Sonnettics

My bones are rods of pain that prop my heart,
my legs, my lungs, and pieces of my brain.
I run.  The rest of me is wasted parts,
dead weight that dares my cadence to sustain
a pace marked by the time it takes each foot
to rise and fall like some iambic curse
that screams a perfect rhythm when its put
in place in paved, pedantic, measured verse.
The road becomes a sonnet which I write,
compelled to breathe each rhyme that sears my throat.
The road is black; my lines are thin and white,
compared to that which those before me wrote.
I stride to hide my tears within my sweat
and face the finish-line without regret.

My son, believe in love as I believe
and know that you may hold it soft and near
and sing to love of love you will receive
by letting go of doubt and every fear.
My son, believe the gift of life is joy,
the warmth that rises with the light of day.
And when a father holds his baby boy
the dark and lonely night is swept away.
My son, my love for you is not denied
by circumstance; it needs to be expressed.
My joy and love for you live side by side,
and by them both my life through you is blessed.
Believe in love and joy will fill your heart
and guide you well while we are far apart.

The park where we would play is still the same
as when we left it last. I still recall
the last thing that I heard—you called my name
Your voice across the distance seems so small
I smiled.  I knew we’d come again to play
in mornings when the grass was cool and wet
all breathless through an endless summer day
best friends on whom the sun would never set
It’s still the same regardless of my sighs
revealed by every year of memories
I feel it in the wrinkles of my eyes
and in the soft embrace of autumn’s breeze
I close my eyes imagining, and then
I hear you calling out my name again

The blades of neurons spinning in my head
have all run down their crystals in despair
Emotionless, each dangles from a thread,
each damoclean thought must now beware
If numb they might be wakened; they are not
Coagulated tendrils dry and crack
This dead organic soul begins to rot
My mind begins to fade to fade to black
Perhaps the field is green to mark the way
Perhaps the sky is blue to take me in
“Perhaps” the girl in pink begins to say
then laughs and in a dance begins to spin
And as she laughs and twirls I hear the sound
of wind that softly sweeps the world around

When looks come puzzled, honed with eyes of doubt
upon the unsuspecting child of faith
and pierce her neck and what hangs thereabout
and draw the blood from such a holy place
Who looks to look and not to see is blind
and kills without intention, still the same
commands the devil’s stare of unrefined
abasement, takes the devil’s filthy name
Her mouth endures the sweetness of her lips
with thoughts of love, pure love, behind closed eyes
Her hair, a veil that mingles fingertips
distractedly as she distracted sighs
Caught unaware in reverie by chance
by one with knowing fruit within his glance

Deliberate—each word she pressed in place
upon her shabby paper with her pen
She filled her lines with malice, left no space
and then she traced each letter once again
Self-satisfied she read her plan aloud
a gospel which she preached to empty air
Her voice became a veil and then a shroud
surrounding her with comfort, stripping bare
her soul.  The careful words she wrote and spoke
her words which swirled in spittle, blood and tears
released a soothing venom, made her choke
emotions giving rise to other’s fears
Her own now lost completely in her plan
to take revenge upon that fucking man

I hate the word; it robs me of my sleep
I hate the hidden secrets that it keeps.
It’s like a murky lake in which I’m tossed
And though I swim I’m still completely lost.
The clouds obscure the sun, obscure my view
Too blind to find the shore, and where are you?
I know that you are also in this lake;
Not knowing where is more than I can take.
I listen through the mist to hear your voice,
Although I know to breathe you made a choice.
You have to save your breath to save your strength
And so I swim the lake from length to length
In search of little ripples you might make
To find you here upon this murky lake.

By all the blood its clear she must have loved
him more than he deserved.  You see those marks
gouged out behind the door he used to come
and go?  There’s five of them, the fingertips
adorned with manicures she used to strip
the flesh from her own arms.  You see how deep
the blood has soaked into the wood beneath
the chips of layered paint that marks the years
of every time she tried to start again?
That pool that’s dried and matted by the chair
attests to how she’d wait while drip by drip
her love, both kind and patient, ebbed away.
And now coagulated, putrified
it only waits to be scraped up, removed.

forever means forever, not a year
if i should break and crumble far away
you’ll fix my heart and silence every fear
or simply wait and watch and hope and pray
until i fix myself, i always do
or if i go away i will return
especially when everything is new
and i have so much more of you to learn
forever means forever to my soul
beyond the comprehension of my mind
and though the body bears a heavy toll
the heart remained forever intertwined
forever is the only thing that’s real
but time’s the only place we have to heal

I’m lost again in hollow thoughts and dreams
It’s odd, I almost thought that I’d been found
I’m back to being twelve, or so it seems
When no one cared if I was not around
No friends with whom to wander field and road
No home where family welcomed my return
Alone and unaware I’d been bestowed
With that which thirty years would help me learn
That loneliness, a heavy hollow pain
Was all the gift of fate I would receive
In sunshine or in grand torrential rain
Regardless of the things I might believe
And now this darkened glass through which I stare
Reflects my tears, but no one else is there