Sonnettics

The road ahead is dark, but full of stars
It takes me to a place I’ve been before
A string of pearls, the headlights of the cars
A flash of shadows, trees, and nothing more

The hypnogog of speed and lights and dark
Propels me to an other-worldly place
My body and my soul both disembark
On trails of memories from time and space

The hum of traffic slowly peels away
Like pages of a book that’s burned to ash
The dust of desert night which once was day
Retains its heat like metal in a crash

Then SNAP! I roll the window down a crack
The edge is gone, the night has brought me back

As if transported to a quiet field
Where wind is felt, unheard, where life is green
A place of peace where love can be revealed
A hidden place, by vulgar eyes unseen

How frequently I go there on my own
And find impressions she has left behind
Within the greenest grass that’s ever grown
Upon the earth or in the human mind

How frequently she’s left some token there
Because she knows I wander in this field
Her fragrance lingers in the fragrant air
A charm to which she knows I’ll always yield

How frequently my joy is made complete
In serendipity’s wide field we meet

My hands would be content to be employed
With any part of you for any time
Remembering the spots they once enjoyed
Your willing thighs, your begging hips, sublime

My fingers feel the need to be caressed
Between your supple lips and by your tongue
They won’t be satisfied until they’re pressed
Upon that mouth whose work has just begun

And when my hands and fingers find your heat
In all the places touching you gives rise
The passion they’ve untied is incomplete
Though given voice in all your gasps and cries

While time becomes a door to love denied
We press against that door and come inside

The glow reflected in the puddled tears
Shed for a misplaced lover long ago
Is not some beacon left alight for years
Divine the surface now from what’s below
The shallow pool you stand in is your own
It barely bathes the bottom of your shoes
The light reflected there is yet unkown
But glimmers in familiar shades of blues
But if you leave, the vision is perturbed
By rippling time that always calls you back
Such tokens are so easily disturbed
By movements and the metaphors they lack
So stay my love and watch the light increase
And I will find new ways to bring you peace

My woman gives a gift of words to me
Each one she consecrates between her lips
She blows them from her mouth and sets them free
Or presses them from warm, wet fingertips

She draws her words from heaven and from hell
Aligns them with a will that makes me sweat
I’ve been aligned by her like that as well
I know exactly what her words will get

My woman wraps a bow around each word
As if it was her hair she’s tying back
The bareness of her neck has been infered
A revelation all my poems lack

Then on her gift of words my kiss descends
Ensuring that the passion never ends

I had no choice, I had to let her go
Yes, mountains can be cruel and cliffs severe
No arm of flesh can stop the final blow
Nor hold forever what we hold most dear
And so my hands grew weak and loosed their grip
I saw the terror in her eyes, the fright
My fingers felt the sudden subtle slip
Of skin I had caressed that very night
The space between us frighteningly grew
The gravity of life had come at last
Where everything you ever thought you knew
Is blown away by one cruel, final blast
And as I fall I send my love my love
Whose life is saved on solid ground above

Too brief to hold you naked in a ball
Your skin as hot as half the love we made
When interrupted by some duty call
Reality, the song we almost played

But then you cried and let me hold you more
And then I stroked your cheek and kissed your hair
The way you touched my fingers, such rapport
The way the light stood still within the air

I didn’t think I’d ever leave that place
I thought your tears would all be mine to dry
I saw eternity upon your face
I heard forever, softly in your sigh

The moment we created now is all
Too brief to hold you naked in a ball

Control, she says, and slides between my thoughts
Which bore no fruit, no word, no inky stain
To call a line, a verse for half a day
While I slipped in and out of reverie
Control, she says again and slides into
My lap, my papers scattered to the floor
My pen held loosely in my lazy hand
Her hand already pushing it aside
Control, she whispers now through “fuck me” lips
And slides her blouse without a metaphor
Above her breasts–I kiss her naked skin
I see a poem, but I hear her say–
You try too hard to write sometimes, my love
Tonight I think you should just let it go

I woke because the vision was unclear
Too far away the dream I wanted near
A dawn of beauty rising in the east
The dream ungrasped, the vision unreleased
At times an angel living in my skin
A softness and a passion welcomed in
At times like now a sun behind a cloud
A fire both undenied and unallowed
Alone I wandered words that would not end
Because my muse had others to attend
But trusting in her ever-promised light
I rose to face the morning and to write
And as the vision cleared from east to west
I saw the infant daughter at her breast

for Asia

I saw the sun explode behind the trees
At dusk, before I dragged myself to bed
I felt a surge of promised distant peace
But something else slipped in my weary head

Perhaps the shade of purple in the cloud
The sun had touched was just one shade too dark
Perhaps the distant rain fell like a shroud
Upon some distant lovers in some park

I know the vision that my eyes beheld
Was missed by many others on that night
As all the highest joys the scene compelled
Collapsed before the sun withdrew his light

From where I stand, such beauty should be clear
Unless it is refracted by a tear

rewritten as “Sunset” and sold on fiverr

I watch the sun set just behind the trees
At dusk, before I drag myself to bed.
I feel the promise of tomorrow’s peace,
But something else slips in my weary head.

Perhaps the shade of purple in one cloud
Touched by the sun is just one shade too dark.
Perhaps the distant rain falls like a shroud
Upon some distant lovers in some park.

I know the vision that my eyes can see
Is missed by many others on this night,
As all the love that shines on you and me
Shines on although the sun withdraws its light.

From where I stand such beauty should be clear
Unless it’s hidden by a lonely tear.