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 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

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

I. Contritio

I cast my eyes upon the stones and cry
more tears than there are stones to stop their fall.
The ground below the stones is parched and dry;
my tears are barren moisture, none at all.
Each stone, a backward step or some neglect,
now makes each step I take a harsh reprise.
But with no cause to be so circumspect
I drop and crawl upon my hands and knees.
This road stretched out before me is so long;
I only ask the strength to reach its end.
This road, a monument to every wrong
I caused to one who loves me, calls me friend.
A wretched man of guilt, I have a name;
my demons call it gladly. It is Shame.

II. Confessio

Forgive me, I have sinned: but this you know,
recipient of stones once in my hands.
I picked each one with care, designed to throw
by my design, my action and command.
I knew that each would bruise, would hurt, would break:
your skin, your bones, your precious tender heart.
O god! I knew the damage you would take,
and how your soul would rend and tear apart.
I’m dust; I’m less than dust, below the stones
for all I’ve done, for all the pain I’ve brought,
for each and every angry word I’ve thrown,
for each and every hard and careless thought.
Forgive me; I have sinned against the light
of love that burned so brightly through the night.

III. Satisfactio

I have no right to ask to be absolved,
to beg for mercy, bowed before your feet.
I won’t look up until it is resolved;
unworthy eyes should only view the street.
I’ll stay right here forever if the price
of penance is forever here to stay.
These stones for pillows ever will suffice:
a price a thousand times I’ll gladly pay.
Forgive me if I weep from time to time;
it means I’ve glimpsed some past or future grace:
salvation in some mountain I may climb,
a tear that tracks upon my dusty face,
some fragment of a hope I hope to see
in peace, in love, in you, perhaps in me.

And now the drone of words of visions hum
And lull the seeking mind to rest, to rest
For what is sought by words, by words has come
To soothe the restless soul which would be blessed
It takes the weight from shoulders almost strong
The weakness of its words a lattice form
And add a book of prophecy, a song
Then add another song before the storm
For those who sing in faith can bear the blast
Of truth and reason questioning their doubt
Where truth and reason die their tombstones cast
A shadow on assertions most devout
And in the glow of poetry is found
The silent vision wrapped in solemn sound

The dull and heavy day behind my eyes
rolls back into my brain to dissipate
as I prepare to sleep, while ghostly sighs
seep into empty places, punctuate
the pain.  I’ve swallowed pills to ease the pain
that tries to push the day into the night.
Oblivious to any ground it gains,
I simply shutter both my mind and sight.
It’s dark, but darkness comforts me like this
when wrapped within her numbing cold embrace.
And if her kiss is death, I’ll take her kiss,
though death may be another empty place.
But, if it’s an illusion, as it seems
I’ll soon awake within my solid dreams.

Part I

I wait, prepared, inviting if you will,
as blank as I can be to free your mind
from what distracts you as you seek to fill
my emptiness with symbols, line by line.
I know you call them words and hear them speak,
these symbols of the images within
your soul, your mind.  Forgive me, I am weak
and single in my purpose.  I am thin.
I wait to feel the scratch of something new
delivered by your hand and through your pen.
Compelled to take the marks, both false and true
and hold them for the eyes of other men.
I lie both still and flat in virgin white,
surrendered to your will in what you write.

Part II

I see you there in taunting nakedness,
your skin untouched as yet by any man,
aware of my discomfort, my distress;
I stare as if I thought you gave a damn.
Your silence mocks my hand as I attempt
to clothe you in the finest silks of thought,
if nothing else to cover your contempt
at all the lines of nothingness I’ve brought.
And yet at times I almost hear you sigh
as I begin to touch and to explain
the flow of conscious imagery I try
to coax to beauty, not, I hope in vain.
These words are precious children in my sight
created and conceived by what I write.