Sonnettics

I wish I knew how long this tiny hand
will cling to mine.  The lamplight overhead
reveals some fascinations which demand
investigation.  What was it she said?
She’s got her daddy’s legs. She’s right; they’re strong
enough to keep her balance on the line
between the light and shadow.  Is she wrong?
She falls into the light; the fault is mine.
I wiggle loose to see if she can stay
upright.  And yet she doesn’t seem to mind;
she crawls to her objective, straightaway.
She’s there and I am just a step behind.
She pauses to investigate, and then
she reaches up to take my hand again.

Audio of Scott Ennis reading Walking With Jonathan

You trade your kiss; you give your kiss away
to any stranger you decide to own.
Pathetic whore! I love you more today
than any stranger you have ever known.
I hate you now, like water hates the light
and bends it when it penetrates too deep.
So beautiful beneath the lake tonight,
in peaceful darkness where you’ll sleep, you’ll sleep.
My bed, so warm to welcome you, your ghost,
the memory of you beneath the sheet.
I almost thought you loved me then, almost;
refraction makes the memory complete.
You loved me then; you love me now, you whore.
So beautiful, your kiss, I love you more.

The leaves are hazy green at six o’clock
with dusty specks of orange here and there,
all unobserved while I commenced my walk;
I only noticed once I lingered where
my thoughts desired a bench to stop and write,
emotions culminated in a song.
I sat; the colors clearly in my sight
seemed pale and washed where once they seemed as strong
and bright as every memory of blue
when sunrise washed the darkness from your eyes,
a smile I thought I knew, I thought I knew
now tinged in dusty memory’s disguise.
But as I sit in reverie serene,
I can’t deny the colors that I’ve seen.

Beneath the waves of dreams, without a sound
there may be life, or just the chance thereof.
The seas of sleep are deep where lost is found
below the glow of starry skies above.
Your thoughts begging to float or else to sink;
the current of the night comes rushing in,
the taste of salt in every word you think,
the taste of guilt without the taste of sin.
The moon has turned to blood and still it pulls
the tides which mark the memories, unmade,
while morning skies begin to fill with gulls
whose screams obscure and dreams begin to fade.
Then suddenly you’re tossed upon the sand
to find the world is not what you had planned.

This urge to flex my voice in lover’s tones
will atrophy in whispers of regret;
unspoken rhythms course within my bones
with words of strength I’ve started to forget.
They rise in slow vibrations through my chest
which fills with inhalations from my past.
And when they should be forcefully expressed
they fall in present heavy sighs, morassed.
What future words will rise when these are gone?
Are poets to be prophets of their own,
to linger where their echoes linger on
and flex their lover’s voices all alone?
I wonder then if anyone will hear
my words, my voice.  Am I not being clear?

It came, a pulse of ecstasy in pain,
as strong as the endorphins often do,
although it wasn’t chemical.  My brain
took note.  My spirit rose, and then it flew!
My legs affirmed their strength beneath my will
by holding to their cadence like a line
of soldiers trained to battle by a drill
which repetition helps them to refine.
It came as unexpected as the clouds
that brought the rain that cooled my salted skin.
It came more definite than cheering crowds,
a voice of confirmation from within.
It came before the race was even done,
that moment when I knew that I had won.

These thoughts of my volition, waves and tide,
co-agitations, crash and surge my mind,
dislodge ten thousand pebbles, which collide
in jagged chunks of poems, unrefined.
I let the chaos churn; I could choose peace.
But god! I love the power of the sea!
I love how she engulfs, and her release;
I love the way she tastes while tasting me.
Beneath the surface, trembling like a child,
I dive into the dangerous abyss,
surrender to the grinding ocean wild
in reckless search for passion’s perfect kiss.
The Muse subsumes my will by her command
until I drown, until I too am sand.

The bluish glow through dusty, opaque glass
infused with the intent to soften light
suffices for the time whose time will pass
until your brilliant brilliance beckons bright.
Did I say “beckon?” Laugh.  I’m laughing too
at how I try to fit my blind desire
for what imagination says is you,
to what my aspirations all aspire.
I’m drunk on this idea that my soul
is like a spinning window, changing panes
from light to dark, the spectrum as a whole
is infinite; the barrier remains.
Perception’s filtered darkness lingers near
until you make it real. Come make it clear.

She looks for lonely driftwood on the shore
of once-upon-a-time within her heart.
The ebbing tide has flooded her before
but then receded, pulling her apart.
She lies like lonely driftwood on the beach,
half-buried in the sand by brutal waves.
There is no solid ground within her reach;
the nearest plot is filled with lonely graves.
Her sun-bleached love is smooth, but worn too thin
to build a home, a shelter from the storm.
Her trust is swept and leaning with the wind,
but far from her intended upright form.
But curious strangers always mill around
in hopes of buying anything she’s found.

Here’s love, she says, her hand outstretched and cupped.
Regret has pushed my chin upon my chest.
Her hand begins to shake, to interrupt
my reverie of guilt still un-confessed.
It’s yours, she says in syllables of fear
concealed in words of certainty and trust,
then sheds her aspirations with a tear,
a second one for me, a third for us.
She sits to give my silence room to stand,
as heavy as the crushing of a wave,
still cupped and still outstretched I see her hand
too small, too late, too justified to save
my soul. My soul is now completely sold
for wax and string instead of polished gold.