Sonnettics

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

The dust lays thick upon this sterile moon
A million miles away from life and more
Debris of rocks meticulously strewn
Like flotsam on a long-forgotten shore
It’s lonely here, as if that need be said
And cold, although my flesh is burned away
There is no pain, of course there’s none, I’m dead
And now that’s said there’s little else to say
Except to leave one proverb for the wise
Or fools like me who speak devoid of thought
Or gods ambivalent to my demise
Or to the one I love, with whom I fought
A seed, a tear, a bit of fertile ground
There’s nothing more worthwhile, more profound

This one is like a pile of orange cloud
Obscured by dull apartments on the hill
It’s like the bluest sky that god allowed
Constrained within the confines of his will
It drags its feet across the perfect grass
Where just before the summer children played
It comes to stay but never comes to pass
This is the one of which I am afraid
I only want to hold my wife and son
Who seem too far away from me tonight
It isn’t done, my god! It isn’t done
It isn’t fair, my god! It isn’t right
This one consumes my solitary rage
And makes me feel a thousand times my age

The shades are turned so shadows dust their back
They drift and sway like dancers on a rail
One lamp is on; it’s trimmed in gold and black
It’s dim, as if its just about to fail
The room is cold; the night is hot outside
The air is drawn so tight it starts to hum
The pitch is higher than I can abide
My ears adjust by slowly going numb
I close my eyes and draw a deep breath in
And doing so I pull the air too tight
It tears within my chest as it grows thin
And dissipates the way a vision might
As I exhale I don’t repair the void
But nobody will know what I’ve destroyed