Sonnettics

Enveloped in a mist, I watch her rise
more quickly than the light of each new day
accompanied by birds whose urgent cries
seem born to drive the morning mist away
She is not Venus riding on a shell
She’s not some mermaid rising on a wave
She’s caught between the heaven and the hell
Within a form of lust the lustful crave
Though mocked by all the farthest stars above
Whose light is fading fast within the dawn
She radiates a gift so close to love
That those who don’t discriminate are drawn
To kiss her thighs and kiss her sultry breast
As she traverses time from east to west

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.

Retreating snow is rushing through the stream
until it stops to crack the frozen stone
before proceeding on through winter’s dream
of alternating rhythms—if I’d known—
The sunless, mottled sky is still as gray
as death upon the barren, leafless trees
which wait in wisdom, wait until the day
when they will be delivered—still I freeze.
I know that spring is coming; it has come,
returned in glory, conquered every frost
of winter that has ever made me numb
to memories of warmth and warmth I’d lost.
Yet if I’d known, believed in winter’s end,
would I still freeze? Would I have lost my friend?

Asleep inside the warmth of nothing new,
I pause to find a word which might suffice
Although to pause the dream obscures the view
Sufficiently to fill the vision twice.
At first I find a window fringed with frost
To stare beyond and through into the night
And though the heat of movement paused is lost
The view below inspires me to flight.
And next I watch the window disappear
And feel the cold of night come flooding in,
And then I lean beyond the ledge to peer
Into the dark to feel the warmth again,
To hear the echoed songs I used to sing
And sleep within the pause the echoes bring.

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?

Specifically the rain on Palmer Road,
And every stride from there to Enders Farm,
Compels my sloshing Nike’s and their load
Like volunteers on hearing their alarm.
I see their trucks parked backwards in their drives
And wonder if those seconds ever failed.
I pass a hundred houses filled with lives
Of breath and blood and dreams left un-assailed.
I can’t imagine fire in this rain,
Except the burning muscles in my thighs.
And so my thoughts retreat to petty pain
As rain-diluted-sweat-drops fill my eyes.
At F-M High I push my mired pace
Specifically toward next year’s Green Lakes race.

The new nurse fumbled with the ultrasound
device. She pushed it like a cattle prod
against the curved, unmoving flesh, but found
nothing. I held my breath and panic. God
don’t let her die or be already dead.
The sterile room, unholy, and the nurse
pulsed with the nervous tension of the dread
of the unknown. My prayers have gotten worse
since then. My feeble, fetal spirit died
the same day that I didn’t hear her heart.
Predictably, we drove back home and cried,
not for the latent lump of flesh, the start
and end of life. We wept for all the days
ahead when we’d remember this one.