The Last Sonnet

Primavera (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A month of poems posted daily could
Seem like success — a cause for celebration.
But no — I wasn't writing what I should,
These posts a paean to procrastination.
This sonnet marks a month of wasted time
I could have better spent composing prose.
I could have writ the one about the crime
Of hiding contraband inside one's nose;
The one about the man who lost his mind
When he discovered how to stop the din;
The one about the possum going blind;
The one about the girl with purple skin.

Alas, that time is lost. It's all gone by.
But I can write in May. (At least I'll try.)

A Lunch Alone

Photo : Guian Bolisay / Flickr

I take my lunch alone, but all around,
Sighs and statements, grunts and grumbles fill
The room with life and lives and loves and sound
The way that raucous, joyous humans will.
The waitress takes my order, walks away,
And silently I catalogue the room:
A mother and young daughter have a day;
Some teenage boys conspire, plotting doom;
Four siblings argue their sick father's fate;
And lovers clasp each other's hands and smile.
But not one comprehends what they create
By sharing daily love. And all the while —

Across from me there stands a chair,
Conspicuous with no one there.

A Sonnet for J

This peasant life, though pleasant be, it sours

Like ripest fruit, which gives so sweet a taste

That from the vine the sated mouth devours

Yet over time decays to naught but waste.

My roots within her earth — she has a hold

On me. I grow in dreams, in fertile lands

Of queens and light and cliffs of glass and gold,
Forsaking stalk and stem and their demands.

My plight and plot: a slow death by ennui,

Light-starv'd in this suburban oubliette,

But in my mind a meadow, light, and She. . .
I dwell within, I wilt without, and yet,

Although my blossom withers here, I know

My heartwood's safe with her. She makes it grow.