Sonnet CCCVI

A shadow’s awfully useless – doesn’t do much else than wait.
Of course it’s nice to have a patient friend – but not some stain
that doesn’t help at all. I need a friend that has a brain –
that moves at least – decisively, not copying my fate.

Because my shadow tags along all day, he proves to be a pain.
If he were helpful, life would be much easier – and great!
He’d follow me attentively, ensuring I’m not late –
and never would his disposition be of cruel disdain.

But shadows are too careful, treading much too cautiously.
They only move when I do – making sure it’s safe –
and even clouds seem deadly, driving them to hide away.

Oh, even in the natural world there’s infidelity.
You don’t get service if you never tip the servitor –
it’s sad how life is made by money – never made by more!

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 CCLI

The winter’s such a crude reminder of your face –
how could you be so frigid in this time of warmth?
These wintry hexagons shall always be a storm
and never beauty, only wickedness, light grey,
so pallid, lethal in betrayal – oh, such grace! –
that murders me, and murders me, and snaps my heart,
which melts, refreezing to the bitter, icy stars
of winter – snowflakes – delicately, cruelly made.

And snow I shovel, push away in growing piles.
But you – I cannot purge – yet you have purge my wiles.

And what have I but tattered snowflakes, littering,
polluting blank expanse within my asphalt mind,
obstructing darkness with the ancient hope of time?
Now even Spring cannot amend my shabby wings.

Sonnet CCXX

Before my presentation on Madame Dessay,
I went inside the French room, testing out my show
of slides. I ate my lunch and quickly had to go.
The other ones were quite well done, I have to say.

Approaching me, I started fervently to pray,
for it was near my very lucky turn to go.
And then, so randomly, my teacher went to crow,
“Oh Mike, your «jaune banane» is here for you to take!”

The class looked back at me, expecting my account.
Embarrassed, thus I told the class to turn around.

Retrieving it from up in front, I ate the fruit.
And then, short after that, my eyes were very round.
Presenting very fast (for class was ending now),
the bell then rang so loud. Cut off, I yelled, «Oh, zut!»

Sonnet CCXVIII

Agility and fabulous technique astound:
magnificent bravura, massive jumps and leaps,
cadenzas, runs (impossible, but there), and heaps
of gorgeous tones, sustained with quivering of sound.
Such awesome feats of voices everyday abound,
incredible, instilling awe, with cries and weeps.
Infused with raw emotion, like a blood that seeps
on tissue, marked with everlasting hues of sound.

None other than magnificent and magic ways
of operatic lyricism, lacking praise.
How easy opera singers make their craft to seem,
when notes are high and runs are difficult and fraught
with peril. Though they sing with all they’ve rightly got,
alas – some think that opera’s just a bunch of screams.

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 CCXIII

I’m now a country mouse. My field is grand and free,
my dwelling’s lots of fun; behind’s a large, old barn
(I told my rodent friends, who thought it was a yarn)!
The city’s far away – and such a sight to see!
At night, illuminated, lights shine merrily,
like islands, pricked in pins of pink beyond the barn.
And standing mute as mice, the trees become a cryptic cairn,
a bunch of waves “good-night”, procuring sleep for me.

Before, I was a city mouse that lived away;
in domiciles of dreary sameness did I stay.

But now I am a country mouse, so proud with joy!
My life out here in hamlets, small and filled with ease
is better. Still, it’s hard for every place to please:
some like the city; others love more rustic joy!

Sonnet CCXII

A year of goals and plans to make my life less bad,
agendas, long-term blueprints, failed attempts at more.
A month of disappointment, plain frustration’s war,
exhaustion’s beast, woke from the sleepless nights I had.
A week of writing, adding, talking, being mad,
obsessing, doing homework, doing projects, more.
A day of stress, remorse, upset, and times that bore,
and yelling, screaming, hurting, brawling, being sad.

Thank goodness ice cream, popcorn – foods like that – exist!
Without them, life would be a dismal, sombre list.

So coming home from school, unhappy as the sky,
I chug my cola., eat my chips. When Mom comes home,
she cooks more comfort foods. And like a greedy gnome,
I eat and eat until my heart’s content – or try!

Sonnet CCXI

On rainy days, the ladders come to play with me.
They drop my player down a serpent’s cruel abyss
and make me wish that space was where I got to miss.
Alas I’m never petulant for long – for glee
is just a toss away. Surmounting ladders three,
I’m winning! But my brother’s close behind, amiss.
Then soon the tables turn and then my happiness
is fleeting as my fortune, dimming with each leap.

How quickly hours pass! What fun surmounts us here!
Perhaps I’ll play this game again, each day each year!

Alas, the rain subsides. The sun resumes its rounds.
The electricity comes back to all the lights.
But staying in our home, we watch the thudding pounds
of villains losing on T.V. in awesome fights.

Sonnet CCX

The hats I wear are many, varied, large, and small:
my music hat is vast and eats away my time,
but brings me endless joy, residing in its prime;
my academic hat encompasses my all;
my thinking cap is great, but can’t but help but rhyme
in iambs, forming sonnets; last, my hat of dimes
is small, though teaching kids for pay’s a joyous brawl.

But like an average Joe, my hats of family
remain supreme, as brother, son, and happy teen.

Though being part of such an awesome bunch of folks
is daunting, frightening, and strange at times, though fun.
I love the hugs, the bliss, the kisses, endless pokes,
but more than that, the love we share’s a glowing sun!

Sonnet CCIX

I used to listen to a station on the dial.
It plays my favourite music of the old Baroque
and other “ancient” times – the waltzes slowly poke,
the overtures are bristling with a youthful guile –
but now the station has become so cruelly vile.

Of late, the station seems a bit less old Baroque,
and more commercial. Stupid ads appear and poke,
those bristling words I hate, as foul as my bile.

But no, the station hasn’t changed a lot these years.
Alas, perchance I was mistaken in my fears?

And yes, it’s stayed the same this while, although I’ve grown.
It’s me that’s changed, grown up, matured, and turned more wise.
I see that blinding innocence of youth has flown,
and in its place I see manipulation’s vice.

Sonnet CCVIII

The fish I used to own was red - a betta fish –
the kind that fight and come from far-away Thailand.
But then it rotted, turning pink, then white like sand,
and then it died, afloat despite my fervent wish.
But then we bought another pair of lovely fish,
the one was chalico, the other lightish-bland.
One day, my brother (two) had dumped their food – like sand –
into their bowl. They soon became as mobile as a dish.

(They ate too much and subsequently had to halt.
They died of greed, although it wasn’t all their fault.)

And so we have no fish. We bought no more to keep.
We thought they’d bring food luck. We thought they’d be a charm.
Instead, we murdered them. And thus, they made us weep.
Instead of luck for us, we dished away some harm.

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 CCVI

A Chicken and a Dog went out to see the Frog.
Said Chicken to the Dog, “Where is that Frog to-day?”
Said Dog to Chicken fair, “Perhaps he’s gone to play!”
The Chicken and the Dog searched at the barren bog,
but Chicken and the Dog found not their friend the Frog.
They searched the lily pads, the willows solemn grey,
they searched the river green, they searched the livelong day –
but Chicken and the Dog found not their friend the Frog.

Then meeting them at night, that Frog appeared at last
and brought with him a ship that moved so very fast!

They rode off to the moon, to see what they could find.
They had a lot of fun, and more as time had passed,
for friends may be quite late and may be always last,
but never think a friend shall purge you from their mind.

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 CCIII

If I had any superpower, I would fly
so noxious transportation would be thusly spurned
for more efficient travel of the soaring birds.
I’d fly away, up in azure of cloudless skies
without emitting toxic fumes from dirty pipes
of cars. The world would be a distant, far-off earth
because I’d be so high above, a human bird,
so graceful, tumbling, spinning, dancing in the sky.

But in the chilly winter, could I stand the cold?
I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t dare – I’m not that bold.

And thus, my crazy dreams of flying end right there.
I’d rather be wrapped up in comfy warmth than cold,
but birds, who fly and fly and fly to Mexico,
endure a massive trip for measly, humid air.

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.

Sonnet CCI

Away, away, some distant galaxy away,
suspended in a murky fluid, dark and red,
the dancing bubbles floated ‘round my tiny head
and splashed around as all my little fingers played.
While kicking Mother’s stomach every single place,
my Mother’s yummy nutrients had kept me fed.
Then bright and warm one noon, born on a pallid bed,
I left my mother’s womb to see the brand-new day.

And what a splendid day it was! So loud and bright!
I saw the noisy world and screamed with all my might.

My mother, with a home-cut, shabby haircut, said,
“Oh what a splendid day it is!” Her face was bright.
She saw her little baby, hugged him with her might,
and he was I, a little baby, wet and red.