Sonnettics

That man they call her husband presses down
on her side of the bed in absent haste.
Her body, half obscured beneath her gown,
grows heavy in its apathy.  Distaste
draws lines across her thin and wrinkled lips.
He’s grunting like a bear that’s made a kill
as she ignores the spreading of her hips
and lays beneath the fucker, stony still.
He’s gone again and Candace starts to tear
his filthy linens from her wasted bed.
She digs a hole to bury her despair
and tosses in her soiled gown instead.
The absence of the man fulfills one need,
as Candace waits the month and hopes to bleed.

You rise too late; the dream will dissipate
while you uncross and cross your waking legs.
Your heartbeat and your breath are both too late
to make the ghostly solid while she begs
in wisps of words, your soul’s own memory
of sex between the thinnest of your sheets.
Unspoken, still you hear her ghostly plea
and waking, hope tonight the dream repeats.
Although you know it isn’t just a dream
you wait. Too late, your life will dissipate
and living death will be the death it seems.
Your heartbeat dreams and breath will soon abate,
while you untangle all your waking dreams,
and there she’ll be, exactly as she seems.

Tonight I die; tonight I am reborn,
an ancient rite of power, lust and grace.
Tonight I die by ancient secrets sworn;
tonight I am reborn to seek her face.
The moon obscures my thoughts with thoughts of blood
that pulses through the beauty of her heart.
The moon pulls every ebbing tide to flood,
and lovers pulled too violently apart.
The curse of separation is the death
of beauty hidden in the light of day
which waits for night to draw its living breath
and watches as the veil is stripped away.
She bares her perfect breast, her neck, her soul,
surrenders death and life to my control.

-for the Full Moon, and the coming of Twilight

You’re soft today in shades of morning’s kiss,
as soft as lying next to morning’s skin.
Inside the dawn of morning’s love in this—
this radiance of silk you softly spin.
And warm, my god, I feel the warmth of you
upon my soul, like heaven in your touch.
My memories of warmth, completely new,
convinced that warmth has never warmed so much.
To look this close into your waking eyes,
is more than I could ever dream at night—
the wispy morning blues of morning skies
that brighten like the blue of day’s delight.
And somewhere in the reverie of dawn
there’s music in a voice that lingers on.

Two steps into the unforgiving lake
I find my breath is stripped like naked skin
which shivers for the soul of warmth, the sake
of cold November waters found within
the warmth of early autumn in the lee
of winter, just beyond the fading hills,
like fading memories of you and me;
the shock of frigid water only kills
naiveté exposed by ignorance.
The comfort of my writing chair is not
the comfort I expected from this chance
confusion of the cold. It’s warmth I sought.
Again, it seems I’m waiting for the spring
to take away this bitter autumn sting.

In time the day subsides without relief;
it merely moves from light to gray to dark.
These grimy windows of my disbelief
pull shades of doubt to hide my human spark.
The sleep of death, the death of sleep, the dream
that waits regardless of ontology
plays out in what it is, not what it seems.
My question: not to be or not to be?
These eyes have been deprived of what they seek,
directed by my mind, my heart, my soul:
deprived by deprivations so unique
that nothingness would be a lofty goal.
In short, the day has passed devoid of grace;
once more I’ve missed the beauty of your face.

Oh doll, I whisper, holding up your dress;
it whispers nothing back in faded blue.
My hands are full of woven emptiness;
my memories are empty, filled with you.
Oh doll, I sigh; I’m thin and getting cold.
I warm the faded blue with sobbing breath.
Are you still young?  Am I still growing old?
My questions wear the fabric of your death.
The air is filled with orange shafts of light;
I’ve woken up ten thousand frozen motes.
The frigid day becomes a bitter night
which fails the symbolism it denotes.
Oh doll, I cry, and stain your dress with tears.
What more of faded blue? How many years?

I have no hope; I only have a dull
and pulsing pain that thinks it is my heart.
Between each tear that falls, a sullen lull
expands before a reverie can start.
The spine of my emotions has been cut;
I’m paralyzed: no joy, no love, no hate.
I sense the coming atrophy of what
was once my life: too soon, too much, too late.
I don’t believe in angels anymore.
The songs I hear are shrill and out of tune.
Perhaps they’re demons raging at my door;
my soul is theirs: too late, too much, too soon.
What flame will they employ when they have crossed
the threshold of my life where I am lost?

This sonnet is a follow-on to one written previously entitled Lost–Call To An Angel

Your kiss is more than simply lips to lips;
it’s more than pleasure passed with heated breath.
Your kiss is more than just a tongue which slips
through lipstick red as life and deep as death.
Your mouth becomes a passage to your soul;
the act becomes a breach of space and time.
It’s chaos gaining ground on self control,
and poetry surrendering to rhyme.
Then, as you slide your hand behind my neck,
while fever flushes red across my face,
my will is weakened first, then held in check;
your kiss becomes my solitary grace.
My world contracts and nothing else exists
except the perfect passion of your kiss.

Entangled roots smell dark, like secrets, when
I pull them from October’s musky ground.
The promises of April’s seeds and rain
bore fruit that drank the sun while they were drowned
in earth.  And now they only seek decay,
like secrets never told that have been torn,
acknowledged, smelled, then simply tossed away
with other roots and secrets yet unborn.
The ground will soon be frozen where they grew
and locked within December’s tomb of frost
remains the secret everybody knew;
the value of such knowledge will be lost.
One root becomes the earth while nourishing
another secret root that blooms in spring.

Audio of Scott Ennis reading The Cycle of Secrets