Sonnettics

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.

I caught a frog and showed it to my dad;
My dad was quite impressed with what I’d done.
He said, “That’s quite a frog you caught–not bad!
Although I thought you might catch more than one.”
So I went back and caught another frog
And then another, and another more.
I caught a dozen in a little bog.
I caught a dozen in the pond next-door.
I put them safe inside then went back out
To see how many more that I could find.
I don’t know what the screaming was about;
I didn’t think that anyone would mind.
I guess my mother didn’t want to share
Her bathtub with the frogs I put in there.