Sonnettics

The truth is more than what is not a lie

A lie is more than what is not the truth

The words of gods are trinkets you can buy

I purchased some while I was in my youth

But now I see both truth and lie defined

I’ve found that trinkets fade and turn to rust

A waste of time with ignorance combined

Belief is faith in words one shouldn’t trust

They’ll take your money, promise you reward

But first you have to live their way, then die

The price you really pay, you can’t afford

Don’t sell your life for nothing but a lie

A lie is not the truth you find nor seek

And words are more than sounds the liars speak.

Her life was more than just a Silent Spring

A life of music lived with music heard

She listened to the songs the world would sing

The songs of every season, every bird

The daughter of a brilliant mother earth

Her sisterhood reminds us all to live

In harmony with Gaia of our birth

To take, it’s true that we must learn to give

We give attention to the songs we hear

That carry us to places we would go

And with our sister Rachel ever near

We find the truth of life in all we know

We know her life was more than Silent Spring

She led us on to question everything.

America, a place where all are free

To live a life of happiness by choice

America is home to you and me

To share the things we love with freedom’s voice

The voice of freedom sounds just like a song

The song of freedom calls to all who hear

It calls us to the home where we belong

A home where life and liberty draw near

Sweet liberty and life are things we love

Two rights with which we’re born, and one more too

With these, our future peace is like a dove

Of happiness that all of us pursue

America, we love the truth you share

With everyone: a place, a song, a prayer.

The words beyond the poetry are here

Just put your hand upon my sacred heart

Let’s feel the pulse of magic we revere

Let’s listen to the sounds beyond the art

Beyond the art is more than simple noise

Beyond the art the artist begs your leave

To share the reverent hope the world destroys

To share what fills that cracks of cracked reprieve 

The words beyond the poetry are gone

Before the pulse of magic leaves to beg

Before we find the colors of the dawn

And tack them down with some semantic peg

The words may be the pegs we find to use

The words beyond the poetry we choose.

I feel good morning, even though it’s cold
The warmth of coffee mingles with my words
I call them “mine” and hope they don’t get old
Or fly away like silly little birds

To fly away is freedom’s final gift
To birds or even quick poetic lines
The warmth of freedom rises as I lift
My coffee mug with other prescient signs

The signs of life will change from day to day
Like seasons change their warmth throughout the year
And yet, the warmth of words will always stay
And share themselves with those who stop to hear

I feel the words “good morning” in the light
That waited for this freedom through the night.

We’re free because we live where freedom reigns
We’re free to celebrate the lives of all
Let’s celebrate with beautiful refrains
Accompanied by those who hear the call

We live where folks are brave enough to serve
True service comes in many shapes and forms
Our celebrations recognize the nerve
Of men and women standing through life’s storms

Our town was built with strength and love and care
It stands, a model of it’s brilliant past
Our history is stories all can share
Our future knows the way to make us last

Our town is Hebron, watch now as we pave
A future pathway for both free and brave.

–Scott Ennis, July 4th, 2021

For times when my capacity is small
The neural pathways glide to comtrovee
I wonder if it threatens one and all
Of fleegunds in repooh confrasticly

Will flesh bespeak the hidden garlemphew
Will garlemphew return to days of creel
An accident of sounds the chawg renew
With irons dull by rotten lastig steel

True times will bind the hands with which we speak
We speak of words as if the gods will die
The strong will end below the waves that freak
The nouns and verbs on which the gods rely

It doesn’t really matter when they come
The sound of stains enhance a hardened scum.

Iambic Ladies


14 sonnets about 14 ladies whose names happen to be iambic, an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. 
Accompanied by AI generated pictures of each lady.



01-Colette

Colette arrives and tells me what she wants
Like heavy rain upon a metal roof
Her eyes are dark and still like raven’s haunts
Her look is one of arrogance, aloof

Colette believes she’s better than the song
Of simple sirens calling men to drown
She knows the place where all my words belong
And so she wears a haunting fitted gown

Her beauty is as dark as ebony
The forests of Ceylon invite her form 
A place where foolish men should never be
A place where darkened clouds become a storm

Colette does what Colette will do with me
Like hold my heart and never set it free.


02-Corrine

Corrine becomes a mist when nights are short
Like summer solstice, dancing where she goes
Her piercing eyes are like a sharp retort
I often wonder what her spirit knows

But I would never ask her to explain
The reasons for the words and looks she’ll choose
When floating like a mist of summer rain
Without the comforts other women use

What comforts her is still a mystery
Perhaps she doesn’t need the soft or warm
She holds her thoughts with quiet dignity
But speaks her mind like thunder in a storm

Regardless of it all, she lets me in
To learn the subtle secrets of Corrine

03-Elaine

Elaine is simply classic, simply bright
Like beauty that must be upon display
I’d paint her, if I could, with shades of white
But that dichotomy might fade away

I’ve never seen her fade, she simply waits
For you to notice every line and curve
She knows the form each line and curve creates
She knows her form is more than you deserve

She isn’t coy; it isn’t her intent
Alluring is just how she will appear
At unexpected times, like when she went
To places that I thought might trigger fear

Elaine is not afraid to be Elaine
She dwells beyond all thoughts of loss or gain.

04-Marie

Marie is a reflection in a pool
Although I know her touch is more than real
When I’m too warm, her touch is nice and cool
Like when I’m sick, her touch is quick to heal

Her healing touch can fix a broken heart
A lady and a doctor of amor
Much more than just an artist with her art
She seems to hold the key to every door

No door is locked for long when she will go
To find the things she needs or simply wants
Including things unseen that she would know
On streets that her reflected beauty haunts

At times I sense the wraith of sweet Marie
And know she knows that what will be will be.  

05-Cosette

Cosette can walk through fields where flowers grow
Without becoming lost in reverie
She’s always in the now, but she can go
To any place or time she wants to be

Like water in a river, she moves on
Like water in a lake, she may be deep
Like sunlight in the shades of dusk or dawn
The rainbow of her soul, you’ll want to keep

But she belongs to no one, like the sun
Her light and warmth are gifts she freely shares
The way the air is breathed by everyone
The way a field of flowers shows it cares

Each flower, like Cosette, will grace their field
And like Cosette their beauty is revealed.

06-Helene

Helene is not as simple as you think
And yet she’s not complexity at all
Perhaps she’s just confusion that will sink
Perhaps she’s innocence before the fall

Her will is like a subtle slant verse rhyme
It calls you in to memorize her form
But once you're there you find you’re out of time
And she becomes a deviated norm

Perhaps I met her when she had intent
And now she simply drifts from place to place
I don’t recall how many nights I spent
Just crying while wrapped up in her embrace

I told Helene how much she would be missed
I still remember all the times we kissed.

07-Bernice

Bernice believes it’s easy to be good
And yet she knows she isn’t in her mind
She leaves it on the table in her shack
I’ve seen the good she often left behind

She also says it’s easy to be bad
I’d disagree; I know how much it hurt
When we became the times we wished we had
And everything we said was mean or curt

But even in the worst of times we sang
A song of love, a song of fervent hope
She said she loved the music that I brang
She said it cleared her mind and helped her cope

When sweet Bernice finds goodness, all is well
It seems to be the good she wants to tell.

08-Danielle

Danielle enjoys the nights that fit her mood
And yet she isn’t moody in the least
She needn’t be invited to intrude
Intrusion is the dance before the feast

And oh that girl can dance the night away
It’s like she is the singer and the song
She takes you there and makes you want to stay
She seems to know just where her feet belong

The world is just a dancefloor in her eyes
And you can take her anywhere to dance
She’ll spin around and take you by surprise
But inly if she thinks she has a chance

A chance to bring you happiness as well
That’s just the way it goes with sweet Danielle.

09-Lucille

Lucille was once the answer to a prayer
She doesn’t think she was, but that’s okay
What isn’t broken doesn’t need repair
She isn’t broken; that’s all I will say

Her thoughts are often reveries of joy
And joy to her is more than just an art
Its life that all the living must employ
To prove that one is whole and has a heart

Her heart is where she treasures joy and love
I let her help me learn the joy she taught
She showed me how my joy could be above
Then said that I should leave it free, un-caught

An answer to a joyful prayer, Lucille
Too late I found the joy she would reveal.

10-Inez

Inez allows perceptions to evolve
Whatever you perceive is fine by her
I think that she’s a puzzle I can’t solve
She makes me wonder what perceptions were

Before I found her dancing in the street
Before she told me lies that were the truth
The lies she shares with me are quite discrete
They make me recollect the lies of youth

But when she turns, her volta finds its verse
The way chiasmus finishes, complete
Before my couplets go from bad to worse
She brings me dark perceptions when we meet

I often find Inez in lonely time
And find that her perceptions are sublime.


11-Joleen

Joleen is there to help me find the way
On paths that lead through places I must go
She seems to speak the words I cannot say
Although they’re words I like to think I know

I hear the sound of beauty in her voice
I see the form of beauty in her stride
I always know with her I have a choice
I know with her that beauty cannot hide

And yet, to know her now is not the same
As when I knew her presence in the past
She seems to know that life is not a gane
I wonder if she knows that life can last

It seems to last forever and a day
And thoughts of Joleen always seem to stay.

12-Lizette

Lizette prefers Elizabeth at times
But this is not the time for formal names
I love it when she speaks to me in rhymes
I love it when she plays her little games

Like begging me to keep her safe and warm
Or telling me to come back when she’s cold
I’ve seen her take a pure majestic form
She tells me things I wish could be untold

Like when she says her heart is just a cage
That keeps her love locked up from fools like me
Or how to read what seems an empty page
Within her book of joy or misery

Lizette defies most metaphors, and yet
Poetically I long for sweet Lizette.

13-Pauline

Pauline is more than meets the casual eye
She walks above the shadows no one sees
She nods but never stops a passerby 
Polite, but not obsessive, if you please 

She told me once that poetry was fine
She said that what I write is not half bad
But she prefers a full carafe of wine
“It's better than most poetry I've had”

I love to hear her happy little sighs
While walking where she thinks she can't be heard
I sometimes hear her practicing white lies
To share with all the other little birds

At times she speaks as if she was the Queen
Of course you are, your highness, dear Pauline.

14-Cherise

Cherise is not the same as yesterday
When I remember how she sold remorse
It scared more than I could ever say
Go ask her now. Of course she’ll say “of course”

With no remorse to sell, she turns to go
To find a way to keep what might be lost
She seems to bear a secret all men know
She knows the price sweet sophistry will cost

And so she’ll sell you nothing but a kiss
Then walk away and laugh until she cries
I never thought that she would come to this
The change you see is in her lovely eyes

Cherise has eyes that beckon sadness near
I wonder if she’ll have them still next year.

Coronavirus reared its ugly head
In 2020, all around the world
To fight it we’ve been told to stay in bed
I wonder who’s in bed all snugly curled

The Donald? No. He thinks that he’s immune
Immune from common sense and nothing more
I wonder if this bug will change his tune
Or if the Donald’s just a stupid bore

My social distance grows and grows and grows
At every news report of quarantine
It’s news of death-by-snot from someone’s nose
While toilet paper’s nowhere to be seen!

Coronavirus, what a lovely mess
And when it ends is anybody’s guess.

I don't know what it means; I just don't know.
Did I do something wrong, some kind of sin?
I'll tell you what I can; I'll take it slow.
Although I'm just not sure where to begin.

You know, He came and spoke to me each night
in Perfect Glory, stood there with His Son
above the floor in robes of brilliant white,
for twenty years or maybe twenty-one.

But not last night. His presence didn't shine.
His voice was mute; His Son was absent too.
I'm left without the water or the wine.
I haven't even got a fucking clue!

Oh shit, do you suppose He might have heard?
Or should I raise my fist and flip the bird?