Sonnet CCCLXV

I am - too happy on this modest day.
The oxygen owns no unearthly charm;
but as the sun embalms the lucid way,
my wonder greets the breeze upon my arm.

Bouquets of unrequited smiles prance;
their pirouettes spin aimless on the grass.
Eternities resound their empty dance
as pliant leaves sift through the hourglass.

I cannot forecast all the grievances
that each covert Tomorrow seems to know.
I cannot cause the Heavens to descend
or pause Fortuna's wheel forever, though:

As I recall the morsels of this hour,
no mournful day shall ever wield its power.

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 CCCXLVI

The leaves, already gilt untimely gold,
declare that cherished summer fleets too soon!


The winds, already prematurely cold;
the sun, already mild at half past noon -
Ah, summer seemed as young as sprightly June!
Too quick the torrid dream flits sadly by!


Too quick I fear the changes steal my youth,
as if my sylvan tresses too, ignite
and litter moor and dale and precipice –
as if they had no other life to lead!


As if a heart were steadfast like the skies
and thoughts were constant as the worthy trees;
as if a futile wish for summer lives –
as if autumnal minds could answer it!

Sonnet CCLXX

My mind is partly put at fault for arson’s crime,
although the world provides the fuel and grime.

Sequestered in a quiet room, the world’s alight:
surrounding winds destroy the silence with their games
and thoughts ignite my barren walls with tarnished flames.
My windows bring the sun in, seat him at my right,
his bars of light as gracious as a gentle dame’s.
My pencil flying, unaware, preparing, aims,
then picks the marks and sends me soaring, off to write.

Sprayed on the page, one never sees the criminal;
the Inspiration’s hidden; so’s Identity.
Perhaps the only thing you’ll see is memory,
collected here, a souvenir of short ago.

Sonnet CCLXI

If winds would carry me, I’d fly to Neptune’s globe.
I’d stay awhile, wrapped in furs there, merrily,
the clouds of noxious gases swimming like a sea.
Perhaps you’d see me, dancing in the evening’s lobe,
an earring topaz-blue, a shining memory.
As darkness spreads, my piercing punctures holes to see,
the sequins shining in the woman’s nightly robe.

I’d wink at you, but all you’d see is twinkling light,
the lofty ritual of stars within the night.

One cannot tell the quasars from the galaxies
nor what the constellations render anymore.
One cannot see my face in Neptune’s tiny orb
nor even find it, lost within the hidden East.

Sonnet CCLVII

A word is water, ever-changing, fickle, cold.
I pour you some, returning you to liquid thoughts,
which cannot live unless one drops the wordy drops.
We cannot tell if words have stayed in mind till old,
for forethought cannot permeate a water drop,
though colours do, and flavour can imbue with awe,
though plain remains, perhaps as dull and just as bold.

But like the water too, when words are spent and soiled,
they’re irretrievable and left at sea to cloy.

Then happenchance shall seal it with a kiss
of icy permanence. And shall it stay so proud?
Or melt away in vapour, gaseous like a cloud,
evaporating, sharing life, or else, abyss?

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 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 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 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 CCIV

Like Mr. Thomas Alva Edison perhaps,
I’ll build some great and cool invention, like a stick
that reaches to the distant, tiny, stupid switch
that operates the lights. The stick would gently tap
the switch and all the lights would turn right off, like that.
I wouldn’t have to leave my comfy bed to switch
the lights, in darkness, off. I’d take my handy stick
and switch the switch. What fun I’d have with things like that!

Alas, the use for such a stick is limited
and wouldn’t market very well, despite my bid.

However, writing like a nutty madman here,
my thoughts, ideas, and such are never limited.
And many buy my thoughts, although I have no bid,
for poetry can move the public all to tears.

Sonnet CLXXIII

When sleeping, eyes are tightly closed and shut
and vision only comes through dreaming scenes,
which twist the world from kind to crudely mean
or else from crude to good – so truth is dust.

With goggles, eyes are open, vision weird.
We see the world in clouded pieces thus,
and what we see is what we hear and trust
and feel from water’s touch, but more than dreams.

With normal vision, eyes are not obscured,
unhindered, clear, au naturel, and free.
And what we view with them is true to see.

With glasses though, our eyes are more than pure –
they’re better, abler, truer – best indeed!
Perhaps technology is what we need?

Sonnet CLXX

Alone at home, when silence plays its game,
I rest in peace. The only sounds that mar
are humming tunes of fridges, passing cars,
the naughty winds against the house’s frame,
the nightly taps on panes by insect dames,
and restless barks of canine pets afar.
These sounds are barely audible, like stars
above my gentle window, light and tame,
perceptible, but almost hidden by
the mane of night, a lofty little cloak;
its other trade the noiseless, quiet Mute,
which dims the squalor all around and sighs;
its silent breath that shakes the sleeping oaks
and strums them mutely, branches like a lute.

Sonnet CLXV

The days of catching up unfinished work –
so much to finish, bits from everything...
if only catching up on needed sleep
were just as simple, but it’s not, of course –
for sleep is just a waste of time, no more,
required nonetheless, but time for sleep
is great in quantity though time’s not free,
and thus, for sleep we sacrifice our chores -
we could have done more work within that time;
we could have used it better than just rest...
and yet we need to rest, we need to sleep...
but so much work to do – and where’s the time -
alas - we need our beauty sleep and rest –
so then, it’s just a cycle, circling.

Sonnet CLXIII

A body rounded in the black of night,
the whitened moon within a darkened sky,
illuminated roads as I passed by
by way of its pristine and glowing light.
It seems as lovely as an evening pearl,
perhaps the home of cultured deities.
I wondered then if only humans dream;
that only we succumb to night’s allure.

But then I recollected how wolves praise –
their joyous howls to the lunar rays;
the crashing frenzy of the smitten waves;
the celebrations of the stars ‘til day –
and realizing I was not at bay
had warmed me in the chill of night like day.

Sonnet CLX

The flying fingers of a melody
drift on the breeze from wind chimes thusly sent
and dance amidst the leaves, the evidence
of wind, for fallen leaves shall prove the breeze
by showing where it treads, like in the sea,
the sea of sky, the birds tread air and fly
while flying in the wind the petals die,
the petals, dead from flowers and from trees,
like wings of birds without a feathered mane,
but still so fleeting, fickle as a dream,
which dance on leaves of time and space and air
like touching sounds that never light disdain,
but spurn it, dancing yet away, it seems,
to perch on dying fingers everywhere.

Sonnet CLII

They dream their art is posted on the fridge:
collages made for class and other crafts,
the pictures of a castle, moat, and bridge,
the portraits made of Mom she thought were drafts,
a “book” or two of shocking sacrilege,
crude buildings made of cardboard roofs and shafts,
endearing picture frames with frilly fringe,
and scribbles covered over boring math.

We all imagined artists we would be:
but ah – there come those cruel realities!
Our parents see just junk - more wasted trees;
a hassle - just more trash to blandly see.
So out it goes. There go our foolish dreams.
And there goes youthfulness – how life proceeds.

Sonnet CXXIII

My floor is like a record of my life:
upon it lies the hair I tore right out,
in anger, deadly sadness, foul strife.
Within it, all the tears I cried aloud,
the rain, now buried, from my window’s eye,
and pencil shavings, littered there in crowds,
a lovely souvenir of prose I write,
or sonnets, all of which I’m very proud.

Along the vacuum comes, that wicked beast,
erasing all my filthy memories.
My lovely dirt and scum and mildew – cured!
I almost miss those mites and fleas,
the crude emotions shed about by me.
Or maybe it’s a plea to shirk the work…

Sonnet CXXII

A true friend shall not use you for their aims
or curse you if you fail to serve them well.
A true friend isn’t jealous of your fame
or bitter, hearing new successes swell.
A true friend does you favours. And the game
the others play of selfish playback quells.
A true friend loves you through your flaws and frays
and comforts you in sickness and in Hell.

Does such a friend exist? I must say no.
It’s nice to think one has a friend like that.
But all of us have plans and goals and dreams;
we can’t serve others faithfully and know
the friendship’s symbiotic. Some are that,
but most reciprocate the very least.

Sonnet CXI

My house is one small world contained inside
a grey brick building I call Home, Sweet Home.
Each night the cultures via food collide:
we eat samosas, sushi, sour dough.
Each room becomes a different time zone – time
can vary from five minutes to much more.
Exchange of goods, ideas, good jokes, and sighs
occur at dinner time, as quick as prose.

A family’s a lot of fun, so is
a home to share it with. Except for bugs
that crawl inside and bug us till they die.
Or other buggers – telemarketers.
Despite the salesmen at the door, we hug
and share our tears and laughs until the night.