Sonnet CCCLIII

Epiphany? My love is shorn to shreds!
A guileless love beguiled by devious ends…
Dark, bitter grief ignites my inner core –
I cannot love this monster anymore!


And yet – I tremble at each docile smile!
I loved the clever traitor all the while.
I now regret that fatal day, when first –
a charming word deceived my artless thirst.


And yes, I still feel dearly for the fiend;
a foolish heart does not know want from need.


Ignore the ingrate! Flee the treachery!
But how we still dream fondly, stubbornly;
demanding vengeance for our suffering,
yet far too weak to do the injuring.

Sonnet CCLXVIII

I find the world today requires desperate aid:
- politics: all the world’s a-brew and needs its law
- environment: the world’s unzipping as it thaws
- economy: recession; wealth unfairly paid
- humanity: our bunch, becoming more abate
- society: all wanton with its plastic gods
- our health: destroyed with every fry in paw
- tradition: culture pasted over, blue and grey

When shall salvation rescue us from grief and strife?
Where is our superhero? Busy with his life?

What we can do is make ourselves informed and wise:
destroy our atrophy with pride and dignity,
imbued with purpose, duty, hospitality –
and only then can Earth be salvaged from us mice.

Sonnet CCXLIII

No matter how I hate the music of today,
the granny living in my mind dies suddenly
come Christmas time, perhaps from carolling.
For Christmas carols don’t arouse my nagging ways
(although the electronic, tinny versions may).
The happiness within my soul at last is freed,
a chicken frightened usually to stay with me –
she cannot fly, so trapped with me, she must obey.

To what is viewed as crude commercialism’s bliss
I find myself succumbing – toxic happiness.

Its toys might be, but Christmas isn’t poisonous.
It’s not the presents (I don’t want one anyhow)
or even Santa (though he’s real). It’s that an ounce
of hope my heart must buy, as frugal as it is.

Sonnet CCXXXVII

The words of men are webs. The sticks of men are words.
Obstructing blue the sky, they branch from trees,
enlaced in branches there, obstructing what I see.
I hear their rustling calls, like twitting of the birds,
and yet, they seem as bears, as trunks from where they spring.
Obstructing me, I cannot see, I cannot breathe –
and darkness of their interweaving swallows earth.

But can they swallow me? They come from tiny seeds,
an acorn maybe, sometimes from ambitious weeds.

And so, can webs of trees – envelop me in dark?
They try, a canopy above my upward head,
but burn in lightning’s blaze, turn green with envy’s bark
and sicken, die like toads, from webs die overfed.

Sonnet CCXXIII

I have a lot of friends who love the opera too.
They come from France, Great Britain, Spain, and Germany.
A few are from the States and one’s from Italy.
I’ve others too, but I digress. Away we move.
Kind Beth of Texas is a mother and a muse,
and Phoenix is a nearby piano friend like me,
but she’s thirteen, won Nationals, and loves to teach.
I could go on: musicians, writers, artists too…

The world’s afloat with wondrous people, smart and kind.
The ones I’ve met so far are just like that, I find.

And yet, there are so many stalkers on the Net;
they terrorize and bully, like a bunch of fools.
However, all these contacts, friends, and such I’ve met
I found through websites, blogs, and other cyber-tools.

Sonnet CCXVIII

Agility and fabulous technique astound:
magnificent bravura, massive jumps and leaps,
cadenzas, runs (impossible, but there), and heaps
of gorgeous tones, sustained with quivering of sound.
Such awesome feats of voices everyday abound,
incredible, instilling awe, with cries and weeps.
Infused with raw emotion, like a blood that seeps
on tissue, marked with everlasting hues of sound.

None other than magnificent and magic ways
of operatic lyricism, lacking praise.
How easy opera singers make their craft to seem,
when notes are high and runs are difficult and fraught
with peril. Though they sing with all they’ve rightly got,
alas – some think that opera’s just a bunch of screams.

Sonnet CCIX

I used to listen to a station on the dial.
It plays my favourite music of the old Baroque
and other “ancient” times – the waltzes slowly poke,
the overtures are bristling with a youthful guile –
but now the station has become so cruelly vile.

Of late, the station seems a bit less old Baroque,
and more commercial. Stupid ads appear and poke,
those bristling words I hate, as foul as my bile.

But no, the station hasn’t changed a lot these years.
Alas, perchance I was mistaken in my fears?

And yes, it’s stayed the same this while, although I’ve grown.
It’s me that’s changed, grown up, matured, and turned more wise.
I see that blinding innocence of youth has flown,
and in its place I see manipulation’s vice.

Sonnet CLXXVI

Whose home is this, which gladly I destroy?
It’s mine I think; I recognise the place:
so messy, falling out of ordered grace –
I’ve failed to keep it running like a toy,
although I’ve tried a multitude of ploys
to save its limbs and legs and fallen face.
But still it shatters at a growing pace;
its moaning racket starts to thus annoy.

Collapse and death are threatening but near.
This home has not been kept for very long,
but doctors say there’s nothing they can do.
We only wait, regret, and wipe our tears
as bodies rot and live where they belong –
in earth, corrupt, and serving plants as food.

Sonnet CLXXV

And in the microwave my cancer goes,
the wrapped-up packages of frozen food.
A lack of time destroys my happy mood,
a lack of time creates my wasteful woe.

Day in, day out, my breakfast flurry grows
as time constricts, and chokes me with its noose.
Each morning, sickening, disgusting, crude
I wolf down chemicals and trash that glows.

However, on the weekends, slow and good
the meals are cooked, and time is freer too.
The vegetables and fruits, all bright and clean
delight my tongue as wholesome munchies should.
However, hiding in the depths of fruits
and veggies too – the DNA of bees.

Sonnet CLVII

So much to do, so little precious time.
Is this not what the modern mantra is?
Inciting what we would have done from lists
of schedules and future worried signs.

Alas, this stress is what we have in life.
When everything’s so fast, there’s nothing missed,
but everything’s a mess and thus, amiss.
What’s time but apprehension’s law sublimed?

Alas, I bite my tongue and work away,
for in the past, archaic peoples died
with toil in their blood and heated souls,
but now my only enemy each day
is time and where to fit the parts of life
into this widening and gaping whole.

Sonnet CLIV

I’m glad. I live in times of joy and peace.
I wake up, dress; I eat and brush my teeth.
I take a bus to school; no need to walk.
I have worry for my life: no fear.
I live with electricity and warmth.
There is no strife or arbitrary war.
I do not toil under slavery.

Stability is solid as a rock.

And yet complaints. Day in, day out they come,
like flying monsters, tarnishing the world.
I hear them from my mouth, the selfish things...
dissatisfaction raging like a gnome...
ingratitude from mouths of terror hurled...
what else can constant, tarnished spoilage bring?

Sonnet CXLVII

Their rhythms hypnotize and calm me down,
their repetition easing all my qualms.
The simple harmonies remove my frown,
replaced with artificial stupor’s awe.
Their strange effects are amplified with sounds
of luscious singers, singing with a drawl.

The state of modern music is a mess:
it’s been reduced to basic chords and such,
mixed in with skill-less “singers”, poor at best,
and mediocre lyrics, weak as mush,
repeating in their choruses, no less.
No substance, only hypnotizing mush.
It suits our lack of truthful happiness,
a fitting dullness in a life of such.

Sonnet CXLII

Was I as dumb and blind as those Grade 5’s
who sit in buses every day in front?
The media and biases in life
affected them so deeply it affronts
the wholesomeness to which the youth did strive
in times since passed. It makes our lives seem blunt
by sad compare. How wickedly they pry!
How foolishly dependent and defunct!

They flaunt their musical devices like
a book, so good and wise and valuable.
They speak of news without the truthful lies,
but with the bias printed in their souls.

They lost their innocence in their short lives,
and now, corrupt, are grossly so morose.

Sonnet CXXX

I heard a kid say to his friends today:
“I’d rather kill myself through suicide
than die of heart disease or weak old age.”

On hearing this, I felt as though a knife
had stabbed me, each and every painful way.
Is life so filled with twisted, wicked strife?

Perhaps it’s come to this. The world’s just waste:
the GM foods and artificial fare,
the speed of life reducing it to haste,
the perfect little fruits, synthetic wares,
the global warming caused by sad distaste,
the cancer lurking mutely everywhere,
the crises of economies still chaste.

Perhaps our happiness has turned too rare?

Sonnet CXXV

The moving pictures sometimes startle me,
their vividness is so believable.
The feelings felt so very vast and free,
the stories told so very palpable.

And yet the misinterpretations seen -
the segregation, so inevitable,
the liberty some take with history -
these things imprint themselves into our skulls.

And labelling becomes more prominent,
and scanty links with truth become less rare
and entertainment turns to ignorance.

Our joy should not be thought-imprisonment;
our movies shouldn’t bring those hopeless stares;
but wise enlightenment, not ignorance.

Sonnet CXXII

A true friend shall not use you for their aims
or curse you if you fail to serve them well.
A true friend isn’t jealous of your fame
or bitter, hearing new successes swell.
A true friend does you favours. And the game
the others play of selfish playback quells.
A true friend loves you through your flaws and frays
and comforts you in sickness and in Hell.

Does such a friend exist? I must say no.
It’s nice to think one has a friend like that.
But all of us have plans and goals and dreams;
we can’t serve others faithfully and know
the friendship’s symbiotic. Some are that,
but most reciprocate the very least.

Sonnet CXIX

My life is just a bunch of cereal;
each day a box of wheat and multi-grain;
each week has seven boxes, packaged up;
Then all the boxes cycle once again.

Each day within the box identical,
the difference only shows from day to day,
But every week becomes so blandly dull
and then the months are structured all the same.

With life so organized I’m always free,
from worry, stress, and abnormality.
It’s calming, knowing all is orderly.
But is there any change of scenery?
Of course not. Everything is orderly.
Unchanging, hapless, joyous orderly.

Sonnet CI

I’m glad my mother doesn’t cook our meals
(it saves me all the trouble washing plates)
Organic foods I never buy of late
(and now I save a lot of cash on meals)

Although my pains will never, ever heal
(at hospitals I now don’t have to wait)
And still I live with such a dreary fate
(but I’ll escape with my clogged arteries)

My fatty, salty foods may kill me soon.
I’ll get depressed just looking at my weight.
And maybe I’ll get nasty heart disease.

But please, don’t take away my toxic brews…
my tartrazine or lovely glutamate…
I’ll miss my EDTA and my saccharin!

Sonnet XCV

There was a path upon a grassy hill.
Behind the hill the sunset lay, beyond.
While climbing up the path, kind crickets trilled,
but of the prickly plants I wasn’t fond.

The top was lovely, what a sight to see!
A sultry sun, completing daily rounds,
the trucks and lights of nearby factories,
and cigarette packs scattered on the ground.

The urban sprawl spreads far as one can think.
Construction rested for the night but still
the mounds of dirt lay all about in rings…
and water bottles litter all the hill.

I thought about the lists and plans I made…
then in the human starkness, nature fades.

Sonnet XCIII

Don’t put me near a baby learning shapes,
for I won’t fit in any of the holes.
I’m not the perfect size or height or shape.
Frustration soon would take its nasty toll.

I’d make a horrible and disliked shoe:
the boxes wouldn’t hold my length or width,
my oddness would create unrest anew,
for shoes don’t always fit (that’s just a myth).

So I should be content to be myself,
but humans have their own confines and moulds.
Each day we face the traps that gladly quell
our vast diversity with norms we’re told.

If nature made us each uniquely rare,
why should we use like standards to compare?