The Magus (or Magician if you must) Is he-behind-the-sleight-of-hand you see He tells you things that you should never trust Like how to be and also not to be
Magician (or The Magus, take your pick) Performs the best when he is paid in gold Simplicity is such a simple trick Like magic that is heard but never told
Above, below, he’s somewhere in between Where magic is the mover and the art He’ll show you things you’ll wish you’d never seen Like flowers that aspire in your heart
The Magus or Magician seems to be A fool in search of some divinity. ________________________________________
Image by Pamela Colman Smith (16 February 1878 – 18 September 1951)
The Fool begins a journey without end A journey that’s forever and a day To find true wisdom and perhaps a friend Bewrayment are the words he’ll never say
Delirium and frenzy are his dance A solitary dance to find a song But if your paths should cross by circumstance He’ll call to you to come and sing along
I know we’ve all been called at times to sing And dance the tarantella like a fool Perhaps he really thinks that he’s the king And everyone must bow before his rule
His Highness is the Fool that we all know Wherever he proceeds, we all must go. ________________________________________
Image by Pamela Colman Smith (16 February 1878 – 18 September 1951)
I love Sophia like my love is new Sophia knows my love transcends my heart Imagine, if you will what she can do Fulfilling her divine and noble part
Sophia is her wisdom and her grace A god to worship everywhere she’s found A god who knows her high and holy place She speaks to me at times without a sound
At times I hear the music of her voice Within the words I find I need to write To signify that my belief is choice I choose to dwell within her holy light
Sophia has been with me from the start Within the thoughts that dwell within my heart.
I danced with Mary Wollstonecraft last week Then danced with Mary Shelley late last night I asked them both if they would let me speak I heard them laugh and tell me that they might
I only had to find bright words to say To garner their permission to be heard The Mary of my heart will always stay If I present her with a fitting word
And so we dance with language as our tune We dance as though we are ménage à trois Our voltas always seem to come too soon Or late. They always seem to bear some flaw
But Mary knows that words are only games And that is why she uses both her names.
The Mary of Magdala came to know That knowledge of the self is most divine The paths of Galilee where she would go Revealed such things to her by their design
Salvation is complete when one is whole To know oneself, salvation may be found The beauty of the spirit of the soul Reveals itself as one eternal round
The Mary of Magdala lives within The gnosis she discovered and now shares To mark the paths where knowledge will begin It shows how much this holy Mary cares
Her gnosis has a firm but subtle call She learned this truth and teaches it to all.
She floats above the village streets at night In search of some forgotten tale of old Her ghostly form is beautiful and white Her ghostly tale is one that's often told
Her life became the sorrow of remorse Her death became the sorrow all can feel A ghostly essence runs its ghostly course A hidden tale the teller can reveal
The teller of her tale this time is me I saw her in the village where I live She seemed to know the tale she sought to be In me she found a teller she could give
Her tale of unrequited love and more Of life and death, a dark unopened door.
I think the world needs sonnets to survive Survival is the perfect lyric art The sonnet form, a heartbeat still alive The perfect sonnet dwells within the heart
The heart of every poet beats in time With nature, like a song of subtle love The love of every sonnet is sublime Like rains that quench the world from clouds above
The sonnet turns its theme to fit the sound Of everything the human heart might hear It finds its voice where every voice is found It sings to every person, far and near
Survival of the sonnet, on the whole A metaphor of our collective soul.
The cost of doing nothing is too steep I guess that means it’s time to “roll up sleeves” We’ve landed in some shit that’s more than deep It doesn’t matter what the Trump believes
The “shit” is his election. What the fuck? How many millions wasted precious votes? I guess too many like to press their luck Obtuse to what their orange choice denotes
So, time to scrape up pig shit one more time A job nobody ever wants to do But pigs will shit like criminals will crime And cleaning up will fall to me and you
Democracy requires work that’s tough Sometimes it stinks, but we are strong enough.
This sonnet is an allusion to the re-election of Donald Trump. It also contains an allusion to a summer job I had as a teenager, shoveling shit out of a pig barn. I still remember the farmer telling me that I was the first kid he’d hired who wasn’t afraid to get in there and scrape the pig shit off the floor. I use the metaphor of “shoveling pig shit” as a reference to anything that may be distasteful, but still needs to be done. I think it works perfectly in this case. For the next four years we need to roll up our sleeves, plug our noses, and wade boot-deep through the shit as we do all we can to clean it up.
I call to Coventina in my need To bring to me her blessed healing rain She calls to me with words I feel and heed She sings with showered notes a soft refrain
When Coventina hears the parched who thirst She sings the dulcet songs of living wells When water came to be, she was the first The first to learn the stories water tells
The stories and the songs she shares with all Are filled with brilliant life and brilliant love She loves the life of every waterfall She sings of rain that falls from clouds above
The goddess Coventina comes to heal With water simple words cannot reveal.
