Sonnet: Dust

When all my time on God’s green earth is done,
This unrelenting march shall make me whole.
For dust is but the only worthy goal
For which all mortal men may strive as one.

What Death, what vast poetic end may come
To Thy reluctant servant? Death from gold?
Or from a love as fervent and as old
As Death from flesh, from opium, or rum?

O God Almighty give me pristine dust
That pray, I may obtain my perfect form.
Thy worn, reluctant, sword desires to rust,
And thence return to nature safe and warm.

And though I know that this can never be;
I dream a mortal’s immortality.

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Sonnet: Happy

Newborn, such loneliness should here remain
A silent secret not by choice revealed.
In pride, such bitter pain could be concealed
To hide the habit dark of the insane.

I now would choose to force such better days–
In forcing such, enforce a practice old
Of being happy; so to be consoled
By doubting not the wisdom of my ways.

In life, I pave the road of happiness
To happiness; I cover stones of grief
To see all anguished light through sombred smoke.
And so I go, and smile as I bless
The heart, as I would bless its bitter thief–
An next I die, on too much joy would choke.

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Sonnet V: Thy Love

Thy love will heal all that which may be healed,
And nary harm the healed thou wouldst protect;
Although thy ranks are tempted to neglect
By conjurers the wounded thou wouldst shield.

For that thou know such legions incorrect
To ‘list; For that thy strength is thine; concealed
Amidst a century’s decline, revealed
This siege; so thou this web of lies suspect.

Thy legions racked and perished by the score,
Though others drawn and dead were legions more.
Yet still thy ranks would nurture love and joy,
That blameless thwart such frauds as bid thee hate:
And fiends who tempt thy power to destroy
Will chafe against thy power to create.

  • Dear RLK,
    Dare I bring thy
    Wordly spirit thence?

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

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Sonnet IV: This I Wish

Thou hast most welcome been and sorely missed.
Dare I rejoice, thou, to these climes, returned?
I hush… I quiet step… I so resist
So royal thy demesnes from which I’ve learned.

So timidly, in reverence, go out
Among these places once I reminisced
Had left these climes bereft and lost in doubt,
As only such in shadow may persist.

So quiet-speak my joy as must it be;
Although I would my exaltation shout.
My forays brief, my traces few to see;
I dare but little to dissuade throughout.

Yet gingerly I turned my praise for thee
To hopes I’ve earned such days as come to be.

  • Thank you RLK for
    the manner and degree
    of your return.

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

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Sonnet III: Footsteps

So glorious thou walked upon this path;
For once I knew when saw thy footsteps there;
When followed each, so taken me it hath
To far beyond such lands within my care.

What mysteries upon this land I see;
So curious thy fruit as here doth grow;
That first appeareth, here beneath some tree,
To change when I extend my hand to know.

So shall I follow once to see such things;
And yet again to see how these are grown;
And even more to see what harvest brings;
And stay to learn this bounty of my own.

When even as I reap what thou hast taught;
Yet still I study close what thou hast wrought.

  • Reading Lady Day
    To study her metaphors;
    Here are some I learned.

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

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sonnet II: I Dare

May poetess I woo thy spirit hence?
For, surely am I starving of thy words;
Or in the lack this treading represents;
Mine inspiration drowning out by thirds.

I prithee hope thy veils might be taught
If capable a student, I might thence
Command or coax the layers thou hast wrought;
And offer up the same in my defence.

Should then I hope, with verse, or even song,
To woo thy spirit hence? For once I fought
Not shame, nor thine offence; wouldst think me wrong,
Though flesh nor soul, but wordly spirit sought?

Might then my song thy wordly spirit move?
If worthy I, thy lifelong student prove.

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

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Sonnet I: Empty

I wish, O poetess, had not thou gone,
‘Least in thy stead thy words so wish remained.
Where hast thou hence thy beauty borne away?
And whence hath run thy passion unconstrained?

For thee, in early morn I searched; the dawn
Had not yet broke, nor made the rain to slake;
But now, forever falling rain might stay,
And dawn, I fear, or joy, might never break.

To whence were hid thy words I goe anon,
Or thence wherein my heart thy words might tend.
So ever seek the light shall I of day;
Thy dawn to chase, this rain in hopes might end;

Await the dawn until return again
Thy words, and fondly beg thou wilt remain.

  • To Lady Day,
    With so fond regard
    I scarce can say

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

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