Should courting crickets find an ear to bend,
just so, young lovers on a knee are bent.
Although embraces will not pay the rent
a lover has a garden still to tend.
And like the sparks of iron struck on flint
alight the tinder, sun in spring will send
a message to a lover’s soul, well meant.
Oh, tuneful spring, the piper will befriend
your spirit, wrapped in musical intent
and melody’s high keening, will upend.
In Our Innermost Rooms
Of the spaces and the rainbows in our minds;
how vast and myriad is that shifting veil...
The valley where the muddy river winds...
where in the starry night our dreams take sail.
Though of our hands, the mirror's image binds,
behind our eyes, the forces of a gale
return us to the vision in our kinds,
seen in work of sages, all too frail.
The naming of the warp and weft inside...
The intricate exploring of the depths...
we contemplate a world both broad and wide.
Every man has wishes, hopes and dreams,
which bring his inner sanctum warmth and light...
which shed transforming tears on all his schemes.
All I Ask
Love me right, love me straight and true,
like bears love honey, mermaids love the sea...
like kids love chocolate, birds love flying free...
you love me and I'll love only you.
Love me fiercely, passion, fire too...
keep my aching heart in lock and key;
hold me captive, never let me be;
keep me happy, never make me blue.
I'll sing, a songbird, high up in a tree;
loving me is all you have to do...
just be yourself and take some love from me.
I don't need to say what's two plus two.
It's four, forever, now, and never three...
remember that, or darling, we are through.
In a Hot Shade
That dark and nutty brew, hot and black
which wakes me from my morning’s foggy net
a cat with yellow eyes, a witch’s pet,
familiar magic curled in my lap.
My dreams dissolve, again I lose the knack
of orchestrating night, though never yet
transform my life creatively from debt,
the red ink dawning wakes me with a slap.
Like you, I cast my spell with my jaw set
and conjure from the void and coffee sack,
nursing joe, the morning I have met.
In scrawl of leger, long ago lost track
of whom I owe from losing this small bet…
but somehow I have, yet, what others lack.
8/14/02
In the Quiet of Her Willows
I have a home to which I'll e'er return
resting in the hollow of your breast.
The fire in my heart will always burn,
and like a robin, come back to the nest.
I'll always know your gentle touches here...
your quiet whispers on my mind impressed...
let your love enfold me, keep me near;
forgetting, leaving, swearing off the rest.
Put aside the burden of the years...
I promise I will end your doubts and fears.
An imprint of our souls is on the sky...
the time of shadows waits somewhere nearby.
If in our lives we've often slipped and fell
the stars and rivers quietly wish us well.
…and Keenest Sight, Ajar
As sweet as fond caress the ancients swore…
the pulse of yearning, spurring, with a sigh
the light across a gulf as wide as sky…
bittersweet, the spoils on the other shore.
One feather, lost, was on a wing before,
yet, still, upon the marsh, the heron’s cry,
like invitation wept from maiden’s eye,
how wild is wind that it may slam the door?
What note is hid in steps of sages, spry?
The secret isn't scented in the spoor
but somewhere in the story dreams imply.
And yet, beyond, is felt, is something more;
perhaps enough to question, sadly, “Why?”,
a question that the vain of heart deplore.
In a Maze of Doublethink
Twice, the second-most a world apart,
the first suppressed, acknowledged only when
all evidence of schism with its twin
is shuffled under shells and off the chart.
Don’t tell me it…now memorize the card…
put in the hat and counting up to ten…
it’s anybody’s guess what happens then…
an easy trick, though some might find it hard.
In all, it’s just a tale or mice and men,
and men, as men, will never drop their guard
nor mice reveal the mousehole where they've been.
One may be divided in the heart
not having in one’s breast a heart to win,
instead a mind divided from the start.
In One Man’s Eye
Through a lens of primes I looked for clues,
an anomaly to definitively show
why one is more than one, and, even so,
how, again, I know I’m bound to lose.
Perhaps it’s just an issue to confuse…
imagined thus, I think again, although
it’s something that my heart already knows
and why I've always hoped for love, I muse.
They say the poorest man reaps what he sows…
that never meant a man can’t have the blues,
but, maybe, after all, a question pose.
If just one meal I eat, the one I’ll choose
will last me till I’m buried, I suppose…
to old dilemmas, bring some happy news.
September 1st, 2002
A Promise Broken
Perhaps some unkind attribute of sun...
perhaps some plot cooked up in demon’s lair…
Is this what I deserve? Not really fair...
I never thought the dating game much fun.
In life, I faced the truth, I did not run
but truth has yet to find me waiting there…
there was no chance, no chance at all, I swear,
though I was told I’m promised only one.
If you take the facts and strip them bare…
I'm sworn to true love’s hope and given none.
The world steals my love and doesn't care.
In the end, when all is said and done
I've known no chance, for truest love, to share,
whatever in the game I've lost or won.
Delirium, it Shines
Pampered and rewarded, coiffed, perfumed
the sickness lies upon its golden bed,
stuffiness all in its aching head,
while nearby, death, alike a shadow, loomed.
How better when the putrid stench, entombed
is swallowed by the dust, the coffin, dead;
a sepulcher of lusts lay in its stead,
the blossom of its fever brightly bloomed.
The plague was cultured sweet, the cancer fed,
the warlock glib to pander to the doomed,
while into wealth, the wicked witch was wed.
To cover rot, the incense smoked and fumed…
sweetly ill, and paid to birth the dread,
‘till prizes, by diseases, are consumed.
In That Portion of Living
Of every ill, the good makes a percent...
the omens, in the end, decide what's real.
We're always chained and locked to our
next meal,
and what is said is half of what is meant.
The coin we've won in honesty is spent,
our debts grow larger, and the hours steal
our rest, before we've had the chance to heal...
then peace escapes; we follow where it went.
We drink of placid sky on our ascent
contributing in kind to drunken zeal,
delusions underlying our intent.
Once a fire is set, the iron and flint
that sparked the flames, have finished their appeal;
no matter how it's lit, the shine is bent.
Oct. 17th, 2001
In Perspective
It's a question of perspective, as you know;
but to what or which or when or why or who?
Though everything is never just as so...
particulars are something, nothing new.
If you are analyzing what you've seen,
your sight is clear, your aim and passion just,
your logic and perspective may be keen...
to example, application is a must.
In hindsight, I might often have deterred
the cause of right and justice from its course...
but a river cannot vary from its source.
In meter, rhyme, and stanza I have put
the best I can the essence of this thought:
a person realizes what they're taught.
At the Shadow's Gleam
Is what I see inside you really real?
Or am I simply talking out of turn?
Once again, this idea makes me churn;
I contemplate the nature of the deal.
I spy, I swear, protected with a seal
something sweet and rare that makes me burn,
and fighting when I must has made me learn
to not distrust the sadness that I feel.
If I could put my feelings in a word,
it would be "love", but not a love to steal...
instead a love that wings up, like a bird.
They say the sun and moon that slowly wheel
in starry skies where not a sound is heard...
yet, cool as shade, as slippery as an eel.
If Never Regret
I look behind, through snowflakes stirred by wind
and though I glare, it's not what I intend.
Remembering glassy words in fire's glow,
I see my footprints stretch across the snow.
How many times in love did anger spend
the coin of my resistance, to defend
the truth as it was spoken time ago?
What we engender, that is all we know.
Though one can't be expected to extend
a caring word in brunt of to and fro,
again I miss the mark and fall below.
How often in this story do we end
eternity with footprints, though we show
the spirit and the willingness to grow?
In a Trick of Tales
A shadow world that fools the naked eye;
the unseen happens, stashed well out of sight.
Though, in the day, events seem clear and bright,
behind the moon, a murky dusk, I sigh.
Who may suspect what telltale hints imply?
Be it known that creatures lurk this night,
all the secrets locked away, so tight,
spill on the floor when, schemingly, we pry.
One can’t run or scream, or join the fight
when one can’t see what’s there or question why
though they may see a shadow, yet so slight.
Face the world, its victims loudly cry,
yet hidden by a mask, and, yes, they’re right…
but still know part, no matter how they try.
August 22nd, 2002
In Loyalty to the Billowing Smoke
…and the angel will fall in fire, and burn,
and those who would help, will harm even so…
and, no, the lost sheep will never learn…
and all of our children are dying to go.
…and the new superstition will talk out of turn,
and the deaf will pretend to listen, although
love will then turn its back to spurn
all who would cross though the veil to know.
All that is left is ash in the urn
and from this ash, nothing will grow…
hot, while they burn, the embers will glow.
…and when they encounter dilemma, stern,
we are sure the dam will stop the flow,
but, over the dam, the boat you row.
In the Thatch of Fray
As all have forgot the meaning and purpose of blood,
and though the shadows break with the sweep of a broom,
the clock and the coin don't behave at all as they should;
a thread of eternity has crept its way to the loom.
The shape of the grain is caught in the the warp of wood,
a man in a coffin is left in the stone of the tomb;
of all the young children who believed as children could,
a few old codgers were left that were not subsumed.
I say to you spirits who flock to the service of good,
"Consider how long, the look of the man on the moon;
does kindness fall with the sun and its orange bloom?"
At the end of the story, it was all about "what you would",
know now, despite the lamp in the other room...
one must weave their shawl or basket in the lick of gloom.
September 8, 2001
Nary A Time
As never was the reference made of aught;
and there was not appendaged of the sight;
we couldn't apprehend what we had sought...
though we don't just stumble in the night
As oughtn't we consider why we don't...
we needn't recommend what shouldn't should.
We rarely don't pertain to what we won't...
(At least as much as what we wouldn't would).
We can't undo the falsehoods that we lie:
thus losing motivation not to weave...
and leaving all the footsteps that we leave.
Out of context, passage has no grip.
Without an inch, we have no room to breathe.
Without a tear we have no way to grieve.
Never Heard of It
I hadn't, ain't, and won't imagine it...
you think it's so but no it doesn't fit.
I sorta see your point, but then I don't.
You think I will, but then I guess I won't.
The problem as I see it, it ain't so...
so you say, but that, I just don't know.
Please explain exactly what you mean
and show me what I've not already seen.
I've got this feeling you have never met,
a man whose heart and mind's already set.
As certain an opinion you won't meet...
although at checkers you have got me beat!
So, how can I communicate to you,
that what you're sayin', dammit, just ain't true!
Such As It Was
As much as I have tried to move along
and carry with me all I've known and thought,
I tell you now its value is its song
and not the hinges of the knowledge sought.
Upon the coat of pride remark is worn
and time is allocated close at hand...
into response and rhythm we are born,
thoughts take shape like dunes of drifted sand.
A feather lost from wing of nesting bird
is like eraser's rub to pencil line;
upon this hasty sketch we spill the wine.
If pertaining to remainder, line or sum...
then curve and involution will apply
to limitations, we must bat an eye.
>
Thanks so much for reading “In the Weave of Night” and Other Sonnets. If for any reason you would like to contact me my email is [email protected] I would love to hear from you!
"In the Weave of Night" and Other Sonnets Page 2