Sonnettics

When songs repeat the words you sang to me
I hear the words like pleasant little sounds
They all remind me how we used to be
And how it feels when memory rebounds
It feels like beating silver sticks on drums
Like blood that beats a rhythm in my heart
Such metronomic memory succumbs
To simple sounding words while we’re apart
The volta turns the words to little darts
That pierce the drum where rhythmic sounds belong
Like sticks or stones that break unguarded hearts
I left my heart unguarded to your song
The ebb and flow of words are songs you sing
And waves are just the memories they bring.

The art of Fall succumbs to Winter’s paint
Like sand succumbs to gravity and time
It falls within the glass, without complaint
Like snowflakes or a couplet’s perfect rhyme
Time knows it’s just a wheel that turns around
It knows that Winter only lasts ’til Spring
And so it sprinkles snowflakes on the ground
Then turns and knows the moisture they will bring
When Helios returns with warming rays
To melt the snow and hydrate Mother Earth
Her seeds will wait through snowy Winter days
Until time turns to Spring, the time of birth
It seems like Spring was not so long ago
When time turns cold and coats the world with snow.

Absurd psychosis lets the id employ
Illusions and delusions in the night
And though they may be visions we enjoy
They may not harm our psyche, but they might
When metaphors become reality
Like poor Ophelia’s flowers by the brook
They blossom into life’s finality
In sleep we’ll see the their symbols if we’ll look
And when we wake, the albas we’ve enjoyed
Or nightmares which we fear have disappeared
The darkness, by the sun will be destroyed
Bright normalcy will dawn to be revered
Psychosis may not be our poem’s scheme
It might just lead to life, perchance to dream.

To ask a question, one must seek the truth
To answer, one must have the truth to share
Not like some rash and troubled, moody youth
Who wonders, “sagely,” who would fardles bear?

If death is just the end of troubled life
Who wouldn’t choose to end his life, to die
And if we burn in Hell to end our strife
Then joy in life must be a godly lie

Soliloquys are just some play-ful lines
Like bible words that say the Word is God
When Hamlet speaks, he mutters and opines
His blasphemy, and yet, we all applaud

If words are truth, and truth will set us free
We all should ask: to be, or not to be?

It’s true that I survived that awful day
But why I lived, I’ll never really know
Come say whatever words you want to say
They’re only words, and life’s a simple show
It’s simple in complexity like mine
Complexity is simple when we die
Like water that’s converted into wine
Or Death, who nods and simply passes by
The pain of life persists through time, unmatched
When numbness chimes like bells in towered nerves
My shattered bones have all been mended, patched
My poetry finds words my tale deserves
No day is worse than any other day
And life is just a word we find clichè.

It could have been the second paragraph
When something formed synaptically within
her heart. It could have been the second half
of this: “compelled to watch, itself a sin.”

She knew it was a story, thus, a lie
and yet, she let the story touch her soul
like god, who never gave her prayers reply
surrendering her will to his control.

The words were all familiar to her mind
Each syllable performed its rhythmic dance
the same as when the letters first combined
though different than her present circumstance

It could have been the second, or the first
that brought her to this literary thirst.

My aspirations wear a pair of shoes
That live in symbiosis with my feet.
They breathe and pulse; they absolutely move
When faced with miles and miles of empty streets.
My aspirations shake me from my bed
When dawn is still a dream or two away.
Much more than dreams, they’re hunger to be fed;
They’re deeds to do much more than words to say.
And when they’re faced with hills to climb, they climb
As if they’re lifting morning to the sun.
With rising strength their task becomes sublime,
As simple as an early morning run.
And as the morning sun erupts in fire
I feel the warmth of all that I aspire.

First published on: Sep 1, 2007 @ 23:02

I am an artist; I use words to create art.
My intent is to create beautiful art with the words I use.
I am not always successful in creating beautiful art with the words I use, but I have no desire to create art that offends people to the point of them wanting to harm others.
I know that recently someone created a film that was not beautiful, and was offensive enough to cause some people to want to harm others. Such actions are wrong. Certainly, people should not desire to hurt others because of the actions of an inconsiderate filmmaker, but the inconsiderate filmmaker should never have created something which was intended to upset others.
The words which Allah, the Merciful and Just, shared with Muhammad (Peace be upon him) through the Archangel Jibril (Gabriel) should be revered. Christians, Muslims, and Jews share many of the same words, prophets, and angels. Clearly we need to do the will of Allah, Jehovah, and God. Such will is neither to offend nor harm others.
I believe our ability to create is a gift which we need to use to create beauty, not discord.

I hear the voice of Jibril (1) in a song
He sings to me iambic words of God
Begin, believe, behave, become, belong
His voice rings out from Mecca (2) to Riyadh (3)
Begin the hajj (4) across the desert sand
Believe that I recite (5) His Holy Word
Behave as if His power’s in your hand
Become a healer like Al Imran’s bird (6)
Belong to Allah, Merciful and Just
The God of Islam, Father to us all
The Torah says He made us all from dust (7)
Sharia (8) saves the world from Adam’s Fall
I listen to the words of Jibril’s song
And find the place where all my words belong.

(1) Jibril is Arabic for the Archangel Gabriel, the messenger of God.
(2) Mecca is the birthplace of Muhammad, peace be upon him, and a site of the composition of the Quran.
(3) Riyadh is the capital and largest city of Saudi Arabia.
(4) Hajj is a pilgrimage required by all believers once in their life.
(5) Quran literally means “recitation.”
(6) Surat Al Imran verse 49, in the Quran, speaks of Isa (Jesus) performing miracles such as making a clay bird and breathing life into it.
(7) Genesis 2:7
“God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.”
(8) Sharia is Islamic law.

I sent this poem to Ali Gomaa, the Grand Mufti of Egypt, and received the following reply:

“Dear Scott,

Thank you so much for contacting us. We really appreciate both your support and understanding and we thank you for your beautiful sonnet. In fact Sheikh Ali Gomaa is always keen on building bridges of communication with world religions aiming at disseminating a culture of peace and coexistence. Unfortunately, as you stated, these heinous acts of bigotry aiming at inflaming rage and hatred jeopardize our efforts in building a better and harmonious world for all of us. We hope that the people of reason all over the world would stand firmly against these irresponsible acts to avoid such heinous events in the future.

We thank you once again for your kind letter and we hope you stay in touch.”

Don’t fear my soul; I only need your trust
It doesn’t matter what your heart believes
My death was like a covering of rust
That coats metallic feelings love conceives
I saw the legions dig for gold in hell
I knew that death was only for the poor
I paid my tithe to Satan when I fell
I shook his hand, then walked through heaven’s door
Cold chardonnay compels my soul to sleep
Valerian implores my soul to dream
I want to give you something real to keep
Like coffee, warm and black, devoid of cream
My soul is yours, come take it with my heart
If life is real, I’ll give you any part.

1 Taste (gustaoception)

When I was young, I learned to like a lot
The first thing I remember is the taste
Of cookies that my grandma often brought
Such memories will never be replaced

Like language that conveys the sense of sweet
Expressions, grandma’s cookies take the cake
Although the other things I’d sometimes eat
Attacked my tongue like some profound mistake

As I grew up, I learned at least to try
The things I never knew I might enjoy
And often I’d discover, by and by
My tongue was just a tool I could employ

To taste the treasures hidden in each meal
Or else, disgusting flavors to reveal.

2 Touch (tactioception)
3 Sight (opthalmoception)
4 Smell (olfacoception)
5 Hearing (audioceptiom)
6 Motion or kinesthesia (proprioception)

A Proprioceptive Metaphor

February 11, 2011

I will my legs to move; I want to run
But damn, they move too slow to call it that
They’re healing still; I know they’re almost done
My nerves are still unsure of where they’re at
Whenever I decide to move them fast
I guess for now I’ll have to move them slow
At first they wouldn’t move at all; at last
They move the way I want my legs to go
And yet, proprioceptors of my heart
Are deaf to how I feel; I want to love
Like learning how to run, I’ll have to start
With baby-steps; it’s you I’m thinking of
I’ll take it slow, but baby, I will mend
My heart and how it loves; I need my friend.

7 Balance (equilibrioception)

Feeling Like Me Again

December 24, 2010

Unbalanced, I can feel my mind get light
I sculpt myself surreal each time I wake
I hear the sound of chips, both wrong and right
And hope the hammered chisel will not break
If I should strike a diamond, it would be
Analogous to nothing but my heart
On either side my lungs could set me free
The diamond will not break, it holds my art
I only need to let my lungs reveal
the knowledge of the beauty they have felt
By breathing and by centering I’ll feel
myself the way I was before life dealt
a shitty hand by injuring my brain
I’ll feel my peace and calm; I won’t feel pain.

8 Acceleration (kinesthesioception)
9 Time (chronoception)

My Chronoception

October 6, 2011

My chronoception seems a little off
Eternity has come to be a time
At which I can no longer blithely scoff
Sweet steps to count in that sweet golden clime
It takes forever now to write a line
A simple line of poetry, like this
I wonder if there is some Grand Design
Or if I’ll ever feel Sunflower’s kiss
I know it’s just a fragment of my mind
The part that suffered injury last year
It’s not the way my life will be defined
It’s just a little inconvenient fear
Time keeps sixty minutes every hour
Let’s keep Time locked up within his tower.

10 Temperature (thermoception)
11 Pain (nociception)
12 Beauty (aesthetoception)

June 19, 2011

The greatest things I strive for must be real
Superlatives are only what I seek
All things I touch, or see, or hear, or feel
Must go beyond the simple words I speak
Let’s call the sum of heart and mind, my soul
It helps to set a universal stage
It doesn’t mean we have complete control
But lets us start upon a common page
I want the best, the greatest life to live
And thus, I think I know the path to choose
I need to find the gift that I would give
The gift that I would never want to lose
The gift called Beauty is the greatest great
It’s only Beauty that the gods create.