Sonnettics

To mark the life I think I live, I write
Reflections of reflections in a lake
To mock my life the words I choose seem trite
Reflected only for reflection’s sake
The surface is disturbed by rippled waves
The soul below is buried in the mud
The most illusive poems are the graves
I dig to warm the cooling of my blood
Oh yes, I try to dig within the lake
You laugh to watch the water flood my work
I cry to see the ripples that I make
Obscure the place I think my soul may lurk
But laugh or cry in pity or in spite
I think, to mark the life I live, I write

I tried my best, like autumn’s auburn leaves
To cling to spring or summer if I could
But found that winter offered no reprieve
And learned that clinging doesn’t do much good

The roots, the trunk, the branch gave up at last
And doing so they left me little choice
Their need for me was somewhere in the past
And mine for them, a dry unheeded voice

The west wind blew and shook me from my place
The south wind felt just like my final sighs
The east wind was a slap across my face
The north wind froze the teardrops in my eyes

Old winter came without a joyful sound
And I was dead before I hit the ground

These roots will make me sway, but not collapse;
they melt the wisps of visions barely seen,
distill their plastic nature and perhaps
such distillations sharpen what they mean.
Encapsulated beauty, fattened kine,
a place to fish where fish should not be caught,
all symbolize intentions that are mine,
although they all escape my waking thoughts.
These roots do not inflict me with desire,
like alcohol’s ambition, nor its pain.
They have no need of water nor of fire,
Although they bring the sun and cleansing rain.
And though we dream within the sleep of death,
in these I count the coup of waking breath.

Beneath the lake of god I slept for years
until my flesh was cold enough to feel
the heat within my veins, and heated tears
became a revelation to reveal.
Beneath the lake of god I heard the voice
of all the prophets’ dim and distant cries.
I dropped the book, a solitary choice,
and in my lightened state began to rise.
Then through the lake of god, its waters clear,
I rose and noticed suddenly how deep
the water was, and though I didn’t fear,
I wondered what had kept me fast asleep.
And as I broke the surface of the lake
I felt the air, the breath that I could take.

It’s night; it’s like a metal chair again
inside a concrete room with concrete floor.
The air is thick and silent, like a sin
that keeps you trapped behind a concrete door.
It’s night; you sit and stand and sit again.
You pace the dark, unyielding, dirty floor,
unswept, just like an unrepented sin.
You hear the clicking steps and locking door.
It’s night, and night is sleepless yet again.
You’ve curled up on a thousand sleepless floors.
And what you thought were dreams were only sins
that crawled you toward their locked and concrete doors.
It’s night, and so you sit and stare in vain
into the concrete darkness once again.

You’re dead because you haven’t learned to live,
to suck the marrow from the bones of life.
And if you resurrect enough to give
yourself a chance, like sharpening a knife.
Then life becomes the death of death, the time
between the birth of flesh and birth of dust.
And all the knives you sharpen seem to shine
or else they dull with oxidating rust.
Then breathe before your breath becomes a mist,
a cloud of trouble stitched to life and death.
And breathe the air as if it had been kissed
by something not less passioned than your breath.
And cut the ties you’ve tied to time with love;
and pray to god within and god above.

Her breath becomes her voice, becomes her song;
the air becomes a beauty to perceive.
She shapes it right where others shape it wrong,
and silent doubts give way to just believe.
My god, she pulls the life from where it starts,
directs it in its rise of fertile grace,
and time becomes the now her voice imparts
to fill the barren void of empty space.
Her song creates the world. Her song is joy;
it resonates like something like a soul.
Her song transcends devices some employ
like simple mortal poets, less than whole.
Her breath becomes her voice, becomes her song,
shaped right, eternal beauty all along.

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 perhaps or 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.
Is false still false? Is true no longer true?
If silence was the voice I’d always heard
then god was nothing more than just a word.

A thousand miles away the sweetest sigh
Of love and longing leaves her lonely lips
A prelude or a postlude to a cry
Accompanied by trembling fingertips
A thousand miles away I hear her hair
Brush gently as it falls across her face
The softest sound of which I am aware
A subtle sound she amplifies with grace
Nearby the howl of autumn winds and rain
Is deafening in all its autumn rage
A furious sound of cacophonic pain
Which struts and frets upon a noisy stage
A player poor I’ve chosen not to hear
And press the telephone against my ear

My hope is to be found when I am lost
In place or time, in reverie or thought
By my own will or circumstances tossed
Into that realm where wanderers are caught
Between confusion’s gate and some broad field
I see myself alone and turned around
The stars by clouds are suddenly concealed
And I am staring blankly at the ground
I need an angel’s prayers to guide my feet
I need an angel’s wings to guard my heart
An angel’s song would never sound as sweet
As when it’s sung while we are far apart
What hand will find my hand and be my guide?
What angel comes to stand here by my side?