Sonnettics

I hate to sleep alone, but dreams will come
My lover will be in my sleeping sight
I love my lover dreams; I sleep like some
new vision’s beauty guides me through the night
I touch her perfect skin like she is mine
I know I’d never touch another so
My mind with lover dreams will help refine
my broken body misses her as though
her flesh compels my balance to be good
I never want to hurt again like now
I’ll trust myself to loving like I should
She touches me with songs of us and how
our love is pure; a love we always need
I love her song and how my soul is freed.

I find your mother's flesh so warm and deep
that I am sure my love will find a way
To make your body and a place to keep
your body warm until your birthing day
We pulse in heartbeat rhythm as we give
our selves to one another and to you
we come as one to feel our daughter live
our voices deep unite our warmth is true
Your life, conceived as we unite, we come
Our love is you, our daughter love unites
to form our precious baby love we hum
our spirits sing, their melody invites
Your cry, your calm expression in her womb
And we express our love within your room

This angel is my life or I’d be dead
The river Styx may not be crossed in pairs
she holds my hand and fears my bloody head
has cuts beyond the surgeon’s good repairs
but hers is not the surgery to do
her task is simply holding back the man
from crossing into death as some men who
get struck by cars against their every plan
she doesn’t know my name, nor do I know
the angel has a name, but I will learn
when blood, and tears, and dangers cease to flow
my heart will seek the angel; she will turn
into a girl of beauty, I will cry
to touch her hand again, we both know why.

For Kristine

I wouldn’t need to heal if I was whole
I’d still be whole if I had skipped that day
That day that I lost most of my control
Events occurred which swept it all away
Nobody needs to hear about my loss
I wish that I could lose this fucking pain
The money that they gave me, I would toss
If everything I lost, I could regain
And now I’ve learned, I used to be a shit
I want to be a better man than that
If irony is painful, this is it
I never knew that fate played tit-for-tat
Because I was a shit, I have to heal
Cuz pain can be ironic when it’s real.

I’ll bring you to the place we disappeared
again before the dawn begins to bleed
the memories of memories we feared
would take us to a time where we concede
concessions like the streaks of heated clouds
at twilight in the early summer’s heat
which over-shadows rushing cars and crowds
and underlies the grass beneath our feet.
The world is solid, built with concrete lies
between the roads that lead to other roads.
Suburbia contains the stifled cries
of dawn as morning silently explodes.
And this is where our memories are kept
within the walls where silently we’ve wept.

“This is the last sonnet I composed before my accident on 4/29/2010. You may notice a difference in my poetry after this date, due to the Traumatic Brain Injury I suffered.”

It hurts to bear the comfort of the fade
of memories invoked across the night,
against the warmth of summer, coolness played,
the pain of passion, burning fast and bright,
the hands upon the sweat upon the skin,
surrounding life and pulsing like a beam
of morning’s promise, lingering within
the comfort as it faded like a dream.
My voice is distant, further than the moon
which rises just as brightly, so I’ve heard,
on nothing; I misspoke my heart too soon
and faded in the comfort of a word,
while every fading night becomes a day
when you arise too many miles away.

She stands, stretched out in graceful strength before
reflections of her youth, her beauty, gold
becomes a dull comparison, no more
than something bought and something cheaply sold.
But this, extruded beauty, more than form
of youthful goddess dancing in her sky,
like gentle lightning, heralding a storm
of passion, like the thundering reply
of some obscure, humiliated man
who knows no better worship than his shout
which signifies his lack of any plan
but opens up his heart and lets it out
in freedom’s best impression of intent,
his passion is immediately spent.

There’s blood beneath my skin which gives me life
as close to death as strips of sharpened steel–
a razor’s edge, the blade of Abram’s knife.
My faith coagulates; I cease to feel
the cuts of barbed-wire fence, the jagged tear
of rusted metal scraping through my flesh,
the nails of Romans forcing me to bear
the intersecting cross of life and death.
It’s warm for just a moment as it seeps
into the world of degradation; shame
enlightens every second as it creeps
toward some inconsequential, holy blame.
There is no cup, no chalice you can drink
to pull you back from life’s eternal brink.

I take my wine to swallow my regrets–
prescribed too late for pain, but not for sleep;
affliction sharpens memory and lets
my mind reject what soul decides to keep.
I share my wine with everyone I meet
within the consultations of my dreams
of soft inebriations which compete
for my affection even though it seems
that all my perfect flesh is still alone
in desperation’s comfortable embrace.
And though I should have kissed you, had I known
that this would be regret, I would replace
my wine with all my memories of you
and trade your kiss for all I ever knew.

If I’m to be ignored, I’ll do it well
I’ll wear the clothes you bought me when you cared
And as you fail to notice me in hell
My comfort will be cold, but well prepared

If I’m to be ignored by whom I love
I’ll sing a song of love, more lovely yet
Than all the songs you sang to me, my dove
If I’m to be ignored without regret

I’ll polish brightly, all my hoops of steel
They never break; they never even bend
I’ll wear my lover’s chain to show I feel
And hold my head up high for you, my friend

If I’m to be ignored, I’ll do it well
With hoops of steel and pretty clothes, in hell.