An Epitaph

Deep in the earth, beneath unknowing skies,
I rest at last, far past the centuries.
The visitors have long bid their good-byes;
no maidens come to lay their laurel wreaths.

Though on a summer stroll across the hills
a courting couple oft pay their respects:
and wishing well with stolen daffodils
invite a blessing as they introspect.

"For love, for truth, for art," engraves the stone:
beyond the fateful words no history;
and all the joys and sorrows that I'd known
are silent to the traveller, wondering.

But from immortal eulogy begins
a second life, reborn to brilliance.

Sonnet CCCLXIII

Unwary laughter stirs the languid air:
The weary robins interlace their yawns
Unbidden breezes charm our tickled arms,
meandering toward the heaven's stair.

The shadows of the trees are barely there;
the limpid flowers rest their lurid shawls -
In viscous resignation, stilled and calm,
Warm oxygen absorbs our every care.

As Artemis is dying all the clouds,
Apollo closes up his pearly gate.
The final sun-kissed photons scintillate
as conversation takes its final bow:
these summer hours sedately dissipate,
and Mother Nature packs away her day.

Sonnet CCCLVIII

A pair of crows stood, foolish, chatting!
Resplendent in the winter sun.
Was gossip ever idler, waiting?
Impending doom a distant drum!


And now my car comes crashing, wildly!
The earthworms tremble under, blindly…
The semi-frozen earth grows pale!
Vibrations thunder in the air!


But – ah! They flee too quickly – ninjas!
Oh, stealthy as the flashing winds…
Their flight igniting oxygen,
their wings opposing sluggish minutes!


But what a tale to tell at lunch!
"We only nearly dodged that one!"

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 CCCXXXVII

They say Verona’s roses paled nearby

and summer winds retired out of spite

the day the master poised the brush to paint.

Madonna smiles, resplendent in her grace,

the Child swaddled in her azure robes:

The critics rave about the lucid strokes

that shine like flames upon a canvas sea.

The hues shine through the many centuries,

the souvenir of brightest brilliance,

undying to the transient populace.

Instead –

                 thrown out with trash and cans of beer,

half-painted as a shoddy, forged Vermeer,

by whom, but rats shall it be seen?

Oh Fame, you are a fickle, fickle fiend!

Sonnet CCCXXXV

Though dead for centuries and centuries,

you never cease to fascinate and please.

Collective grievances and heartfelt joy

of choirs in their polyphonic play;

Cantatas, mystic in their piousness,

yet human in their rich emotiveness;

Concerti, full of outward brilliance,

and meditative pensiveness within;

The worldliest of dances, slow and fast,

hypnotic rhythms merged with style and class;

A contrapuntal grace and mastery

in heavenly and haunting fugal themes.

Why does your music captivate me so?

I love it all, the little that I know.

Sonnet CCCXXVII

A lonely pair of lifelong enemies

sit, glaring in their tank, despondently.

Soon snapping claws are closed with rubber bands:

the water sprays; the buyers hide their hands.

From liquid to the dryness of a bag,

the foes grow weak, but ever, ever mad.

Transported to a fridge, they’re stuffed inside.

They sit at zero Celsius with wine.

The morning comes. The fridge light flickers on.

Removed from their abyss, they greet the warmth.

But all too soon they greet a greater one –

and boil in the flames of Hell, to death.

But if they’re lucky, they’ll be au gratin,

and if they’re not, they’re torn apart,

                                                                      to bits.

Sonnet CCCXIX

A day begins anew as dawn arrives –
the Sun’s in love with all the Earth!
The bees are giggling in their beehives;
the gossip tickles all the birds.

You see that cautious glance, so distant?
He keeps afar, lest fiery passion
ignite his dearest, earthly love.
Devotion! Tender as a dove.

He warms her world and keeps it living
and return, she’s cruel and blind,
exalting in her selfish mind,
oblivious as planets can be.

If lovers loved like timid stars,
then love is pain and life is hard!

Sonnet CCCXIII

To Robin,
             lying on the asphalt.
Another time would find us – live –
upon a grassy hill of beryl,
conversing as the time flies by.

We’d daily meet beyond the meadow,
a pair concealed beneath a willow,
the shadows overhearing us –
our gossip of the latest fuss.

But who has time these days to chatter?
My strict routines keep feet a-patter;
and you’re just trying to survive,
amidst my world – besides -

You’re roadkill, dead upon the road,
your breast a purest ruby-gold.

Sonnet CCCXII

The pinkish, french-fry earthworms wiggle,
their gossamer a sheerest shine.
I carefully avoid their squiggles
and quickly leap minutely by.
The ravens perch like jet-black devils,
their eyes like opal, heads all level.
From trees above, they wait with glee,
their stomachs churning, fed with greed.
The rain is sloshing by my shoulders
and all about my feet as well.
Do I tread worms? I cannot tell!
Alas, I look beyond my sneakers -
I’ve helped a bird digest his meal–
at the expense of worms at heel!

Sonnet CCCVII

The great economy of Spring is paralleled by none:
she’ll lease a birdsong lest we’re bored – but only to the trees;
she’s miserly with sunny warmth and sheds it grudgingly;
she only spares a tiny slip of ordinary sun.

Each gesture’s full of luxury, but counted in her sum,
and in the end we’re left with scraps, all small and crude and cheap:
a sliver of a heated ray, a menacing zephyr –
and even time is spent with care; it slowly sticks as gum.

It’s not until a month or two she spends some more and more;
her time is thrown away – like that! – and soon she starts to give –
her gold, the sun; the grass, an emerald – now shared as gifts.

As if she’s realized she’ll die; decides to spend it all –
and yet we know that’s not the case, in fact, the opposite –
that Spring – warmed by a guilty coal – has just begun to live.

Sonnet CCC

She wrapped her woollen shawl against her tender bones,
as frail and white as freshly fallen snow outside.
The snowflakes mutely sprinkled gingerly like rice,
then melted, leaving tarnished grasses to the cold.
She mutely waited by her simple, ashen phone
and thought of all her children’s bulging, frog-like eyes,
with wonder, watching early snows and all the ice -
but that was long ago, and thoughts like that are old.

She missed her role as mother, though. The time seemed brief,
yet full, like festive winters passing on the breeze.

She waited for her older husband’s waking words
and wondered at the emptiness within. She saw
as sparrows took to morning flight while mother birds
would wait with worry, loneliness beginning, raw.

Sonnet CCXCII

I closed the door, then opened it for just a peek.
The light invaded, charging from the corridor.
I gasped, and gladly shut the ashen door once more.
And heading to my silent bed, I feel antique,
my limbs as wooden as a dresser, calmly meek.
The night is welcome, taking me toward its core,
as lying down, I close my eyes and hope to snore,
so weary of the world and all the things I seek.

How easily we fly into that final sleep,
at last prepared for nightly graveyard where we’ll keep.

The weary day, come dusk, succumbs to restful night
and yet, there shall be times the night proves permanent.
Although it’s hard to die unto our cerement,
into that final sleep – how easily we fly!

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 CLXXXI

Not cold nor dark, for Death cannot be felt nor seen.
Not silent, sad, nor stark, for Death has lost its ears,
which then were empathetic, now astray on years
and deafened, caring not to listen to your plea.

Not painful for beholders, greeting him with glee,
absurd. Not cruel nor beneficial by one’s fears,
but nonchalant, uncaring – thus bereaved of tears –
which, would it Life, be bitter, copiously seen.

Who felt the Death impending then, its fingers bare,
unsheathed for Life, prepared for new-acquired fare?

It was the almost-dead, deprived of feeling’s vice,
emotion stripped, their closing minds beginning end;
their eyes ablaze with nothingness, their lips a friend
to emptiness, as raw as day, as bright as ice.

Sonnet CCLXXVII

She can’t imagine otherwise! The world’s a wreck;
it’s envious and bitter, flashing like a shrew!
What snow, how stupid! Biting at her shining shoe
and vying with its shining face and sloping neck.
What trees, how idiotic! Thinking branches, gems,
when all the world knows hers are best, that hers are new.
What birds, how foolish! Thinking feathers better hues
than chic designer clothes that madden any wren!

What sun, how bright! Should hide her face for fear of shame –
her style’s so last century, and still the same!

But brazen maiden, oh how stupid, oh how proud!
The snow will come again and shine more than your jewels!
The trees sustain, the sun still lives, as does the cloud! –
those birds shall bicker on your grave and laugh at you!

Sonnet CCLXXIII

Of late, she thinks about herself and how she’s changed.
She’s old, dependent, dying, trapped within her home.
She planned on travelling, to Paris, Cuba, Rome,
but now she lives off pensions, locked inside her cage.
She thinks of youth, and misses it, a bit amazed
at how the time has passed. Her only son is grown –
but stingy – keeping phone calls, money for his own,
while thinking she’s decrepit and deranged.

Her son would never spend a measly dime for her
despite his wealth. She’s raised him all these years, to err!

And yet – to err is only human. What of that?
Forgiveness is divine! If sons decide to scorn,
then who’ll coerce their smiles, forced and falsely warm?
An honest miser’s better than a lying rat.

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 CCLXVI

My life’s a yellow yarn, but not the kind that lies –
the kind that spins, from forth my hands, to sombre death.
Entwining me, enveloping, constricting breath,
my life is not a yarn perhaps – a noose, at times –
then other times it seems unravelling and bright,
the backwards handiwork of grannies put to bed
with thread, awakening then to see it gone and dead
and life destroyed, and never waking from its time.
Who knows just where the scissors chomp? Not I nor you,
but shrewd Atropos knows! She rests her shears and brews
a cup of tea. And all the while, searching here,
we wonder if the end is near or if it’s not,
and as we think, immortal Fates imbibe and plot
- and spin – while here we are, rope’s end and all with fear.

Sonnet CCLX

I cannot die to live, but always live to die:
my life is spinning out to death from just a thread,
attached to my beginning, birth beyond my head.
I’m like the paradox of day, which also dies,
despite its burst of lustre, bright Aurora’s red,
and in the end it cedes to night, unto its death
of sleep, unknowing, to another shining life.

But do I know for sure what sequel lies beyond?
Shall death’s old moon prevail or shall the sun stay round?

Perhaps the day does not just die to deathly night,
for from the morning, life turns to a brighter death –
the Noon – which grows with larger brilliance of breath,
reanimated from my corpse, the umbra’s light.