Sonnet IV:

Wilt spend thou Nature’s battle unaware
And lend thy loveliness when thou agree
To legacy–or Heaven as thou dare?
This battle, free to lose;  for the degree

That this abuse could bounteous appear;
To use this matchless contest; wouldst thou care
To give thy future someone to revere?
To live, what legacy wouldst thou prepare?

Thyself, as though alone reflected are;
No epigone–when fall thyself so near–
To traffic nature’s callDeceive and scar
This battlement to leave to thy frontier!

In this way, bring thee over from afar,
And what might be thine image, to a star.

This sonnet is part of a short, or
possibly at some point, very long
sequence; click here to read it all:

Sonnet III:

That glass, one face doth from another, shield,
When mirrored, grace thy fair and barren bloom.
To form another, thou wouldst not be healed;
So blest, wouldst thou thy mother’s youth resume?

No fairer she, shouldst thou thy youth regain;
Nor he, by his posterity revealed.
Thou must not still thy husbandry disdain;
But fury-chafe, an till thy blighted field.

Doth Winter’s harvest care to April’s thresh;
Or dare to rite the golden Spring again?
Cares now Thy Prime for Legacy as Flesh;
When thou art loved and fond in love remain?

So choose: Thy tomb, in single fray enmesh;
Or Heaven’s womb, thine image pray make fresh.

This sonnet is part of a short, or
possibly at some point, very long
sequence; click here to read it all:

Sonnet I: Hourglass

As dawn they rise whilst waning moon are we;
How fairest they wherefrom increase our lives;
Incalescence to our recondity,
As one might give, the other so deprives.

Yet in thine eye burns reason’s flame; as fell,
As rivalled, any flame of spring might be;
And seem’st thou wise to all wherewith thou dwell’,
Though reason’s merest bloom to wisdom’s tree.

And through thy tempest, still art thou as fair
In deed, in sight, content to slake and quell
The worst of spring. Thou: tender, unaware,
Dost far more bring than wouldst thou take.  As well,

Thine innocence doth thrive: awake, laid bare;
So true, wilt thou survive the world’s despair.

This sonnet is part of a short, or
possibly at some point, very long
sequence; click here to read it all:

Permalink

Sonnet IV: One Step Away

But really, I am fine as I began.
Without the curse of living free from strife,
I really have the very best of life.
Although not much is mine, I truly can

Bespeak my luck. I truly am a man
Who cannot duck his purpose, who is rife
With strength to take his coming step. That life
Is something best among, or better than

The best the universe can offer me;
Or better still–the strife that makes it sweet–
Its promise will, so  lift and ever free
My soul for endless triumph and defeat.
If only God, who gifts me so, could see
The need to keep His gifts to me discrete.

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

Permalink

Sonnet III: Step after Step

First, second, third, and fourth, I walk alone
With measured footsteps, each one as the last;
My future is as hopeless as the past;
These plodding steps, the only things I own.

I face my work, I wake, I sleep, I hone
My pace to take more measured steps. Not fast
Nor slow, I have become adept at last
At going nowhere. See how I have grown

Such roots, and with such care, which but permit
The taking of a single measured step
And then another–fancy how they fit
My feet. This pace would scarcely ever let
Me eat, except that I might starve to death
And that would end the measure of my breath.

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

Permalink

Sonnet VI: Her Call

I hear the rain; she calleth as she did
So many years ago. But now I can
Not heed this pain. She claimed me as her man;
No longer is it so. Thus am I hid

From she, whom hath she been, my dearest love.
Thou canst but ask: But why dost thou forsake
This holy path of love which thou bespake
To be the flask who’s nectars rank above

All fruit; wherethrough, all Gods and men, subsist.
But to be true, I sometimes answer her;
Though not so loudly she should know exists
The man she proudly loved, because he were
The shell of what he was, so shan’t she know
The depths, so shut, a failing love may go…

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

Permalink

Sonnet V: Coffeebreak

The G-drive folded space to ninety gees.
The polariser hummed its loud dissent.
Yet not one drop of coffee did I spill;
Or notice this miraculous event.

I never knew what kind of expertise
Kept “Down” remaining steady toward the floor;
I merely docked my cup and dialled “Fill,”
Relaxed, and settled down to drink some more.

I never had a moment of unease;
The J-drive took us supra-light, no doubt;
I only heard the Newman engine shrill,
Until the power levels evened out.

But one false move by someone, while I yawn,
And half a microsecond, I’d be gone.

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

Permalink