Sonnet CCCXLV

Demonic monsters of the turbid sky,
guffawing with your gaping mouths like beasts -
away, away! Take wing and swiftly fly!


Regarding jealously at all who feast
and clammoring for every greasy piece -
away, away! We steadfastfully ignore!


The children, fearful, hurry to their seats,
or else combat the grey-specked, greedy hoard.
For such disturbance, there is no reward!
Mind quickly to yourselves, o scavengers...


There's scraps upon the ground - don't ask for more.
Your gluttony grows only angrier;
the laden tables are your battlegrounds -
away, away! Show mercy this time round!

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 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 CCLIV

An anxious Andrew bashed his shopping cart around
and packed in cookies; slapped in juices, yellow, red;
then grabbed his wife’s requests and zipped the way ahead.
His enemy was Time, his watch so cruelly round,
while rushing to the checkout; seconds like wet hounds,
their fangs a-dripping. Pulling through to aisle ten,
to checkout nine, where those with items eight or less
were bound to head, he fast advanced! But turning round -

He saw the stupid crackers he forgot in haste.
He raced reverse – the party would be starting soon!
And now he had an item more – so nine – how cruel!
The hand struck three – upon his shaking, fumbling wrist –

Anxiety then melted to a laughing howl –
his watch was early – almost by a half an hour!

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 CCVII

With wild abandon, all the kids would run around.
We’d messify the basement like a big stampede.
We’d moo like cows, we’d screech like birds, we’d mount a steed
and fly like cheetahs, searching like a wise, old hound.
We’d play some board games. Bored, we’d board a couch and read.
And then we’d watch T.V. until we had to eat.
We’d go upstairs, complaining, making such a sound.

But none of us would eat a thing. We’d want to play.
For weeks we waited for this frabjous party day!

We’d run downstairs and raise a ruckus there once more.
We couldn’t tell how late it was – we didn’t care –
We only wanted fun and played our truth or dare -
but then they had to leave, departing out the door.

Sonnet CCII

The cooking days in cooking class were tons of fun:
there was a silly time I added tablespoons
of salt instead of smaller teaspoons in the food;
another time we made some cinnamon-y buns,
but made the larger, double recipe and some
had overflowed and burned into a blackened soot.
And when we used the powdered broth and not the soup,
our pasta turned too salty for our hungry tongues.

And though we had our share of small and great mistakes,
we kept on making cookies, mac and cheese, and cakes.

And so our cooking days last year were fun and odd:
we laughed at what we did and how we slyly faked
to like the food we cooked despite our small mistakes.
And yet, we learned so much, by silly errors taught.