Sonnettics

We close the subtle clarity of night
with days consumed by motes of dusty beams,
with visions of perception where our sight
subsumes the wrath of sunlight in our dreams.
The air exhaled from humid throats is not
the air we welcomed in with subtle hope;
while throats are dry, the words we breathe are hot,
constricted like a hangman’s dusty rope.
Come kiss my subtle mouth with grieving lips
of promises; I’ll pay you for the trick
of light that makes the word which simply slips
into the dusty air, congested, thick.
It’s love, the subtle whore of night and day
who laughs the most as she collects her pay.

One foot betrays the gravel, coarse with wet
communion of the clouds, electric sky.
If god could kill the walker he might let
the path remain betrayed, the right to die
would slip from god’s control into the stream
of footprints left depressed in muddy ground.
Ridiculous is god’s eternal scheme–
ridiculous, eternal fucking round.
One foot, one step compels the walk of one
who lives in bright denial of the night
where dreams compel the fear to overrun
the banks of god’s oppression, wrong or right.
As swift as water roiling toward his feet,
the one will find his drowning bittersweet.

Your tight, thin lips are drawn to kiss remorse,
regret, remiss should I neglect to draw
my eyes, attentive to your grip, of course
you only glance, one chance to see.  I saw
the years of sighs and days of driving home
alone.  So young, so old, so caught between
the lust that makes you stay, that makes you roam
to places where you pray to be unseen.
But 95 is long; July is hot.
I passed you north of Richmond, past the end
of everything expected, which you got:
a stranger’s passing glance, mistaken friend.
The rain is quickly coating both our roads
and miles ahead a thundercloud explodes.

. . . becomes the softest sediment below
the coldest lake of tears as pure as ice
when sanity has nowhere left to go
and drowning is the ultimate device
of metaphoric words which wait, and wait
in solitude of grubby notebook sheets,
the stillness of a rescuer too late:
emotionless, unfathomed, more complete.
She holds my hand as if it were divine
and strokes the skin above my solemn wrist
to signify her yet unuttered “mine”
as I succumb with just the slightest twist,
as rings of water ripple through the scene
while neither lover knows what loving means.

My son, there is a star men use to guide
their ships when other compasses have failed.
My son, there is a maker who’s supplied
the stars by which such men have often sailed.
There is a shore to every endless sea,
a harbor from each never-ending storm.
There is a place where you are meant to be;
in cold and dark, keep faith in light and warm.
In time a voice within will whisper peace
to guide you like a light in heaven’s vast
expanse of possibilities, release
your spirit into present, future, past.
When time and truth converge you will be one
who’s found his heart, my flesh and blood, my son.

It’s life; it’s not some sonnet I compose.
Ironic though, that words align in song
as easily as lying, I suppose.
Still, lies arranged in poems could belong . . .
unless the truth is deeper than the lines,
unless the soul is water in a well,
and poetry, the bucket that defines
the liquid verses drawn to quench and quell
the thirst for love that parches word and voice,
the love of words that sing a lying tune
of depth and sweetness, freedom in a choice
that’s pre-determined; poems end too soon.
But life is not some sonnet to be drawn
from any well while love still lingers on.

Lean back and let me choose another word
from thousands I could choose to warm your cheek.
Ten thousand times my meanings are deferred
into my arms around you as I speak
with poetry of pressing closer still.
A terrifying, intimate embrace
relaxes my locution and my will;
you turn to kiss the silence of my face.
This place was just a table, moved last year
to this secluded, arbitrary beach,
but now that you and I are sitting here
it serves to place our words within our reach.
Lean back into the arms of my intent,
beyond ten thousand words and all they meant.

The road becomes a passage of the wills
of twenty-thousand hearts. The strength to run
from Hopkinton, through Wellesley, Newton’s hills,
is paved into the legs of everyone
who qualifies determination’s pace.
The road, which may seem common to the crowd,
today exists for nothing but the race,
and common thoughts today are disallowed.
I join the road of wills, of hearts, of strength,
anticipating every mile’s toll
of sweat.  I am committed to the length
which quantifies the measure of my goal:
to finish strong in Boston where my pride
will feel the road with every single stride.

The waves insist on urging me along
Nantasket Beach, against the blowing sands,
without reprieve, without a siren song.
The wind is more insistent; she demands
my tears in horizontal tracks. My legs
ignore insistent waves, insistent wind.
I listen to the strand which almost begs
to pull me further, faster; I rescind
my ignorance of oceans and their might.
My memories of running on the beach
when I was young return to join my flight
across the dunes and places where I reach
inside my strength, like waves that urge me on;
I run until the wind and tears are gone.

Let’s float inside this cup of lukewarm tea,
pretend that we’re in love and kiss for hours.
I’ll sing to you and let you sing to me;
add sugar and perhaps I’ll bring you flowers.
I love the pinkish petals of the rose
on that ceramic wall behind your back.
Stay just below the rim so no one knows.
The tea is leaking slowly; there’s a crack.
Stand up and touch the bottom with your feet,
the party’s over; tea is everywhere.
I thought we had it all; we were complete,
but now we’re simply fools with matted hair.
Don’t leave my darling, leaves must still be read.
Come join me for some coffee now instead.