My Ten Best Sonnets

Basking in the Lesser Light of Recall

But for the god dying inside of me,

That scant slant of light bent over backwards

Inside my gut, I’d welcome afterwards

Certain understanding of memory.

But I’ve not immortal capacity:

Not the seer’s eyes, nor the prophet’s words;

No comprehension backwards or forwards.

My refracted soul will have ceased to be

When the moon forgets to reflect the sun.

Since I cannot foresee this being done,

I’d be smart to remember yesterdays:

Those clear and straight as the arrow flies ways,

When I knew without a shadow of doubt,

The sun did shine and the moon did about.

Common Ground

The soul is as fragile as a flower

Blooming noble amidst peon grasses.

You can see its regal head above classes

First to receive the crowning sun’s power.

But the light of day is no deterrent

To the soul that knows not the common plight.

Shade that’s cast is cast greater than the night

In the kingdom of flowers resurgent!

For as one soul is laid in dust, so two

Rises to replace the essence of one!

And all the flowers in all the kingdom

Cannot the surface cover with its hue.

Beneath the fleshly blades is life begun!:

The flowers of kings and all of serfdom.

Honeysuckle Winds Move the Weathervane

Honeysuckle winds move the weathervane,

And so too my heart when I inhale her

Odorless perfume and wake-less demure

Gliding across a liquid windowpane.

Her ghost cannot long linger in this rain

As my heart can’t miss a beat and be pure;

Hope is a molten mirror, to be sure:

Elastic as inner vision is vain.

My heart is but a sculpture made of ice

And frozen fire: a monumental price

Of desire unrealized; a phantom hold

On my soul: disillusion to unfold.

O’ that she were to materialize

Conjuring up her form before my eyes!

In the Twinkling Apple of an Eye

There’s nothing more beautiful than she

Upon whom my eyes cannot look away;

Eyes of mortal flesh to this weakness sway!

Call it lust, call it power; but I’ll be

No deeper than skin which overwhelms me.

It is not a choice, nor desire, per se:

It is the essence of flesh without may.

Maybe I’ll restrain myself just to see

If the insistent urge to sin might go;

Maybe I’ll put blinders on and walk straight.

But there’s nothing I’ve seen that I don’t know;

These eyes are flesh and they participate.

But Christ has rent the veil and forever

Made beauty something more than Eve or her.

Revelation Fire

Before the caveman knew the useful fire,

Before the little boy played with matches,

Before stars had fallen through the hatches

Of heaven’s covering cherubim, the pyre

Awaited angels’ wind to inspire

Man.  But strange fire, doors without latches,

Do freely upon mans’ inner thatches

Burn too deep, and razes proper desire.

Let your bush be ablaze with God’s glory,

Your heart with unmolested history.

Pages turn in wind, but not all is of God;

Fate is not whimsical, sure or slipshod:

In His light we see light, and understand;

If not, heat shall be added to light and…

The Forbidden Fruit

Vacant is the shallow socket where lies

The panes of gray glassy undistinguished

Portals where runs the saint and extinguished

Soul into the Catacomb of the mind’s eyes.

There, in the recessed inner man, like sties

That swine would seek as a muddy home squished

Beneath their cloven hoofs, we relinquished

Our vision through rivers of soulish cries.

O’ that the sweat could but dry for awhile!

That the tears of hardened flesh could produce

Unimpeded fruit, instead of this guile!

Then would I save my skin, and introduce

The sanctity of imagination;

Then I’d live without investigation!

The Metaphysics of Salvation

Implosions are just explosions expressed

Another way, as Black Holes are notions

That explain unexplainable motions

Of heavenly bodies as they are pressed

Beyond the limits of known law.  Compressed

Substance—now more substantial; Emotions—

Now more heart-felt.  Religious devotions

Condensing import like feelings regressed.

The pressure inside is a perversion

Of makeup, just as death is inversion

Of life somewhere else.  Weakness bulges where

The essence gathers and compels our prayer.

Through the eye of a needle we go home,

Bare as a baby, skinny as a poem.

The Simple Christian

Who is as blind as the one God sends?

He has no agenda, no opinion;

He’s not ambitious, has no dominion;

Like an animal that cannot pretend,

A loner that follows no popular trend,

This, the man of God, the simple Christian,

Comes to you in varied loss of vision:

Light from darkness is hard to comprehend!

Forgive him, for he knows not what he does;

He hardly knows who he is, or who he was;

But it is truer in retrospection,

(Even further so upon reflection),

Within his spirit enlightenment flares,

Consuming inner darkness that impairs.

There’s a Yellow Bird

There’s a yellow bird frozen in my head

That I once saw lifeless on a window

Laid horizontal.  I could not see though,

And it escapes me ‘bout this scene once dead,

Now alive from something somebody said:

“Close the skylight to keep those birds out!”  No

Amount of sun and glass can ever throw

Enough magnification on what’s dread!

The pale sun flickers and can’t thaw the ice

Coated yellow bird.  Bygone paradise

Cannot my imagination inspire.

I, doomed to die, die and die the higher;

The more I dream and make my hope to fly,

Cowardice begets wings and lights the sky. 

When Science is the Only God you See

Upon my baring soul, who would dare say

To God Almighty without restraint: “why?”

And have the gumption of peerless Job’s eye

To see all encompassingly the day

That before the sun should rise tomorrow,

The end of all matter in the Big Bang?

But if you feign to know, may your head hang

Low which curses God and brings down one sparrow.

Without a quaking from faith and conscience

Your premise on this shaky earth shatters

Under the microscope of scrutiny.

Where is the undoing of the pretense

And the discovering of what matters

When science is the only god you see?