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 CCCLI

The dying afternoon, diaphanous –
how young October smiled upon my cheek!
Then through a stretch of sun-filled oxygen
your voice and eyes called blithely out to me!


We walked, our eyes upon the skyward seas,
our eyes delirious with shifting skies
as clouds subsided to obscurity
in grandiose swashes, gold and pastel dyed.


I could have stayed forever at your side,
evaporated honey everywhere;
but as our paths diverged in weary light
I drowned into intoxicating air.


I paused – in step – exultant, yet forlorn
and as the leaves spun round, I stood
                                                            - transformed!

Sonnet CCCL

I stand, exhilarated, on the hills –
I burn with new and sprightly inner fire!
The winds of autumn cannot bind my will:
my yearning glance ignites with strange desire!
With fierce furore, these eyes will never tire –
I search the turbid skies for signs of warmth.
Beloved summer! Ever-tuneful lyre!
To leap into those warm and loving arms!


I’ll wait, unloved, forlorn, as lovers are,
but only when your promise sings again
will you return, melodious and warm –
and only then will carefree folly reign,
my foolish heart revived once more to mirth.
And only then will blossoms fill the earth!

Sonnet CCLXXI

Curvaceous hips and comely bosom, virgin smile,
with hazel eyes of gloating satisfaction’s glaze.
And hers embraced his eyes, abashed and full of praise,
exalting her, subjected to her nude beguile.

His mind was hers, commanded by her cunning wile;
his feet, two frozen pillars; eyes and brain, ablaze;
and all this time she waits and like a lion, plays,
manipulating him like worthless clay now worth her while.

The crowd moves on, a patter on the marble floor
to fresher art, abandoning the brazen whore.

And lest he be removed from all the blatant rest,
he saunters on, uprooting from his rude desire.
The whore remains, a frozen painting made of fire,
the temptress drawing newer victims to her breast.