Sonnet CCCLV

What strange machines! I stand in dumbstruck awe.
They dig so monstrously, with scrawny claws;
petite – but mighty, steely, debonair.
Grey, prickly feathers splice the pungent air
and scores of them bob stably in the sea,
a half-assembled army, oddly free.


In syncopated rhythms, side by side,
now trading spots for newer soil to try,
then scurrying, returning now, for more –
acknowledging a neighbour’s small domain
then stealing it – and there erupts a war!


Unmoved, the others plod along their way,
but hesitant, I stay awhile myself,
escaping my routine for theirs, for them.

Sonnet CCCXLII

The moths flit through the sea, ephemeral;

each emerald wave progresses quicker past.

The sky is blushing like a love-struck girl

and dreams, her troubled forehead overcast.

The youth of day, her liveliness fade fast;

great mountains frame the twilight of her face.

Her blazing iris tumbles shut at last:

the birds come flying for one last embrace,

imparting to that cheek an everlasting grace.

When laid to rest, surrounded by the earth,

unseeing eyes shall still observe this place.

The clouds forever sail this planet’s girth -

No death could steal them from my feeble grasp;

and evermore the grass shall faintly rasp!

Sonnet CCCXXX

Today the sky is tearful, dark, and sad.

The walls are greyish-brown and drab;

they’re not the taupe I chose the other day.

Awakening today is bitter, full of pain;

my bed sheets strangle me; they hold me back.

Their jarring, lurid yellow drives me mad;

their cheerfulness is mocking, hateful, dry.

The windows drown me with their torrid light.

My neck and back are sore; I need a drink.

An anger burns my mouth; my teeth are clenched.

My empty cup sits, waiting next to me –

my heart agrees. The world is emptiness.

It takes a massive bound to leap from bed,

to have the guts to face the day ahead.

Sonnet CCXCI

We go to death as easy as a sum to solve,
but struggle through our lives, obsessing over much.
We struggle, even growing close to death and push
to keep ourselves the younger selves we’ve come to love.
Old age and death – these things we fight until they come.
An yet – we go to them quite easily and hush
as quickly as a baby to his nap. We gush –
we gush like mad to stop it – yet it comes, quite dull,
at last; we wish it wasn’t easy leaving happy life –
the treasure cherished heavily and loved like strife,
and yet we struggle through, at last to end the trip,
but still regretful. Coming swift and suddenly,
there’s little hesitation. Meet death like a dream –
and blindly grope the livelong way until you see.

Sonnet CLXXXVIII

L’amour fleurit comme tout les noires et sombres nuits:
une fleur si belle et si mystérieuse comme toi.
Mais tout les temps tu fuis le jour et moi,
tes émotions, ombreuses; ses mots, le cœur de bruit.
Tu sais la joie? Je pense que non. La crise te suit;
les grandes tristesses sont tous tes grands nuages, si froid.
Mais toutes tes gouttes de pluie sont des larmes de moi –
et tu est insouciante et comme la lune, conduis.

Tu es la chose le jour fait comme un mal mémoire,
qui reste, puis, quitte ciel chaque souvenir de moi.

Mais maintenant, j’habite après la nuit de moi.
Le jour m’embrase, et chaque étreinte me donne la perte,
la perte de la mémoire, la perte de perte en perte –
et maintenant, j’oublie la sombre nuit, je crois.

Sonnet CCLXXIV

There’s never greater disappointment than the sun,
meandering, intense and sinister, to you.
You know these curtains whisper in the night, untrue,
exalting in their strange conspiracy of fun.
The sheets are mocking you, awash with yellow dun,
untruthful flattery, so calmly clean and new.
The ceiling’s laughing: crowded frescoes flame your rue,
their stellar constellations pointed as a gun.

There’s never greater disappointment as you turn
and know you must wake up to face your world of spurn.

Go to your windowsill; uncover all the panes.
Regard the light azure with caution – gingerly!
Again you must live under it, and swim its sea,
and move and speak and laugh, and face the world’s disdain.

Sonnet CCXLV

Let’s hide away in dark, concealed from all the world;
and so alone we shall not be, but lone together here.
The outside world is noisy, loud, and full of cheer
as brooding, broth of us succumb to silence, pure.

Oh join us, friend, oh gladly join our dismal hurt.
Has Fate rejected you? Has Pleasure shed a tear?
Oh what a joy to hide, and such a wondrous year:
a year of dismal joy, a life of hidden hurt.

In darkness dancing, only voices transfer words,
and if our ears do die, our fingers fly like birds.

And if they die in darkness, what a happy death!
They’d die together here, so smothered in our grief.
And if the world is cold, it didn’t steal our breath.
We shunned its happy face and carved it in relief.

Sonnet CCXXXVI

The sky of snow is vast, surrounding me in white.
It’s dotted with its stars, my footprints in the snow.
The constellations shine; my feet shall make them grow;
my feet create the stars; my treading spreads the light.

If constellations live, and sleep not in the night,
but spread my fame about, in sheets of whitened snow,
perhaps I am the Bear, cast up in stars below,
eternal on the earth, but fleeting with the night.

Remember me like this: though footprints disappear,
emblazon me in night, where all can nightly peer.

And if the day comes soon, surmount my daily tread;
forget the noise I made, but follow memory.
And if disloyalty obscures nocturnal me,
I live but die in rage, eternally undead.

Sonnet CLXXIII

When sleeping, eyes are tightly closed and shut
and vision only comes through dreaming scenes,
which twist the world from kind to crudely mean
or else from crude to good – so truth is dust.

With goggles, eyes are open, vision weird.
We see the world in clouded pieces thus,
and what we see is what we hear and trust
and feel from water’s touch, but more than dreams.

With normal vision, eyes are not obscured,
unhindered, clear, au naturel, and free.
And what we view with them is true to see.

With glasses though, our eyes are more than pure –
they’re better, abler, truer – best indeed!
Perhaps technology is what we need?

Sonnet CLXV

The days of catching up unfinished work –
so much to finish, bits from everything...
if only catching up on needed sleep
were just as simple, but it’s not, of course –
for sleep is just a waste of time, no more,
required nonetheless, but time for sleep
is great in quantity though time’s not free,
and thus, for sleep we sacrifice our chores -
we could have done more work within that time;
we could have used it better than just rest...
and yet we need to rest, we need to sleep...
but so much work to do – and where’s the time -
alas - we need our beauty sleep and rest –
so then, it’s just a cycle, circling.

Sonnet CXXXVIII

What use have I for polynomials?
Will I go to a grocery store one day
and simplify a polynomial?
Or maybe rational expressions? Say,
“I’ll simplify and state restrictions!” - lull
the poor cashiers to sleep; make others pray
I’d never put those things inside my skull?
Oh, how may functions help me everyday?

Of course they do - in ways I fail to see -
but now, I drudge through math as it were mud.
It isn’t even art, so bare and free -
but even art has purpose, one might add:
to entertain with skill aesthetically;
to bring us bliss when functions make us mad.

Sonnet CXVIII

I’m bathed in light of clearest blue azure.
Around me walls begin to animate.
They leap away, become a hue so pure,
One thinks the walls are burning with blue flames.

And glowing from the source a fire demure,
A screen of blue, where dreams will thus be made,
Where bliss is manufactured and procured
And peace and calm erase my dying hate.

My damn computer. Haunting, burning flame,
Which animates my mind before I sleep.
I need that time to help recuperate!
You steal my sleep, make nasty little dreams,
destroy my life, and always make me late.
You damn computer, burn within thy greed!

Sonnet CXIII

It’s not my fault I fall asleep in class.
You see, it is a big conspiracy
of teachers, principals, et cetera,
and all the giant textbook companies
against poor students learning math and mass.
It’s not our fault, and soon you shall see why:
I’ll tell you why we doze as if some gas
had poisoned us with noxious fumes of sleep.

(See, textbook companies put drugs in books.
That’s why they have that “new book smell” when bought.
Then, after years and years and years of use,
when all the textbooks lose their crisp, clean looks,
that’s when the textbooks know they’ve done their job:
to make sure students have a lovely snooze.)

Sonnet L

And though through death my slumber is but reaped,
Eternity shall break my salvaged rest.
Though immortality will be my prayer
It kills the purpose of my death – to sleep.

Ah, long eternity will wait for me.
That dismal length of time where boredom lays.
I cannot help society or such
And human pleasures I could never see.

Eternity, a cruel and ugly word,
Which makes the thought of Heaven feebly dry.
If I was to but live for all of time
What uselessness and boredom I’d incur!

Oh, sad infinity, which is a lie.
In calm fulfilment I would rather die.

Sonnet XLI

Computer, get away, you make me weep!
You break all of my dreams and steal my sleep.
The Internet just makes you worse it’s just
Your evil partner, filled with greed and lust.

The Internet! How foul is that name!
My privacy and thoughts by you are maimed.
Away from me, you dour computer - now!
No sleep nor rest nor joy do you allow.

The Internet is full of ads and more;
Computers need their fixing – what a bore!
I hate and loathe you two – accomplices!
The two who rob my thoughts and laugh and hiss.

No calm nor rest nor freedom is allowed!
I’ll lock them up until both make no sound!