Sonnettics

When Dreamland catches fire, all is lost
New Yorkers are no longer entertained
With nine alarms the park will feel the cost
And Coney Island’s dreams are thus constrained

Still biting heads off chickens on the pier
The Freaks and Geeks may try to carry on
But fire makes the brave New Yorkers fear
When Dreamland burns to ash, the dream is gone

Will history remember how they came
What used to be such fun is now a mess
Will Dreamland ever know another name
Like Nightmareland? That’s anybody’s guess

A metaphor for dreams that might burn down
Cuz Dreamland’s gone from old Breukelen Town.

If pain becomes a pretense, we’re all screwed
Delicious pain, like apples in a box
Pretentious apples everybody viewed
A key that opens doors that god unlocks

I see you’re trying hard to understand
The words that bring such foolishness to light
I know you think this isn’t what we planned
But foolish words are often what we write

The pain of words becomes a joyous art
It gives new life to nothing but the sun
This dawn of words is where the truth will start
When words become the painful truth of one

I’ll be that one if you decide to quit
And all the truth you see will turn to shit.

It’s like I’m only waiting for Godot
And yet to esperar is also hope
I wonder, does he habla espanol
Or is life just a thing with which we cope

(The slant rhyme in that quatrain works quite well)
“Godot” and “espanol” don’t really rhyme
But, wait for it, like heaven waits for hell
Oh yes, you know such knowledge is sublime

Sublimity is like a hungry cat
Sublimity will eat most anything
I watched one time it chased and caught a rat
Sublime, the song of death I heard it sing

So esperar sublimely and you’ll know
Sublimity is waiting for Godot.

(with apologies to Beckett)

Let's celebrate the day when ALL are free
Regardless of the color of our skin
A day where US is made of You AND me
A day that marks when endings can begin

Beginning with the glory of the sun
Tomorrow marks the solstice, but today
The sun has risen high for everyone 
It guides us on to find a better way

A better way proclaims all Freedom’s free
A better life for all to join the song
The song of Freedom, Truth, and Liberty
Come celebrate today. Come sing along

The nineteen day of June is just one day
But we are “Free At Last” the prophets say.

I bought a book that nobody checked out
It looked so lonely, sitting on the shelf
A million books encircled it about
And yet it seemed like it was by itself 

I wonder if it cried or even cared
I wondered if its title was too long
When lights are out, do lonely books get scared?
Perhaps my purchase-timing was just  wrong

I picked up and opened it to read
It seemed it knew what it was meant to be
I flipped through several pages at high speed
And heard it whisper quietly to me

You never know when somebody will find
A book like me to ease their troubled mind.

I sat and watched the fucking world explode
Ironic that I almost nearly died
I sat and watched the universe erode
Perception sat in front of me and cried

The sadness of mortality is this
Dichotomy lives on in simple time
It starts and ends with something like a kiss
With something common, something most sublime

Is there a god in heaven when we die
A god that lets the fucking world explode
Is there a kiss that isn’t just goodbye
Is life a simple dirty, dusty road

I guess it doesn’t matter what we feel
Reality is simply fucking real.

Memento mori filled with finite grains
Reminds us that the sands of time fall fast
'Til not a single spec of time remains
And ev'ry future soon becomes the past

The present symbols of our pending death
Present our eyes with what our eyes will see
And by the life we feel within our breath
We also feel the coming autopsy

Memento mori's volta is the sin
Of all creation, knowing Thou Art God
And knowing thus, I seek to enter in
To places where the words I write are flawed

The Word is God in Heaven or in Hell
The last grain falls; the tolling of the Bell.

The Abraham in everyone contends
With faith that brings us each the word of god
The word becomes a song which never ends
A harmony, unknown, unsung, unflawed

Dichotomy discovered thus is hid
In everything we elevate by prayer
It’s never done the things we thought it did
But thoughts are often hidden everywhere

We sense that time has passed when god is gone
But no one knows the place our god might go
If god withdraws, then everything’s withdrawn
And thus we speak the words we think we know

The faith of every Abraham is real
Dichotomy enhances what we feel.

As soft as thoughts of cotton in a cloud
She blesses words that fill the weathered air
With colors where such rainbows are allowed
And now I know just why she lingers there

As warm as life itself when passions rise
Beyond the metaphors of simple verse
She knows that trust may soon eclipse the skies
And stars might flare and fade as we rehearse

Rehearsal is a duty one might find
If duty were the purpose of her art
And we shall see, although we once were blind
And I shall clasp her gently to my heart

The strength of her is more than sweetened time
And she will be my final couplet’s rhyme.

When neural pathways stream from point to point
Their stream creates the power of a mill
And when they come to scars, such scars anoint
The pathway as it tumbles down the hill

The hill is just a metaphoric mount
Dismounted, I survived to think more thought
The pathways I create will surely count
As if they stood for something cheap I bought

Did I buy life? I know I paid a bill
A bill I was presented at the door
A door that opens outward on this mill
And once again I learned what cash is for

Again I hear the wisdom flood my brain
It flows in neural pathways, mostly sane.