Sonnettics

I think we drank too much that starry night
Remember how we laughed ourselves insane
We held each other close, but not too tight
Professing love the wine could not constrain
I told you that it wasn’t just the wine
That nothing in my life had been as real
And nothing had, I swear you crossed some line
Some line I tried my whole life to conceal
It sounded trite; it sounds as trite today
And yet it was the truth, or not a lie
In eighteen years I haven’t found a way
To tune it out, forget, or to deny
Nor can I cross the lines which you have drawn
As you’ve tuned out, forgotten, and moved on

Security is such a plastic prize
It lasts forever ’til it’s heated up
Its dullness is displayed to be despised
And never shines like Liberty’s gold cup
Security is given, never earned
It has no champion, no “heroes proved”
You stand in line; they tell you what they’ve learned
And what from every bag must be removed
They strip you bare if that’s what’s been prescribed
From plastic towers by a plastic voice
Or else on plastic tablets it’s inscribed
And claimed to be the people’s holy choice
But towers tall we’ve seen can be assailed
And nobody can be forever jailed

Your wrist has almost healed where I restrained
The slap you tried to give me when we fought
I wonder now if anything was gained
Although I know it probably was not
I wonder why I said those words to you
“I just don’t care. I really just don’t care.”
And when you lunged I wonder if you knew
I thought that you might kill me then and there
That room will never be a place of peace
And now this house can never be a home
The intermittent doubts will never cease
And now begins the time we’ll sleep alone
Does every man who argues with his wife
Keep track of every single kitchen knife

Some star may be my home in years to come
A place where I withdraw to contemplate
The weariness of life and death and life
The brilliant cycles of eternity
But for today my home is here and now
This place where future lives are just a dream
A place where people’s eyes are blank and dull
And glazed by drugs or contemplating life
No star today is close enough to hope
That some small craft can take me safely there
And so I’ll stay here in the dullard’s realm
And watch the walking dead give in to life
Like them I’ll stare up at the darkened sky
And wonder when the stars will shine again

The sands of war smell sterile in the sun
Until they’re heaped upon the heated dead
They catalyze the stench of what’s been done
While covering the images of dread
The sands of war flash like ignited gas
When winds of chaos sear their clouds of dust
Which burn the flesh of everything they pass
As if the will of god declares they must
One hundred thousand soldiers would be brave
To spend a year upon the sands of war
A fool would put them all into a grave
Before admitting what he sent them for
But heated sands of war can also cool
And no one has to die for any fool

Your emptiness lies sullen on the floor
A ragged box taped up from end to end
It doesn’t serve a purpose anymore
Except to mark the place where you pretend
That god will give you gleaming gifts of gold
Because to ask for gold is still your right
Although it’s just a lie which you were told
A cardboard promise painted grayish-white
It sags where mold has spread across one side
It bears the marks of use and of neglect
It has a hole through which you look inside
Though never see the things which you expect
Until you curse this thing you used to bless
And wait for death to fill your emptiness

How firm is that upon which we have built
If when the house is cold the floorboards creak
Is that the sound of sublimated guilt
Or is our whole foundation truly weak
Perhaps my correlation is unsound
I don’t belong to any building trade
I only feel the shifting of the ground
When I’m alone or when I’ve been betrayed
Beneath the house, while guests are up above
I hold my hammer ready with a nail
Convinced that what I do, I do for love
Concerned that reinforcing too may fail
At least at last I’m firmly boarded in
And no one hears me cry above the din

Portrayed as light the story of the soul
Illuminates the reader of his own
He holds the glowing words without control
As every page conforms to what he’s known
Portrayed as dark the corners of the mind
Are like the rows of dusty dirty stacks
Where everything’s impossible to find
And shadows line the shelves and fill the cracks
Then who would write what no one else will read
Who demarcates the day, the night, the dawn
Who lingers in the twilight of the deed
Where action pulls him back or spurs him on
It’s everyone or anyone you choose
Who mingles with the gods or with his muse

The bees are tied up in a bag out back
The feeder they enswarmed is now entomed
Tied tightly in a pure white plastic sack
One moment they were free, the next were doomed
There’s still a chance perhaps they might escape
Although I can’t imagine how they would
The bag they’re tied up in is like a drape
Of death, a shroud, a white and airless hood
Their stings will die, a muted frantic buzz
Their unborn larvae dried within their nest
Their twitching legs will quiver thus because–
Because I thought to smother them was best
Like Caliban to crabs, I am to bees
Deride me and despise me as you please

So small to walk where giants make their way
Between the shadows laced with potent mirth
So small to shout them every other day
In hopes the sound will be of some small worth
Invite the world and just a handful come
And half of them are ignorant at best
Invite the gods but know they’re deaf and dumb
And blind, but most of all they’re unimpressed
You find a shiny pebble on the beach
Amidst a trillion grains of wondrous sand
Don’t think it’s out of fate’s persistent reach
Because it’s resting gently in your hand
Just throw it back into the pounding sea
And let it turn to sand, its destiny