Sonnet CCXLIV

You kiss me on the cheek, a frozen, bitter kiss.
At times I wish for you. You’re early, sometimes not.
At time you bring me joy, but not for very long.
You’re fickle, ever-changing, fleeting from my bliss.
And stark. You’re barren, frigid white as an abyss.
You’re frozen, cold, and yet your passion feels so hot.
I’d almost say you’re sly, but no, you’re really not.
you’re nude, exposed, and always there: ubiquitous.

And there are times – the times I cannot stand your face,
the times I wish to slap you as you slap my face.

And yet, I love you. Winter’s bland without you here.
You’re precious, shining, platinum, and silvery,
an ornament that shimmers only once a year,
a costly spice that nature sprinkles sparingly.

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 CCXLII

Incessant buzzing, motor in a noisy fly.
Convulsions, writhing in his agonizing grief.
His legs a-flailing; desperation’s plea,
but stubborn, never letting life to bid good-bye.

My mother always tells me not to waste my mind.
My father always tells me contribution’s key.
My conscience away tells me, “Help the poor and weak!”
My soul permits me peril if I don’t comply.

Sadistic now, I seem a drooling hypocrite,
obsessive over nothing, weak within a fright.

The fly I see, is falling off the sill; he lives.
He’s on his back – again. I find his little legs.
But no, it’s not my fingers guiding him.
My heart is moving, by an orange pencil helped.

Sonnet CCXLI

A bar of Pain, as soapy as a sweet shampoo,
entices us to delve in misadventures Pain may dwell within.
Seductive, slippery, inevitable therein
and entering the eyes of cruel sensation’s shoe,
undressing us and lathering us naked too,
now wicked Pain dives deeper to our eyes – a pin –
as sharp as any other wickedness or sin,
and burning, strikes us unprotected, bare, and nude.

How desperately we rub, augmenting magnitude!
And liquid aspirins of joy seem flat and crude.

For water spices Pain, as water fires spice.
But after our ordeal, the Pain still stays nearby
and reddens eyes with tears, as each and everyone
is branded with a soapy souvenir of vice.

Sonnet CCXLX

The air is white, from windows where I do observe
the season’s bliss. The wind I cannot hear is there,
with airs of chilly warmth, a racing, snowy hare.
Its form opaque, form snow endowed its whitened curve,
I see him now, an ancient friend still quick to serve
his frozen blizzard, ceaseless in his rumble there.
Perennial, he calls again to me and dares
to tease in moaning, teasing tones, with biting nerve:

“You’re free from chilly frost upon your precious ears,
but can you be as free as me, to dance and veer?”

Retorting, “No”, I say, “However you may prance,
I’m just as free – not physically – but in my mind.
And with my heart, I go with you, and twirl and wind,
and part of me shall join you in your wintry dance.”

Sonnet CCXXXIX

A circle all around: what sheer diversity!
Perhaps an eye shall dart, shall dart to me perchance!
To me, with glasses, here? To me, with eyes that prance?
To me, with stars of acne, on a sallow cheek,
made pallid with a touch of coughing malady?
Perhaps to me, by purpose or by hapless chance;
perhaps to someone else, another victim seen.

My lips embrace, with touch so rough, and wonder how
their minds are pondering, artistic, thinking now?

Are any forming brand new characters to use?
Or wondering what stories they could find in prose,
employing faces to describe and to abuse?
I know that I am stealing them and churning roles.

Sonnet CCXXXVIII

Oh river, take me with your footprints to the shed.
I’ll sail away, bequeathing ripples to the white
of snowy seas, those pallid, lucent, massive beds.
Wrapped snugly in my furs – synthetic, black, and red –
I’ll swim beyond the shed, enjoy the winter’s bite,
and sail beyond the trees, beyond their height,
and fly through seas of air to join the firmament.

I cannot see the river, or the footprints now,
but how the flow of cumuli immerse my brow!

The chill becomes obtuse, the ice surrounds my feet;
The blue azure is now a wondrous white or grey
and snowing, snowflakes bring me with their downward way,
to earth, where greeting branches, with the snow, shall meet.

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 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 CCXXXV

If Nature is the Model, what is Purpose then?
To Mirror it as children do, much like the sea?
To Worship it, exalting all the lofty trees?
To Dwell in it, and spread its surface with our men?

If Nature is the Model, find it here again:
Suspended in a faucet, rivers run for me.
Suspended in a window, lights are suns let free.
Suspended in a box, the air is trapped within.

So shall the Purpose be to copy all its grace?
Or mutiny, rebelling from its youthful face?

Perhaps the Purpose shall be both, or else we lie.
Reflection finds its way into our lives with ease,
but variation finds its way to be appeased,
and so we run around, spin mad, or else comply.

Sonnet CCXXXIV

I love the end of lessons during Christmas time.
I feel like Santa, giving lovely things away:
the strips of stickers, shiny, glittery, like day,
as bright as all the happy grins I see each time.

The flakes of snow and snowmen turn the day from grey
to cheerful shimmer. Best of all, the lessons s play
instead of drag. Each student can’t resist my tray
of stickers, so enticing, pretty, and sublime.

(Of course, I take a few. Who dares resist their fun?
They cheer me up when all my day of teaching’s done.)

Surround yourself with happy things and joyous thoughts,
for life is only bearable in happiness.
Ignore the rapping at your door by sombreness,
Or else our sadness gropes for life and plots its plots.

Sonnet CCXXXIII

“DIVORCE” was not a word that Adam heard before.
He first encountered it when he was five or six.
Remembering his mommy’s voice in little hicks,
she told him Daddy wasn’t coming anymore.
He left for good: he packed his bags and shut the door.
Although they had divorced, she didn’t feel a fix
for sadness in her heart. And Adam was a mix –
confused and sad. But never did he ask for more.

At Christmas, Adam asked his mommy, puzzled, sad,
why Santa Claus had stopped to come – or was he mad?

And Mommy gently said that Santa loves him still,
but doesn’t have a lot of time or money now.
And Mommy gently kissed him on his little brow
and promised him she loves him. And she always will.

Sonnet CCXXXII

The metal bench felt rigid to his sore behind,
the Christmas music, tinny, to his aching ears.
And so the shopping passed like this throughout the years:
a frantic, fruitless search, with nothing good to find.
This winter had been brutal to his weighty mind:
his wife was turning forty after all her fears;
but gifts were never bought, becoming all his fears.
He waited now, a deer in headlights dying, blind.

More fearful now, he knew he couldn’t buy some trash,
although it grew more tempting as he turned more brash.

But then, remembering how late he stayed at work,
how home improvements stole their time to love and live,
he knew at last the greatest gift that he could give
was time together, shared, a time he couldn’t shirk.

Sonnet CCXXXI

Justyna had been toiling on her festive feast
and cleaned while Husband toiled differently – at work.
She felt a little sad when chopping up the pork,
because her children all had grown. She took the yeast
and thought of how her life had counted for the least.
“But it is duty,” saying to herself, berserk,
repeating feverishly what kept her with a smirk
despite what chores annoyed her, chores that never ceased.

By night, it snowed a darkened snow, nocturnal, white.
A knock was heard. Justyna knew her husband’s might.

The knock was lighter. Humming cautious, anxious hymns,
she saw the woman. All the legends said that sight
of females first brings awful luck. And yet – Invite
her in, she thought. We women live too much on others’ whims.

Sonnet CCXXX

To Mr. (Mrs.) Hacker #398:

I’m free of you at last – you’re vanquished – finally!
I hope you pay for what you do. (I guess we’ll see.)
Within my heart, for you alone, I saved some hate.
I saved it all for you because your stupid bait –
the crafty e-mails, monstrous download trickery -
corrupted my computer well and merrily.
I hope the cyber-cops will find you…just you wait!

And when they do, they’ll strap their manacles on you
and all accomplices: your wicked little crew.

My thanks go out to forums, solving daily hacks,
and spyware software. Thanks to better firewalls,
I’m safe and now I know the multitude of facts.
We’ll never come return to be your puppet dolls!

Sonnet CCXXIX

And now the day is young and filled with gentle snow,
the day aglow with celebration's happiness.
You're now sixteen! I hope your life is full of bliss;
from first to last, I hope your days are safe from woe.

The first I met you - in the caf - was long ago.
I don't remember why I was a bit amiss,
but all I do remember was the birth of this:
the friendship, love, and kind affection that I know.

And now we celebrate the anniversary
of when you entered into earth, so noisily!

Today you fill my life with endless cheer and joy,
with radiance and beauty, all of which are fair.
I cannot use my words to tell you what I dare,
but now, these words, for you - I hope - do not annoy.

Sonnet CXXVIII

I’m just a human dragon, dressed in darkest coal.
My breath – a freezing fire – burns a frozen white,
illuminated in the chilly morning’s bite.
My freezing scales and skin destroy my drifting soul
and soon the monstrous cold begins to take its toll.
I stamp my fiendish feet, as loudly as the night
and those who shiver ‘round me shiver in their fright,
still thinking I’m grotesque and vicious as a troll.

I’m angry, now impatient, waiting for my bus.
Destructive in frustration, now I crossly fuss.

But when it comes, I turn into another beast.
I’m still a dragon, but now I am one, sage and wise.
My happiness, refreshed at last, is like the east –
for now it shines much like the glowing suns that rise.

Sonnet CCXXVII

The ravens are their namesakes, ravenous and dark,
desirous of more food, thus hungry, black, and poor,
relying on reluctant mercy, door to door.
Their benefactors see not how good deeds embark;
they are annoyed, see extra work and mess – and hark!
They hear the crowing ravens, seeking more and more.
Apparently, the charity now turns to war
and hatred makes the eyes who fed now stark.

However piteously the ravens plan their plot,
it always turns to this – a war that’s yelled and fought.

In fact, voraciousness is not an awful sin.
If hungry, why should ravens not be let to eat?
So what if garbage bags are torn with angry feet,
torn up in search for any leftovers within?

Sonnet CCXXVI

I wonder why I stare so often at the sky…
perhaps I am afloat in buoyant vanity,
a narcissus suspended in its shiny sea.
So distant in the mirror of reflective sky,
curvetting dreams and thoughts surround my sullen eye,
the pettifoggery of clouds enshrouding me.
Or if I seek my blazoned image in the sun,
I’m blinded by my folly, made to mutely sigh.

In patterns unbeknownst to me, I see a star,
or flower, dissonant in beauty, wise afar.

Reflective, do the skies reflect my pensive scheme?
Or do I only wish to see the world as clear?
I wish for comprehension, see the saltus near –
and lose it, plunging through oblivion, to dream.

Sonnet CCXXV

If ill-appearing discords issue forth from me,
speak not of them. But rather, hide them with your flaws
of human blasphemy. Outstretch your lying claws
with kind deception, masked with lovely flattery.
Ignore ignoble Conscience, screaming honesty;
it lies, despite what seems to be a wholesome cause.
How else do feelings stay intact, as thin as gauze?
We live on lies, existing on our treachery.

But lying here, how do you know I tell the truth?
Thus, therein lies the paradox of lies and truth.

You cannot know what’s hidden from your hungry eyes.
Lugubrious, I may be happy hidden here;
ecstatic, deep repose is clandestine – but near.
And what lies here shall be returned with other lies.

Sonnet CCXXIV

I’m dressed in black. Around me, snowflakes glisten white.
The mourners, raven-black, hack at the garbage bags
and cry with bird-like yells, the vulgate of those hags.
Obsessive in their grief and maddened in their plight,
they tear the bags, sparagmos seeming dull and trite.
Then bowels and the innards, inner guts like rags,
float mutely in the breeze, as do their wicked hags,
enchanted by their sadness, lifted by their might.

Whose funeral is this? I ask as to the church
my leaden feet upheave the snow, in frenzied search.

It’s mine. I’ve lost myself. What’s old has died away,
the manumission signed with death and caused by change.
Still hesitant, I wonder if I should derange
the past. And mourning loss, I drift unto my day.

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 CCXXII

His name was Matt; I still remember that as clear as day.
He made my life so miserable, so long ago.
Back then, he called me names, but then, I didn’t know
what all those words had meant. He shouted every day,
“Hey China-Chink!” And snickers filled the bus in brays
and shame endowed me with its growing hood of woe.
He’s poke sadistic fun at Asians – loud and bold –
while friends of his would laugh and laugh each horrid day.

The sharpest sticks and twigs; the sharpest flint and stones -
could hurt me all they’d like and break my fragile bones.

But never could they hope to vie with words of ice,
more sharp than splinters, crueller than a sword of steel.
For bones can piece together; cuts can always heal –
but words shall always stay, embedded with their vice.

Sonnet CCXXI

I call my classmate after trying tricky math.
The other end is clear; I hear their distant voice,
familiar, but far away. They make the choice
to call me back with answers when they’ve done the math.
In silence, night envelops me in shining bath,
that’s interrupted by a silver ringing noise.
With phone in hand, again I hear their helpful voice,
and crude comparisons begin of what we hath.

Anon, I hear the gentle sounds of rustling leaves
of paper, scratching of a pen; about it weaves.

But not as if they were close by, but far away,
contained within a cord directed at my ear.
And am I just the same? Transmitted all the way
to someone’s ear, a prick of sounds that one may hear?

Sonnet CCXX

Before my presentation on Madame Dessay,
I went inside the French room, testing out my show
of slides. I ate my lunch and quickly had to go.
The other ones were quite well done, I have to say.

Approaching me, I started fervently to pray,
for it was near my very lucky turn to go.
And then, so randomly, my teacher went to crow,
“Oh Mike, your «jaune banane» is here for you to take!”

The class looked back at me, expecting my account.
Embarrassed, thus I told the class to turn around.

Retrieving it from up in front, I ate the fruit.
And then, short after that, my eyes were very round.
Presenting very fast (for class was ending now),
the bell then rang so loud. Cut off, I yelled, «Oh, zut!»

Sonnet CCXIX

I beg to differ to the fact that Hell is hot:
I say that Hell is cold as Hell – and just as mean.
It’s holding ladders for my Dad, as up he leans,
to put up Christmas lights on eaves with hooks we bought.
We move the leaden ladder to and fro a lot,
like frozen crabs a-scuttling to the yells of fiends.
Eventually, my fingers turn a lovely green,
my hat is itchy, legs are sore, my mind is fraught.

And still there’s half a way’s to go, a “wee” bit more…
I suffer, freezing, as the snow begins to pour.

I’m bitter, wondering why such a holiday
is celebrated with such foul means as this.
And then, sadistic snakes of wind begin to hiss,
as moaning, in my sadness, shout I, “Woe is me!”

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 CCXVII

So like I said before: I’d love to write for pay.
But like I said before, I won’t get much to keep.
I’d be so poor, unable to buy food to eat.
I’d starve as artists do, but write the livelong day.
And would I stay more happy, living in this way?
Some say you’re better off when following your dreams.
But if you’re poor, unloved, with little food to eat,
and still rejected, what are to do or say?

Just nothing, probably. Write manga for your bread.
Or else your masterpiece will stay unread.

So drift away, my lovely dreams of easy fame,
relaxing hobbies, happiness. It’s fun to write,
it’s fun to read, but real ambitions keep us wise,
and bring stability, what true happiness should make.

Sonnet CCXVI

The day is long and fraught with woe and toil too!
I’d rather stay in bed, the warmth surrounding me,
the winter far away, which fits me perfectly.
I’d rather stay entombed in bed than grab a shoe
and slap it on my aching feet. I’d rather snooze
than rinse my mouth and eat my food and brush my teeth.
When getting out of bed a chill embraces me.
I’d rather keep it waiting for another fool.

Alas, alas, alas – my damn alarm persists again!
Annoying me, I cannot sleep and thus I wake.

I greet the world, so wicked, and the chill of course,
so bitter, boiling in my freezing rage and clothes.
And walking to my bus, which everybody loathes,
I scream and throw a nasty tantrum, ‘till I’m coarse.

Sonnet CCXV

I have a topic every time I write – but then –
it squirms and wiggles, thrashing everywhere I move,
develops like a foetus, growing more and more,
until I see how everything should rightly end.

However, not expectantly, my words amend,
rewriting to another place. My child’s gore
spills on my page, controlling me. I start the war
and soon we battle. Who shall win? Just find the end.

And you shall see how thoughts have sorted out like mice,
lined up at last, behaving prim and clean and nice.

But oftentimes my children come to pressure me.
I follow what they tell my hands, which should suffice,
but no – the war shall rage. And in the end, advice
from them has changed my writing to another beast.

Sonnet CCXIV

When I was in Grade 5 (when I was 10),
life wasn’t all that great. My teacher wasn’t very nice.
He spoke with racism, which leaned a bit to vice.
The subtle nature of his words were not quite bold,
but sudden, cutting, like a monstrous speech was told.
And friends I had but three. The rest were wicked mice
that prodded all my innards with their verbal ice.
And hurt was thrown upon me; happiness deprived.

And Mrs. Principal had called me down one day,
insisting that I had offended in some way:

She said I was blasphemous to my friend named John –
he was but one of three – and hating her, I claimed
I was but innocent…but no, I was a pawn,
recruited for sadistic joy; by others tamed.