Sonnet: Kept Faith

Have faith, my sweet, believe that I will rise
As high as life requires, at the least.
So quiet then the tears within thine eyes.
I promise, certain as is life, increased

Beyond that borderline, shall I release
Decisively, and with resolve, reprise
My triumphs past, and so surpassed, appease
Divinity herself; such feats, she’d prize.

For thee, within the chance of life, I thrive;
In everything I do or may achieve.
With thee, I cannot help but ever strive
To manifest such feats as we conceive.
For thee, and with thee, I am come alive.
For thee, and with thee, if thou but believe.

Permalink

Sonnet: Heart’s Desire

First day I saw this Universe take flight,
My place within it firmly on the Earth,
And since that moment–from my second birth–
Did I begin to live amidst the light.

The second day I learned of what I might–
What stark perfection I would–never touch,
Nor even look upon but once. But such,
For lack of which, has swept me hence to night.

The Third, in all its perfect form, arrived
On Earth and granted all that I desire,
Left nothing by its dawning to aspire
Nor any by its dawning thus to strive.
So, having every life’s desire to choose
Leaves naught to gain and everything to lose.

Permalink

Sonnet VII: Lotus

I lid mine eyes, yet not in sleep, but wake;
Not hid to prize the darkness, nor to see;
Nor magnify some other sense; nor be
Bereft of beauty; nor once more forsake

The heft of duty, as a way to break
The thrall of such cacophonous debris.
Nor shall so thin a veil set me free
From youthful ties, nor hail its mistake,

Nor truth, nor lies, but merely grant repose;
Which waking purpose, clearly, I’m inclined
To take, whenever I may know such throws
Of agony or bliss. And when I find
Such irony as this, I then expose
Myself, to all the wealth, in all my mind.

This sonnet is part of a short sequence; click here to read it all:

Sonnet VI: Violets

‘Til noon, before these Violets lovely stir
With bloom that splendour morning’s promised awe;
Too soon, I made my contract, drunk on her
Perfume, and swore this compact as my law;

And strewn for all, to savour all the more,
Presume this Moonlight-sweet enthralment were
Immune to circumstance; that here, before
The gloom,  ill-fortune shan’t to these occur.

From Moon unto Aspasia, then, I go,
Subsumed by Columbine ’til Dawn’s deplore,
Marooned and Wild; to Corsican I know,
Entombed this fivefold Covenant I swore;

And prune such flaws, assuming naught will show;
Festooned and drawn: my doom from long ago.

This sonnet is part of a short sequence; click here to read it all:

Sonnet V: Her Majesty

A word, then two, a fountain like a stream
That wears away a mountain. Time, a spring,
Reflection over aeons; it can bring
Perfection. Though it presses down, extreme

In ways of mystery. Its form can seem
To press its history:  On such a common thing
As common coal–transformative–may wring
A diamond fine and whole.  And so supreme

A form may limit, yet such limits might
Become the set of forces pressed upon
So commonplace a line as these I write.

The queen of all poetic forms: I fight
Her storms of pressure, educated on;
And open up my mind to all her light.

This sonnet is part of a short sequence; click here to read it all:

Sonnet IV: An Oath

No Oath, no cause, nor promise do I need;
For promises, with duty, must be kept.
This violet, a promise could impede;
For I, by every faculty, am swept

To tend, and make to prosper, every bloom.
I long have tried to stay my hand; but could
Not ever stay my soul; nor–and, assuming
Such could keep me whole–remand, for good

Or ill, that Holy Thread I share with God.
His will–all beauty, and all bounty, came
From His divine, all knowing light–abroad
To His creations fly; and in His Name,

Created He those beings He deemed as great,
Entrusted, in His image, to create.

This sonnet is part of a short sequence; click here to read it all:

Sonnet III: A call

No albatross is this around my neck,
This talisman to set my soul afire,
A host of angels, heavenly; a choir
Who, singing endless blessings, at my beck

And call, continue to adorn, bedeck,
Enthral, enslave the muses they acquire.
And, subject to my will, they must inspire
My pen to greater heights; until no speck

Of life remains within my body; or
My soul is, from its heart still beating, ripped;
Or locked in shadow, knowing only breath.
For, nothing less will end the oath I swore;
Until I have, this mortal coil slipped;
Or when the shadow takes me unto death.

This sonnet is part of a short sequence; click here to read it all: