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.

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 CCCXX

Upon a glassy sea of sapphire,
two equal winds suspend our men.
What good is mutinous desire
when forces such as these attend?

The southern wind propels us northward;
the northern wind impels us southward.
Their equal strengths thus cancel out,
and hence we move not north nor south.

Our hopeless map is weak and futile –
our whims are simply whims, at most.
We have no say in where we go –
we’re at the mercy of such reptiles.

How cruelly vacant Titans play,
whose empty sighs control our fates!

Sonnet CCLXXX

I wonder why I wake when other people die.
The sun begins to dim, reflecting on their fate;
the calls of birds seem less like ditties for a mate
and more like delicately grieving, solemn sighs.
My footsteps tread with guilt toward the beastly right.
My eyes draw to the sun and greet its sullen face -
I wonder why I still may see its tepid grace
as Death deprives the living of their human sight.

The world seems cruel on such a bitter morning’s start,
when all the world seems stripped of love and crudely stark.

And what a pain to feel for such that isn’t mine –
as here I am, ungracious, petty, as a toy.
And whilst I sympathise, I do not help – but sigh! –
a most unseemly vice, a most beseeming ploy.

Sonnet CCXLVIII

The love of youth, one says, is but a fleeting lie.
I hope my love is constant so my love is true,
but how can I defy the wisdom and the rue
or wicked Age and Time? I must obey or die,
for Death escapes the loop of Time and that of Life;
and Death defies the customs of the Ageist Rule.
But Life and Love, entangled with the nasty two,
are thus subject to foul wickedness and strife.

Oh Thisbe, why so fleeting from the lioness?
It proves a better death than love’s cruel happiness!

Alas, we love, we hurt, commend our sighs above -
for if my love is fickle, cast me to my death,
and Love will share my sudden robbery of breath.
Oh such a Fate, oh such a fleeting whim of love!

Sonnet CCXLV

Let’s hide away in dark, concealed from all the world;
and so alone we shall not be, but lone together here.
The outside world is noisy, loud, and full of cheer
as brooding, broth of us succumb to silence, pure.

Oh join us, friend, oh gladly join our dismal hurt.
Has Fate rejected you? Has Pleasure shed a tear?
Oh what a joy to hide, and such a wondrous year:
a year of dismal joy, a life of hidden hurt.

In darkness dancing, only voices transfer words,
and if our ears do die, our fingers fly like birds.

And if they die in darkness, what a happy death!
They’d die together here, so smothered in our grief.
And if the world is cold, it didn’t steal our breath.
We shunned its happy face and carved it in relief.

Sonnet CCXXXIX

A circle all around: what sheer diversity!
Perhaps an eye shall dart, shall dart to me perchance!
To me, with glasses, here? To me, with eyes that prance?
To me, with stars of acne, on a sallow cheek,
made pallid with a touch of coughing malady?
Perhaps to me, by purpose or by hapless chance;
perhaps to someone else, another victim seen.

My lips embrace, with touch so rough, and wonder how
their minds are pondering, artistic, thinking now?

Are any forming brand new characters to use?
Or wondering what stories they could find in prose,
employing faces to describe and to abuse?
I know that I am stealing them and churning roles.

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 CXXVIII

Ophelia is lying in her death,
reanimated for a dismal fate.
She lies in sewage, wasting dying breath.
While hunting for her substinence, she waits.

What happened to her lucent skin, so fresh?
Her high-exalted status and her mate?
What of her family and happiness?
Her pride and joy and carefree, happy ways?

Ophelia’s a frog, the shameful beast.
She loves no more and feels no happiness.
She hunts for flies. She’s selfish, crude, and brusque.
Destroyed by everyone, she’s awfully beat,
cares not if all the world has gone amiss.

What fitting joy for such a joyful mess!

Sonnet CXVII

I’ve seen a caterpillar on a chair.
Its bristly body on the fabric plane.
Outside the wind is cruel; he shivers there,
the life out on the porch, his cruel disdain.

And yet I find I’m jealous. How he dares
to live a life of sad and dull refrains,
the frozen leaves his measly, frigid fare,
the substance of his life, his soaring pain.

And though the autumn winds may rage and howl,
his life withstands all tests of nature’s whip.
Though some may see his life as cruel and foul,
I almost cherish it and hope for it.
For joy is not a bliss life does allow,
but every stolen one comes as a gift.

Sonnet CXV

Existing for a breathless while,
the Fly, with no name but its own deceit.
Detested. Flying many weary miles.
Escaping cold inside to human heat.
And when the sunset dawns - Fly’s folly – vile,
enticing it to go outside to meet
unhappy chills, which wears down all it wiles –
but all that meets the window pane are feet.

The Fly must stay inside, subject to fate.
What fate but death? A promising result.
And chased to all wit’s end, the Fly still flies.
Exhausted, onward bound, pursued by hate.
Then beckoned by the light from all tumult,
it fries. The charred meat roasted in the night.

Sonnet CXII

The damn photographer has ruined me!
I spent five minutes making sure that I
made clear my choices on the order sheet –
I chose the pose that showed my head. That guy –
he made me move my head all sideways-y
until it nearly came clean off. That guy
instructed me to fold my hands – then CHEESE!
the deed was done and done it was – oh fie!

He made me move my knees – all of it wrong!
He moved the bottom parts of me to shoot my feet –
the other pose! And there among the throngs,
photographer I then did want to be,
to use my temporary power wrong
and sabotage poor children’s photo glee.

Sonnet XCVIII

Dried worms, all crusty from the summer’s rays,
lay halved and quartered, on the ground like fries.
Remains from spring and summer’s rainy days,
transfigured worms no longer catch birds’ eyes.

The months that passed since their untimely deaths
diminished their pink sliminess and shine.
Now yellow, flat, no longer taking breaths,
they’re part of asphalt, with their flesh combined.

One shouldn’t worry if one steps on heads.
In death, the elements destroyed their looks,
and steps of humans squished them in their beds.
They now are used to being crushed in nooks.

And after death our reputations change,
and who we were is left to Fate’s disdain.

Sonnet LXXXIX

I saw a girl this morning, crying tears.
Her eyes were fire, bitter in her head,
of anger, pain, and sorrow’s burning fear,
by dismal happenchance and fate misled.

You’ve seen this girl. But what about her tears?
This girl could be a mother, working shifts
to feed three mouths, abandoned for a year.

Perhaps the woman shunned despite her gifts?

Perhaps cashiers who dreamt of more?
Perhaps the servant of her boyfriend’s whims?
The ever-giving wife, by all ignored?
The gal paid less because her name is Kim?

You think it’s easy for a sobbing girl
to live her life as scapegoat of the world?

Sonnet LXXVI

I thought I heard an owl call at dawn.
At once my thoughts by reverence were pawned.
I realized that fate comes at scheduled rounds,
my death the first of other ones.

I saw my funeral, like tapes rewound.
It rained a little, at the lonely grounds.
In January, sullen snows did rain,
my undead heart arrested by the cold.

I did not see the clouds which hailed the dead
or flutterings of birds that sought my bed.
The worms, so bitter, had no great effect.
Tears fell on deafened ears that rotted well.

For pearly gates await no sickly soul,
but solitude’s a gift for public holes.

Sonnet XLVIII

The sun is beating down so favourably!
Vacations all will take to happy lands.
The cars we drive pollute – but we don’t care!
They harm the future, but they harm not me!

The sun is beating down so violently.
Oh Africa! Lands of despair, of falling tears.
What have you done to warrant this?
Your children have no food nor families.

Two halves, one darkening, staggered home for all.
One sun, two frightful images compared.
While some eat dust, there’s others so obese
That helping’s action is too great for them.

We squander and we waste and stuff ourselves.
While others writhe in hear, we spoil ourselves.

Sonnet XXIII

Contraption in my mouth, I hate you so.
You bring me shameful strife and pain and woe.
My swollen gums and yellowed teeth cannot
Compare with joy that braceless teeth can bring.

Expensive though you are, all claim you mend
The problems of the teeth. All recommend.
But ah! Why should I care? You hurt me so!
To them I say, “Just let me free, at once!”

Alas, the wait will still take many days.
And slowly days do pass, the price one pays
For straightened teeth I once had in my youth.
And yet I’m still enslaved to metal fads.

I’d rather die with crooked teeth than straight
Because I at least I wouldn’t have this fate.

Sonnet XXI

White porcelain, all spotted with green drips
of toothpaste, with remains of meals consumed.
And adding to the medley of the morgue:
rust-coloured patches, marked from water’s whips.

In ghastly beauty, took from their remains,
a hoard of shiny wings are spread like lard.
More water sprays, the massacre proceeds.
All flattened, corpses lay, prostrate with pains.

Swirled in circumference round the massive grave,
Their tiny bodies, killed without concern
are splattered, mixed with blood and chemicals.
The dead ones, live ones, all I cannot save…

In guilt I watch them fall to awful fates,
lamenting, washing, drowning at swift rates.

Sonnet III

Grey clouds prevail the sky this dismal day,
As grim as days before and days to come.
The future seems as dark as heavens here,
So dark the firmament begins to tear.

What cruel and evil fate is this endured?
What tortured kind of mockery is this?
This life offends me so - it is not fair!
Within my soul the fabric starts to tear.

The dullness mounts, and threatens wickedly,
Yet somehow, strains prevail and reign as well.
Day’s hours are not long enough for me,
Yet surely I wish days would cease to be.

Perhaps my mind is truly much deranged,
And thus I wish instead to here be hanged.