Sonnet CLXXXVI

My life is Palette, Brush is pen, and thoughts are Paint;
my Canvas, you, unpainted by my vibrant hues.
Each strange occurrence makes a colour, if I choose,
and finds its stumbling way to tarnish your terrain.
Your whitish square’s confining, sometimes such a pain;
the guidelines of your edges trap as if a glue.
Alighting from your surface angers you -
I scrap the masterpiece and paint your mind again.

I paint again, again, although the paint is scarce,
and Palette dries my Brush’s bristly little hairs.

The hues you’ve seen before; you’ve sniffed their toxic fumes.
And yet I paint, my similes this cautious red,
my metaphors a runny green. But find the room,
and see my art, display the Paint, expose my head.

Sonnet CLXXXIV

His fingers clammy, wet with fearful nervousness;
his crime, his art; his weapon, digits of his hand;
a criminal of highest calibre and brand,
successful more than always – powerful – no less.

His method, less than clear; his target, everyone.
His mind, complex and dark; his pleas, his twisted fun.

He meets the floor, still greeted by the silent night.
The keys are his; the audience applauds and waits.
His humble bow is perfect, elegance his bait.
And then, in shock, we see his violent, bloody fight,
his sheer expressive force invading sound and sight.
Now no one sees his coldness, hidden from his face,
which lets whatever ambience he wants to make
exist and dazzle, seizing victims by the mind.

Sonnet CCLXXII

Momentous, momentary pleasure must secede
to watching weight, so equally as selfish though
a lot less fun; an effort spent with foolish Woe.
How difficult and ravenous the task must be
when such delicious Turkey crowns the Festive Feast!
One smiles, sipping wine, and all the while knows
the foul fowl lights the Greed within the bowel,
a ghastly, menacing, and dangerous Disease.

One smacks their lips, a wolf delighted with their Hare;
but truly, is it hare or Wolf that’s now ensnared?

A-rumbling in the antechamber of the gut,
a trembling Fire burns, the inkling of Desire.
One takes the fork and grabs a bite as now the pyre
alights, ignites, and rages like a dirty Smut.

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 CCLIX

Si tout le monde me fuit, je vendrai tout mes pleurs.
Et si personne n’achète mes pleurs, je les boirai.
Ainsi, les pleurs que j’aurai bu mettent à pleurer,
et dans cette belle façon, je flotte, je noie, je meurs.
Comme ça je pense, je meurs. Ce n’est pas franc de l’or,
mais tout le monde ne voient pas plus ma tristesse laide.
Peut-être inondés comme moucherons de mai,
ils semblent comme les grands aveugles, sans ses cœurs.

Ainsi, j’ondule à tout mes océans qui passe,
et même dans le décès je les regarde en masse.

Les océans me semblent comme les vrais amis:
ils recueillissent mes larmes comme souvenirs;
ils ne protègent de mal, monstrueux, nuisible, pire,
avec sa forte puissance qui mange mon corps et ri.

Sonnet CCLVI

I wonder why the world is always smiling
when so much of our lives are so consumed with woe.
Perhaps a pessimistic view; I dare not prose:
the explanation’s long and riddled with my tears.

Well, all the world’s a-smiling, except for me.
It almost seems the world is ill - perhaps that’s so -
where everyone is gleeful, dancing to and fro –
but probably it’s me that has the malady.

Oh yes, I am an invalid – don’t come too close!
I’m leprous – crude contagion seems to be my woe.

But let me here, in sadness. Do not let me sting.
Exist in happiness; exclude me from your guild.
I will come back to join you later – save your guilt.
I hope my sadness flees, or else come rescue me.

Sonnet CCLV

What shining snow beyond my windowpane! How brown!
Surrounded by the gaping grass, a strange chartreuse,
the splendid plane of lawn glows as a muddy mousse!
To think, the snow is sparse and what, December now?
I think myself too lucky for Pollution’s frown!
These clumps of snow, so gently touched by sun and goose,
are spread with canine excrement of darkish poop –
what chance – Pollution’s work! How kindly she endows,
and what a mastermind! As searing as a flame,
disrupting Old Man Winter’s stupid, foolish game -
salvation like prophetic scripture, free of vice!
Pollution favours us! We giggle at her touch,
which slaps the frozen earth and turns it to a mush,
exalting strange, unnatural warmth, obstructing ice!

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 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 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 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 CCXIII

I’m now a country mouse. My field is grand and free,
my dwelling’s lots of fun; behind’s a large, old barn
(I told my rodent friends, who thought it was a yarn)!
The city’s far away – and such a sight to see!
At night, illuminated, lights shine merrily,
like islands, pricked in pins of pink beyond the barn.
And standing mute as mice, the trees become a cryptic cairn,
a bunch of waves “good-night”, procuring sleep for me.

Before, I was a city mouse that lived away;
in domiciles of dreary sameness did I stay.

But now I am a country mouse, so proud with joy!
My life out here in hamlets, small and filled with ease
is better. Still, it’s hard for every place to please:
some like the city; others love more rustic joy!

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 CC

I used to live in Texas long ago.
The weather always shined so languorously.
In fall, there was a fleeting little breeze
and winter was a joke – there was no snow.
Our small apartment was beside a road
with palm trees bordering, so slim and high.
The flat was small and filled with moths and flies,
and cockroaches had pestered the abode.
Longfellow Elementary School was near,
and dusty baseball parks were near as well.
I came home daily, watching Spanish shows
and missed my mom, who wasn’t very near.
She studied in Purdue, said she was well,
and kissed her letters, sending lipstick home.

Sonnet CXCII

That day was dim and filled with crude remorse.
“I don’t want braces!” one could hear me pout,
but nonetheless, they took the spacers out.
I lay sprawled out while tools had screamed and roared.

Then I remembered, early on, before,
my teeth grew fast and fast they fall right out
and Mom had said, without a swaying doubt,
that all my teeth were pearly white - and more.

But then I fell at Sea World, chipped a tooth.
The poor replacement squeezed the rest around.
But sitting, flipping through a book of hues,
the times with braces in my head were found
and almost sad, I chose the solemn blue
retainer. Then my braces came right out.

Sonnet CXCI

MY GOD.
                Barack Obama
                                       was your choice.
He was, or wasn’t he? He’s worth your vote!
He’s better anyhow than Mister Old
and Miss Alaska-Gal, all bright and coy.

MY GOD. I actually don’t care a bit
to study for my math test. For this day –
MY GOD…this night of voting – isn’t play.
It’s real. It’s now. It’s not some fad to hit.

With seconds, minutes left, go vote or think
at least, politically. Discard the rags
of commonplace and trivial pursuits.
Don’t let your government and life just sink!
Take action, make your nation firm, not sag!
Or if you won’t, just watch the goddamn news!

Sonnet CLXXXIV

Who are they? Bumblebees and witches, fruit.
From house to house and yard to yard they fly:
a fairy princess or an action guy;
perhaps a pumpkin, stout, rotund, and cute,
or lovely mermaids, lithe or more obtuse.
In any case, their flashlights light the night
with glowing beauty simple as their plight
of chasing candy down in scattered troupes.

And “trick or treat!” they call, but only “thanks”
are whittled out of them when parents chide,
apologise, and carry them away.
Though happy with their sweet and chocolate weight,
soon all our little demons flee inside,
exhausted, thirsty, itchy, pulling pranks.

Sonnet CLXXVII

“10-4,” he says. “All clear,” he clarifies.
The mystery of codes has captured me.
The radio keeps buzzing like a bee
and sends out messages that dance and fly,
a dream so commonplace yet free,
dismembered voices sharing secret things,
encoded, cryptic in great secrecy,
in magic code, decoded only by
the bus chauffeur. He separates the maze
of numbers, dashes, strange and mystical.
I’m curious. I bend beyond my seat.
I wonder what he’s saying, what are his ways.
Then everything seems less phenomenal
when noticing his orange answer sheet.

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.