster figure, simultaneously seductive and mocking, capable of destabilizing the reader’s expectations about poetry’s supposed purity.

The closing couplet, “And in the end I only give a damn / Because I am the sonnet that I am,” brings the poem full circle, echoing the self-declaration of the opening line. The sonnet embraces its contradictions—formal yet unruly, modest yet carnal, traditional yet self-defining. Rather than conforming to an external standard, it reclaims its authority by asserting its own unapologetic identity.

Ultimately, “The Sonnet That I Am” is less about what a sonnet should be than about what it chooses to be. By personifying the sonnet as rebellious, sensual, and self-aware, the poet reimagines the centuries-old form as a living entity that resists domestication, embodying the power of art to surprise, challenge, and reinvent itself.

My legs are not my legs, they are my wings
The power of my horizontal flights
Although it’s true that birds are graceful things
They watch me run from simple jealous heights

My legs are not my legs, they are my wings
They split the rushing chaos of the wind
I love the sound it makes when chaos sings
A sound not even order can rescind

It’s true my feet are cadenced on the ground
It rises like a challenge to my pace
But quicker than they fall, my feet rebound
And like a wingtip, barely leave a trace

For gravity and I have drawn a truce,
And though it holds, I feel it breaking loose.

Rewrite of the following sonnet

My legs are not my legs, they are my wings,
The power of my horizontal flights
Above the pavement clouds. Such graceful things
As birds look down from simple jealous heights.
My legs are not my legs, they are my wings,
They split the rushing chaos of the wind
And push it side to side. Such striding flings
The eddied air awash and far behind.
It’s true my feet are cadenced on the ground
Which rises like a challenge to the pace.
But quicker than they fall, my feet rebound,
And like a wingtip, barely leave a trace.
For gravity and I have drawn a truce,
And though it holds, I feel it breaking loose.

I wake and find my sense of time’s surreal
I must have been asleep for fifty years
I guess a brain that’s broken never heals
I guess I should succumb to righteous fears

But righteousness is not a sense I own
My chronoceptors tick each time I turn
Perceptions I once planted all have grown
And now the fields of stubble simply burn

Though weary, I traverse an ashen field
In hopes of finding flowers; none are seen
It seems that nothing grows and I must yield
To aspirations striving to stay green

And though my steps resound like couplets rhyme
My journey bears the weariness of time.

My mistress is a city in the sun
She used to shine on miners, seeking gold
But gold was just the way that she’d begun
To Renovate her land to young from old

The old is just her history, gone past
It’s made her who she is, still bright today
She seeks for Renovations that will last
Not all her gold will change; not all will stay

The young who know my mistress know she cares
She cares for youth who Renovate her soul
She’s strong enough to sort her wheat from tares
But strength of youth is not her only goal

The biggest little city in the world
She welcomes all, with old and new unfurled.

I’ll sing about a King who had a Dream
When Justice lost her way, he gave her light
A light on which her two-edged sword could gleam
He helped her stand again for what was right

A King protects his people when it’s dark
He gives them hope and hopes it will increase
A King can raise a flame from just a spark
This King is MLK, a King of Peace

He told us not to wallow in despair
He quoted, “men are . . . equal,” as was said
In something which our Fathers did Declare
Like them, his heart was pure; his blood was red

Though others might believe his dream is past
His dream lives on, and he is free, at last!

*First posted on January 15, 2012

I wonder if we could have been our dreams
Or found, at least, a place of waking joy
But night is more than darkness, so it seems
And darkness seems to cover and destroy
I still remember waking in your bed
I still remember sleeping in your arms
Although the past is past, it isn’t dead
Nor are my memories of all your charms
I wonder if our dreams were simply wrong
Can dreams be wrong? Can any dreams be right?
I wonder if you’ll hear my little song
Or if you’ll sleep through life, a dreamless night
We might have wanted all our dreams to stay
But fate awakes us to a dreamless day.

When songs repeat the words you sang to me
I hear the words like pleasant little sounds
They all remind me how we used to be
And how it feels when memory rebounds
It feels like beating silver sticks on drums
Like blood that beats a rhythm in my heart
Such metronomic memory succumbs
To simple sounding words while we’re apart
The volta turns the words to little darts
That pierce the drum where rhythmic sounds belong
Like sticks or stones that break unguarded hearts
I left my heart unguarded to your song
The ebb and flow of words are songs you sing
And waves are just the memories they bring.

The art of Fall succumbs to Winter’s paint
Like sand succumbs to gravity and time
It falls within the glass, without complaint
Like snowflakes or a couplet’s perfect rhyme
Time knows it’s just a wheel that turns around
It knows that Winter only lasts ’til Spring
And so it sprinkles snowflakes on the ground
Then turns and knows the moisture they will bring
When Helios returns with warming rays
To melt the snow and hydrate Mother Earth
Her seeds will wait through snowy Winter days
Until time turns to Spring, the time of birth
It seems like Spring was not so long ago
When time turns cold and coats the world with snow.