Sonnet XCI

The childish joy of late invading me
makes all the tears of past and future worth
the pains endured and perils closely seen.
What joy to be a flask of cheerful mirth!

How I remember darkness ailing me,
impeding my potential, lingering.
How hindering, how frightening it seemed.
And then, the disappearance of dark things.

I can’t describe the way to overcome
the shrouds of sadness that may well annoy.
All I advise is wait and then wait some
for more inspiring, happy, blissful joy.

I wholly advocate the gifts of life,
for now that greater times have come, I live!

Sonnet XC

Of course there’s poetry about a nose
but so far I have read no nasal prose.
However, one must not forget the ear,
which tempts the senses with what one can hear.

Celestial sounds and music of the spheres
bear no enchantment with no ears to hear.
Though truly, hearing ears bring happy bliss:
a kind remark or smacking of a kiss.

When you are sad, kind ears hear happy songs.
Ears hear and recognize the ones you long.
Ears brighten days with all there is to hear.
Hear here how ears hear puns, right ear.

Perhaps ears look a little strange and crude,
but hearing stays though ears may be removed!

Sonnet LXXXIX

I saw a girl this morning, crying tears.
Her eyes were fire, bitter in her head,
of anger, pain, and sorrow’s burning fear,
by dismal happenchance and fate misled.

You’ve seen this girl. But what about her tears?
This girl could be a mother, working shifts
to feed three mouths, abandoned for a year.

Perhaps the woman shunned despite her gifts?

Perhaps cashiers who dreamt of more?
Perhaps the servant of her boyfriend’s whims?
The ever-giving wife, by all ignored?
The gal paid less because her name is Kim?

You think it’s easy for a sobbing girl
to live her life as scapegoat of the world?

Sonnet LXXXVIII

Once I was your age – small and spry and young.
Although we learnt the planets, stars, and sun,
things changed: “My very earnest mother just
served us nine…” what? No pizza, only crust.

Apparently the “p” for “pizza” ’s gone
(as Pluto’s not a planet – we were wrong).
And prices of our food and gas went up,
restricting just how full we filled our cups.

When I was your age, cell phones didn’t ring.
We had a thing called snow – this cold, wet thing.
Our phones weren’t portable, with lots of cords
and we used huge “CD’s”, now stuff of lore.

But what I hope will always still exist:
a sense of fun and lasting happiness.

Sonnet LXXXVII

Today I am sixteen. How do I feel?
Almost the same, perhaps a bit more tame.
Tomorrow I write two exams, then three,
including one exam on Saturday.

Another day to me, same everything.
No presents, cakes, or birthday songs I need.
I’d rather sit here, quiet, studying.
Achievement fills a void too easily.

But then again, I’m happier today.
New hope and inner peace make life more bright.
So much to see, to feel, to do, to say!
What joyful days enclose this path called life!

I know there will be days I’ll wish were through.
But now the grass is green and skies are blue.

Sonnet LXXXVI

Apologies to forks I have undone
I meant no harm to compliment the spoon.
A fork, as well, feeds all and everyone,
just with a different aim and manner too.

Ambition, marked by sharpness, greatness makes.
None matches grand achievement like a fork.
What else can jab a meatloaf or a cake
with such precision, grabbing up that pork?

And also, bold enough to learn more trades.
On icing, prongs make many little trails.
In gardens, other forks can dig all day.
And forks in roads make many sob and wail.

I’m sure that lofty goals may warrant blame.
But better to be eminent than tame.

Sonnet LXXXV

The roundness of a spoon should not be mocked
for such utensils feed the masses so.
With opened curve to grasp the soup below,
thus food diminishes while bellies grow.

A certain virtue grows from serving well,
for motionless and gently all the day
(and night perchance) round spoons receive no pay
for tasks so menial, as some might say.

However, one must never thus assume,
that spoons have no prestige, like lowly vales.
Mistake not dullness for a wit that fails,
for worldly foods have passed this lovely dale.

A little twinkle, flipping images
conveys what joy a life of duty is.

Sonnet LXXXIV

Persephone had painted all their heads
with artists’ eyes and nature’s finest brush.
In tow she had her paints and gentle touch,
to lightly prod and colour flower beds.

But what did she become? The Queen of Death.
Forced under earth to rule a new abode.
Instead of birds she heard sad, dismal odes,
instead of spreading life she smothered breath.

The virtuous work of poor Persephone
was lost to greed. While mothers mourned she thrived,
to new endeavours solemnly belied.
And lost in seasons, died to history.

But plants live on, eternally un-dead,
collecting bitter tears the Muses shed.

Sonnet LXXXIII

The mirror insults me, not for its plain face,
but for the nature of its glassy stare.
Two wholes, alike, not meant to be a pair.
Its difference of sameness a disgrace.

Shall future joy exclude me, entering here?
I will not know; I mask all well, you see.
But still, as faulty allies break their creed,
the truth remains, a taunting little leer.

Alas, I’m superstitious, mutely so.
I’d never break a mirror willingly.
So shamefully the twins stay gleefully,
observant in their grief and undertows.

As over-replication causes waste
so do the many lies, which make distaste.

Sonnet LXXXII

This sonnet was a ghastly pain to write.
The rhyme scheme didn’t work, and hence I tweaked.
It’s now an a-b-a-c – no delight
and not traditional like I had hoped.

The words I wanted weren’t iambic, yet
the words I found from Pete Roget weren’t great,
but still, I settled for my second best.
(these sacrifices better be of worth)

So anyways, I wrote the couplet next
to see how everything should fall in place.
It didn’t work. The thing became a mess.
The ending didn’t even rhyme that well.

And now I know you’re thinking this part’s best,
but still this statement’s not a good one yet.

Sonnet LXXXI

I learnt that creativity is mean.
A bit like kids from daycare I called “friends”.
You know, those bullies that ate all your snacks
then stole your toys and lied to meet their ends.

He knows no bounds. Your generosity’s
a waste. Besides, your deadlines disappear,
for creativity ignores all time.
An hour turns to days, then squandered years.

So fickle, fleeing all time like the birds
then coming back and plaguing you at night
or in the middle of your favourite soap
or during dinner, saving you some bites.

One thing I’ve learnt – that muses can’t be true.
Rely on them and kill your wishes too.

Sonnet LXXX

The dissonance of clouds is beautiful.
Transparent sprinklers clearly mirror that.
Abnormally the thunder rumbles here
through hues of sky and cloud stay white and blue.

Green grass suspends me, trees might do the same;
their consonance adagios of wind.
Where fences lay to rest the saddened ground,
they frame the sky and let the fields abound.

Perchance I’ll catch the pitches of the drops
or count the rhythm of the thunder’s dance.
Or maybe hear the symmetry of rooves,
their symmetry by random rain removed.

Surrounding triangles of sound this day
the sullen sky turns happily to pray.

Sonnet LXXIX

The gates, the doors, the windows puzzle me,
but still reveal a human’s tempering.
For only mortal barriers like these
stem from a mortal being’s hindrances.

For why obstruct the natural flow of earth
whose impish chaos thus defines the world
from undefined and random cycles birthed
which cause our rains to seem so childish?

I see no reason why our orders seek
to curb the happy line of endless life.
Perhaps, I see, to give security.
Our simple minds still crave simplicity

and scheduled joy and plainly joyous rules,
which hapless men do strive to keep as tools.

Sonnet LXXVIII

That haunting subject enters all alone.
His countersubject, following, condones,
subservient, but equal in its turns,
a contrast to the subject’s dull returns.

Each voice must state the subject loud and clear.
The previously entered stay quite near,
reciting countersubjects, then perhaps
a second one may sound, to fill the gaps.

An interlude’s between the subject’s calls.
The exposition’s done when called have all.
Then episodes, recycling all the lines;
a stretto sounds the entries one more time.

The hackneyed motives breed economy.
For fun we’ll add a tierce de Picardie.

Sonnet LXXVII

The greatest magic is a language learned,
through lots of conjugation practise earned.
Though dictionaries of may be used at first,
facility grows better still, not worse.

Communication’s key to thrive, survive, and live.
The goods we need from others are derived.
No doubt, linguistic interaction brings
good company (or bad) and other things:

a source of pride, a handy travel guide,
a taste of culture (literally tried?),
new friends, old histories, used in all work,
an academic journey one can’t shirk.

Perhaps one’s diction may not be desired,
but one can speak and certainly be hired.

Sonnet LXXVI

I thought I heard an owl call at dawn.
At once my thoughts by reverence were pawned.
I realized that fate comes at scheduled rounds,
my death the first of other ones.

I saw my funeral, like tapes rewound.
It rained a little, at the lonely grounds.
In January, sullen snows did rain,
my undead heart arrested by the cold.

I did not see the clouds which hailed the dead
or flutterings of birds that sought my bed.
The worms, so bitter, had no great effect.
Tears fell on deafened ears that rotted well.

For pearly gates await no sickly soul,
but solitude’s a gift for public holes.

Sonnet LXXV

I must admit I am a cannibal…
my daily bread is Music and her kids.
Delicious, anaesthetizing all my pains,
and satisfying all my famished brains.

My boredom’s killing me so fugues by Bach
delight our ears and satisfy our minds.
We love a taste of Brandenburgs at noon,
and passacaglias just make me swoon.

And nocturnes, fantasies, impromptus, they
destroy all welled-up feelings in a flash.
A bit of Chopin soothes the soul although
a tad of Mozart calms the nerves and woes.

Food for the heart, food for a sullen head.
Good music comes from writers who are DEAD.

Sonnet LXXIV

Forget your Rolexes, those stupid shrines.
Don’t worship something that’s no use to you.
For monumental folly causes Time,
the foulest, dumbest measurement of fools.

Does Time exist? It sure as heck does not.
At least, not in my dreamy fantasies.
Now worn by Time itself I’m old and fraught
and use my dying breaths stain its creed.

It will be hard to loosen its domain,
which stretches all across a stricken world.
In spite of schedules and dull refrains,
let’s find mute solace from Time’s rapid purl.

How could the only live intelligence
succumb to this precisely sized pretence?

Sonnet LXXIII

The archetypal clouds existed too
in Jason’s time. And still they pirouette
with skies as Prussian blue as artist’s hues,
illuminated by an ochre sun.

Come sunset, evening hides the Firmament
behind silk screens of many varied shades
which masquerade and show through other tints,
displaying pastel colours swirls in wisps.

But this fine fabric's not a painted scene:
These birds that all abound are not just sewn,
The clouds aren’t fixed, they circulate their laps;
The moon, though stationary, lights the sea.

All this I see within a small, round glass.
And then a blur as all the world goes past.

Sonnet LXXII

I bought a tin of tuna at the store.
I thought of you. I know. It’s sad.
This strange obsession’s driving me quite mad.
I think of you when buying albacore.

Flotillas filled with fish all roam the earth.
Each one I could have searched for one I liked,
but I found you. For all the clams and pikes
and mackerels have not a single worth.

What’s love? Who knows. But it’s unfair to you
to not know who you are. I’ll drop you here.
I’ll wait back by your docks, forever near.
Forgetting you, as all the goldfish do.

There will be many fish out in the sea.
But none will be as dear as you’re to me.

Sonnet LXXI

I want a gentle pat upon my head
and you to say I’m good all of the time.
Review my talents, comment on my strengths,
and say for all these things I have a knack.

These happy words and actions are now gone.
Of late I’m drowned in harsh reality.
Forever I will look upon these times
and wonder how those complements I won.

One thing I have to say: Don’t lie but tell
the Truth. I don’t need all your pretty tales.
Don’t float my ships with falsehoods you designed
to make my confidence and ego swell.

I’m not implying that you should be stark,
but don’t dilute good criticism’s sharks.

Sonnet LXX

I paint nice pictures, sketch quite stunning scenes

without a single drop of paint or brush.

I see strange visions no one else has seen

yet I need glasses, for my vision’s mush.

I make odd riddles no one else can solve,

for there is not an answer you can guess.

Each answer is correct and will resolve

my problems, solved to each who dare confess.

I build great spheres, all round and lovely still

though you may never see them with your eyes.

I speak not of the future past the hills

and yet my words will come not as surprise.

Fear not, my friend, my fiery tongue is cold

though words still chastise all the plots retold.

Sonnet LXIX

Come here…I have a secret for you now…
I’m dead. And have been for a decade’s time.
How I have watched you live your earthly life.
I have much now to tell you, friend of old…

You still disgrace the dead, you mortal sprite.
The zombie mummies resting in their tombs
are pleased not by your laughs – beware your doom.
The cemetery waits for those who smirk.

My lifetime’s work’s now yours to judge…who cares?
How good it is to be a murdered soul!
I care not what you think nor tricks you pull...
Now taunts are useless! I am cold and dead.

And now I only speak because you need
a soul to understand and soothe your greed.

Sonnet LXVIII

Oh even all the rustlings of the note,
the difficulty of the glue-sealed flap
were fraught with grief. To cry I did not know
but felt tears tear me up inside.

The breeze was warm, the sun was warm as well.
The leaves foreshadowed all the rustling yet.
And then did happiness begin to swell?
Was freedom finally there, the silenced free?

And still I do not know how lies were made
but that they saved the feelings of that She.
To think, the woman I fought in Crusades
could still instil some pity within me.

The coldness of her looks will haunt me still,
but tears at her partaking bring mine own.

Sonnet LXVII

Pandora’s Box is sitting on my desk,
an artifact of old once more revived.
Wrapped up in ink and crumpled papers crude,
here darkness thrives, whilst daunting dreams will brood.

I put the Box upon my shelf at night
and let it flaunt and taunt my visions dark.
But still the next day I will take it down
and smother it with smiles, sighs, and frowns.

For therein lies no imp nor beast nor sprite.
Instead - my precious muse, enchantress, light.
And yet, despite my honouring of her,
cruel clouded words peruse the thoughts that were.

But still - within the devils of my work,
remains that Hope that love within her lurks.

Sonnet LXVI

Who taught the rivers to sing beautifully?
The rain of course, that mother lachrymose
who, moved by tears, spent hours by her streams
and listened to her toil’s wondrous work.

Who taught the trees to whisper melodies?
The birds of course, so selfless in their task
of teaching art to forests in the breeze -
obliged by empathy to share their gift.

And how those trees sing greater, after death!
In keyboards, leaves of art, and lover’s notes,
while spheric harmonies adorn the breath
of Dreamers, fed by lyric brooks and creeks.

Though praise of precious teachers disappear,
their work will last, commemorated here.

Sonnet LXV

A personality – I’d like one please.
You sell them for a decent price, I hear.
Please call me when it’s done; I’ll come back here.
I’ll pay your due – the taxes, time, and fees.

I need a life. And me? Less shy, more warm.
More loveable, less esoteric too.
Sincere and wholesome, loving, friendly, true,
dependable, and matching to the norm.

If possible, remove the “shell” they see.
Cure my depression and nostalgic thoughts
and make me dutiful, like I was taught.
Create the me all love and want to be.

Your store’s a fake, now isn’t it? I see.
There’s no supply of all the traits I need.

Sonnet LXIV

I swallow mayonnaise, the sumptuous spread,
all slathered on a piece of ancient bread.
The quiet afternoon is restless still
and pricks my skin, thus urging me to quill.

But nothing comes to mind and nothing will
as blank stares greet me from the window sill.
Sad empty promises all sing above,
for things to do are things to never love.

And schedules and timetables fly by
and drift away, forlorn by desperate sighs.
I relish reading facts on calories
that say that fat is actually good for me.

And so I eat my mayonnaise and bread
while reminiscing of my future dread.

Sonnet LXIII

This silence fills our lovely, empty void,
a large expanse of molecules of air.
Demonic Martians haunt these corridors
and change us to a trio, not a pair.

Our triangle of four is awkward still.
Compared to five, three’s still a lovely charm.
But six is pushing it; now I will leave,
abandoning this crowd of growing harm.

They chatter ‘mongst themselves, like sullen bees,
dejected, using me as wondrous bait
to get their kind to come and chat with them,
while perishing, my rotting corpse will wait.

I think by far my solitude is fair:
Their buzzing’s so pretentious by compare.

Sonnet LXII

That chocolate, melted on the tabletop
is not fondue. It's melted there because
you left it there. And now it's molten tracks
of liquid, sweetened wine of brown and black.

Don't lick it off - don't lick it off, I said.
Now get away, and turn the T.V. off.
And no, I will not play a board game NOW.
I’ve got to clean this up, so snub my vows.

My GOD! Why are the popsicles all there?!?
I told you, “Leave them on the plate – don’t touch!”
But noooooo…who disobeyed me? It was you!
You left them on the carpet, melting, too.

My brother, insolent and devious.
You charm your warden with your gentle kiss!

Sonnet LXI

A field of emerald, all spotless now,
Fresh littered with the corpses of the dead.
In heaps they lay, those jaundiced conquerors,
All massacred, in thousands – ah, but how?

Of course by cruel beheadings and the like
by human murderers with weeding tools,
who ripped them all from tarnished, bloodstained grounds.
The children, mothers…all their heads on pikes.

They’re dandelions, stupid, human fools.
They’re plants, not weeds that grow – why should they die?
“They’re ugly!”…No they’re not; they’re yellow-bright.
And now they’re dead, all murdered by us ghouls.

Oh what a war, oh what a war indeed!
A fool’s crusade against those blameless weeds.