Sonnet: Truth Unquantifiable

When life has given all Her many gifts;
Whenever can the measure of these things;
Those gifts alike to paupers and to kings;
The very blessings, all, that spirit lifts;

Be counted up among the many rifts
And twists, and turns; and bold accounting springs
Forth only optimistic numbers? Brings
The news in harmonies and umbers. Shifts

The essence of attention to the day
For which this great accounting brings its news;
And which a man, forgetting not to pray,
Will promise Her he never shall abuse,
In truth unquantifiable, the way
He finds himself inspired by Her muse.

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Sonnet: What Flows

Magnificent, the world in which my life
Resplendent lives–the place I yet reside–
I have no thoughts of leaving. Thus I hide,
Perfection so deceiving; and the strife

I see is that which I desire; so rife
With excellence, as may inspire and guide,
As flowers of evil, peacefully subside;
Maleficence benevolently siphoned

Out, bequeathing uncorrupted beauty.
Stout perfection cracks and shatters when
I travel not abroad, as is my duty
To this perfect place, and stills my pen.

Lest, wretched with sublime I must conflate,
How stale then, the world I must create.

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Sonnet: Eternity

Through all eternity, through each farewell,
I call to thee; as I–as we endure
As much as do the fates our world compel–
Divine this hidden answer; this foretell:

Thy true, thy bidden answer, when away
My call to thee, past all, who as one, ban,
Decry, forbid, constrict with venom, they–
Impeach with venom anything we say.

Yet each untasted word of thine will fall
Upon my  ear–will call to me; sublime
Mellifluence will sweet me to thy call,
Will taste me through such venom, one and all.

Such ardour hidden, heard I all the more–
That none would quell since first our life began–
Would call thee to my side through space and time.

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Sonnet: Humility

Wherefore hath gone Humility, this Gift
That God hath given thee, that thou wouldst cast
So easily aside? Away so fast
His pearl hath been asunder set adrift

Therein; from thee this place so deep and vast
Must hide.  So precious, thou hast thrown so swift
Away His all-forgiving Shrift, ‘twould lift
Ye all together and astride.  Thou hast

His Spirit sore forsook, Thyatrian,
His word mistook, His boundless grace undone
And misapplied.  Who then art thou who tried
His Grace–Galatian, His Gifts replace–
When to and through the law His Son hath died?
Yet still shall He forgive and thee embrace!

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Sonnet II: Evil Orb

I will not see, I cannot know, nor feel;
I may not hear, nor taste, and no aroma
Will I sense, nor trace of joy, of home
Or mirth of soul or peace, nor can I kneel

In silent prayer, ending this ordeal.
It presses with the weight of stars, this dome
Of light, this hellish sphere of music, gloaming
Not, nor offering reprieve to heal.

And canst thou truly think thou art a blessing,
Evil orb, so frighteningly loud?
Thy cruel intention hard upon me pressing;
Burning death, in state, without a shroud;
Canst not thou see the lie thou dost profess;
With neither dusk, nor mitigating cloud?

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

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Sonnet I: To the Approaching Dawn

I fear not that my words will never grace….
And yet I dread this fast approaching dawn;
I see the minutes and the hours pass;
For dawn is yet the only constant thing
That rips me so unkindly from my pace.

Though never is my reason thus forgone;
This Lighted Spectre haunts me–this Impasse–
This Waking Nightmare from beneath will spring.
Beneath the Earth this Pale Rider waits,
His Fiery Horses chafing; will have drawn

His Chariot’s Searing Livery–unsurpassed
In glory, any but Hyperion:
Shall stream His Burning Light; and gaining fast,
Will into Hypnos’ Waiting Arms, me cast.

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

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Sonnet: Stand

If I, one man alone, would fail to stand–
While others fear, with empty hope, one braver
Than themselves unto the breach, their craven
Act, beneath his mantle of command

Might hide; or fail to bravely raise my hand,
His side–when better led, with honour, gave
My pledge to such as he–to take, and save
As much as can be saved, no coward’s brand

Could sear my trust; or fail, in solitary
Rank, to muster, weak, my force of one,
While others act as beasts who fear to die,
In soul denying hope that I might care
To save their craven flesh when all is done,
And which my soul demands–then what am I?

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