Sonnet CCCLVI

At last I breathe again, at last I live:
perhaps my loneliness was only relative.
I once desired love – your company –
but I shall fill these hours easily.
From time-worn, weathered eyes erasing you,
replacing such projected joys with truth,
I live once more in grounded, present time
unbound of empty fantasy and rhyme.


I roam the changing earth, but pondering
as drifting, migrant snow joins, flight by flight –
and neither wind nor I know anything
of where we go from here and when or why –


but all we know is that we still exist,
if still unseen – at least by loyal sunshine kissed.

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 CCCLIV

My geese – my ever-faithful geese – have left!
I watched the emptied autumn sky, bereft,
and watched them steal away to tropic lands…
oh how’ll they’ll love those toasty, sun-baked sands!


I cursed their infidelity that day
and bent upon my lonesome, grumpy way –
I’d find some other loyal friend to love!


But everyday I’d check the skies above
and find them vacant as my mournful heart.


Then suddenly – in shy, reluctant March
they squawked once more upon the melting moors!


And I – my injured self! – ignored their lure
(with great contempt) – and sauntered, haughty, off –
remarking how we’ve changed – and how they’ve not!

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 CCCLII

But how those crystal eyes stared back at me!
Grand ecstasies sparked through my soul and mind;
disarming and distracting harmonies
obscured my scrutiny and made me blind.


I waited, waited - how I darkly pined!
Some desperate, thrilling, growing hopefulness
turned ravenous at every sound and sight –
then soon fell, plummeting to hopelessness.


And I remember - stubbornly - with bliss -
at how each word and stolen brush and glance
drew joyously, exultant like a kiss,
upon my steely thoughts…as if to dance.


But not today – there still remains a space -
where cruel, blue plastic mocks your worthy place.