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 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 CCCLIII

Epiphany? My love is shorn to shreds!
A guileless love beguiled by devious ends…
Dark, bitter grief ignites my inner core –
I cannot love this monster anymore!


And yet – I tremble at each docile smile!
I loved the clever traitor all the while.
I now regret that fatal day, when first –
a charming word deceived my artless thirst.


And yes, I still feel dearly for the fiend;
a foolish heart does not know want from need.


Ignore the ingrate! Flee the treachery!
But how we still dream fondly, stubbornly;
demanding vengeance for our suffering,
yet far too weak to do the injuring.

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 CCCXXIX

I cachinnate at all our three-chord songs,

at all attempts to fit in and belong.

Derision greets the slogans that I loathe,

the mindless humming of our T.V. shows.

But I discover what we all have known;

I dig, display emotions all have known;

subscribed to trends, like all have done before;

subjected life to patterns used before.

For we are humans, similar and all;

restrictions bind us to a common thread.

We tread for freedom, hear its blatant call,

but realize there’s only us ahead.

And we’re so all alike, recycling,

as if there is no news but our dis-ease.

Sonnet CCXCVII

Outside, the cherry blossoms litter grass with pink
like joy, now visible. Contentment fills her heart
and pruning pretty plants, she starts toward her art.
Beside, her baby’s sleeping, gurgling like a sink,
her stomach undulating like the rosy spring.
The dried-up leaves upon her plant she stores apart
each time she snips their crumbling softness, crushed to stars.
The task completed now, she sketches, casually.

Her pencil’s rapid scratches send her wondering:
to children, actions should be done more carefully.

She cannot snip her careless faults like dying leaves,
and rash mistakes could never be erased or fixed.
Unlike a sketch, unlike a leaf, her deeds transfix,
like spring’s unfolding captivates the mind’s reprieve.

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 CLXXXVII

The sun invades me, blocked by bars the blinds devise.
Reflecting on my window’s vile betrayal Now,
the snippets of our time together Then abound.
My shock is great – these memories inflame the vice.
Remember, Window, by my side, so calm and nice,
the hours sipped like tea beneath your squarish brow,
exalting nature? Gently, patiently, I crouched
with you - companion, confidante, and chum – now snide!

Beside, and by my side, while all the time a snake,
sadistic fiend, employing me for pleasure’s sake!

Where is your loyalty? You let the daylight sear -
and look how happiness in entering in clouds!
So deafening, frenetic, strange and rude and loud -
No joy may find me here; let melancholy near.

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 CLXXXV

A sailor never misses land until he leaves,
the sea a barren desert stretching out to sky.
A seagull never misses sea until he flies,
the sky a cold expanse descending to the seas.

Yet on horizons, sunrise brings no joy.
Their plights become the frigid sea, the icy sky.
The only colour seen is blue, expanding deep and high
and land’s elusive; more so is the fickle sea.

We journey, soaring, happy, through our pretty lives,
though aimlessly, upon our glassy seas or sky.

The world drifts past as imperceptible as joy.
We wait for glimpse of land for crude and rare relief
or like the gull, must view our hope beyond our reach,
so mocking, playing cruel existence as its ploy.

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 CLXXXIII

I love the wondrous, strange invisibility
that follows me to so gingerly, just like a bear.
My loud “hello’s” are greeted with a vacant stare,
my movement cast aside as breeze upon the sea.
I rule my small domain – the world surrounding me.
I stand as if a king, and sit without a care,
my presence granted as a regular affair.
When bored, my fear provides amusement – and – for free!
I hear a private conversation (no one sees),
and hidden by his looming shadow – much with ease-
no person questions me, no matter where I go.
Thus bear and I should leave our posts for worthwhile crime –
my hidden person, with his stealthy paradigm
may steal away, and all the world would never know!

Sonnet CCLXXIX

A new year spreads before me like a snowy page,
another leaf of white awaiting marks and prints.
So much to use – escaping from my fingertips –
a plane of eager time poised on the newer age.

Envisioning what fresher seasons shall engage,
I look – anticipating – to these fields and hints
of what’s to come. The future wakes from sleeping fits –
reluctant – starting unto human guessing games.

The seconds, glittering, unbutton in the snow,
their shining flakes like frosty jewels in the cold!

There’s much anticipation – moods change much within a day –
from boredom of the past to welcoming the new.
The minutes fly – time’s racing by – the skies are blue!
The snowflakes fall – the year’s alight – and so’s the fray!

Sonnet CCLXIX

The awning seemed like fire, flapping in the breeze:
a palish beige flickering and whipping hot,
there perched upon a small gazebo’s wooden lot.
If only I were not infirm of strength, so weak!
To be that awning – how resiliently neat,
aflame with strange desire, burning smartly raw,
established on a vantage point aloof, afar,
a kingly simpleton, so crude, yet full of ease!

No water puts it out; no wind detracts its flare;
and only change of season – change of taste – may dare.

An instant, flapping in the autumn, in the fall,
now in the winter, flapping on the wooden beams.
Who dares remove such strange and fierce audacity,
combating flames with insolence and naughty gall?

Sonnet CCLVIII

I spy a certain death amidst those barren trees,
for winter’s stripped their life with such a bitter whip.
Of late, their leaves have fled, replace with bitter sticks;
their luscious bark now roughened by the wintry breeze.
If I should cross their criss-cross path about my knees,
I’d rip their branches to a mince and they would rip
my precious skin to blood. Entangled limb to limb,
my blood – as well, their arms – would fall beyond my feet.

I’d pick it up, my blood, so desolate and red,
I’d pick them up the sticks, and toss them overhead.

They’d fall again; I’d gather them, the wooden hands,
and hold them, recollecting loss to recreate.
As if performing divination, then I’d wait
and count my grievances while gathering the land.

Sonnet CCXLVII

I wish I could just mail this snapshot to your mind;
enclose it in a postcard’s monumental square:
for how these words dilute the how and when and where -
but now they’re all I have. I save the scraps I find
and knit them. Knit them. Knit them, hoping something’s right.
And no, it’s never perfect – never is. Despair.
My strange despair. I edit, groping, grasping air –
and all these lowly, meagre words are all I find.

Oh, just as well, I guess. Indite, indict my soul:
extract experience and hang it here in gold.

Or silver’s passable. Or maybe bronze or black.
Or blue, all splattered in explosions all in rage;
on napkins from the pizzeria; Yellow’s page;
a rotting test; or salvaged splinters – wooden track.

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 CCXXXVI

The sky of snow is vast, surrounding me in white.
It’s dotted with its stars, my footprints in the snow.
The constellations shine; my feet shall make them grow;
my feet create the stars; my treading spreads the light.

If constellations live, and sleep not in the night,
but spread my fame about, in sheets of whitened snow,
perhaps I am the Bear, cast up in stars below,
eternal on the earth, but fleeting with the night.

Remember me like this: though footprints disappear,
emblazon me in night, where all can nightly peer.

And if the day comes soon, surmount my daily tread;
forget the noise I made, but follow memory.
And if disloyalty obscures nocturnal me,
I live but die in rage, eternally undead.

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?