Oblative love

For the sake of modesty, this entire sonnet lies below the cut.

Epistolary form has its limits

To, more than steady, be a worthwhile boy -
Be looked on as the artist by the muse
And offer to her all the arts I use,
And make my only pride to be her joy -
As yet I can't pretend that this is true.
The letters that you say were writ so well?
Mundane dispatches from the private hell
Of waiting, ever lonesome, here for you
To come home safe. My dear, if I confess
Epistolary works to be a chore
And drudgery, and that you merit more
And better from me, would you love me less?
Forgive me, my beloved, as I seek
A better written voice with which to speak.

Correspondence

Two envelopes on Saturday were sent
To circumnavigate the world, my dear,
En route to you. I wonder where they went,
And where they are, and struggle not to fear
That all the hours with my pen in hand
And midnight oil not have been in vain;
That all my poured-out words might not withstand
The gloom of night, or heat or snow or rain.
And pour them out I did, for you to read,
In copper and in blue transcribed my heart
In tongues of men; I poured them out indeed
For you, so many miles and months apart.

In praise of light pollution: a Spenserian sonnet

I stalked the lamplit streets the other night
Alone in silence, searching all around
For somewhere blessed with perfect-balanced light
To safely rest on clean unbroken ground
(Ideally free from automotive sound
Disrupting my most pure experience);
And there I lay my body back and drowned
My mind and soul with all-consuming sense;
And idly pondered, in that immanence
What message there could possibly have been
To see that sky; and wondered what expense
We paid to blot out all the stars therein,
That I might see as never seen before
A universe of blue and nothing more.

On caretaking and self-neglect

It seldom fails to awe or to impress
How frighteningly easy it can be
When called upon, in direst distress,
To be on hand for anyone but me;
Heroic, really - deftly plucking specks
From eyes (by now I've learned to do it blind),
Or rescuing the others from their wrecks
While leaving mine for  last (since who would mind?)
Though all may be of need, I still believe
That all else equal, they should need it more;
That I may strive, their burdens to relieve,
And my afflictions casually ignore.
For theirs I have no right to hesitate;
For mine, no wish to face them -
Mine can wait.

Ode to embarrassment

My constant guest, my old and closest friend,
Come in, come in!, how long you've been away;
I'll always host you - always, to the end;
Sit down, do tell how long you mean to stay?
I'll hang your coat up. Pour yourself a glass
Of all the wine my life has ever spilled.
I'll burn you up a meal of finest class
In all the pots my life has ever killed.
I'll give you, honored guest, my best instead,
So gorge yourself and feast without reserve;
The soup is cold, and doughy is the bread,
So take my plate; I'll have what you deserve.
Do knock next time, before you come again -
But Godspeed, guest, and blessings until then.

My words flow not as freely as before

My words flow not as freely as before
To vocalize my love and sing your praise.
It pains me, cuts me deep and to the core
To struggle when I strive to count the ways
You are to me: the holder of my heart;
The harbor for my loud and storm-tossed soul;
The woman that I love; the one last part
Apart from which no part of me is whole...
Beloved, held in every thought of mine,
I walk the widow's walk with tear-streaked face
Until you cross that far horizon line
And I can hold you tight in my embrace...
I broken sing, until your drawing near,
My love for my love, too removed to hear...

Allohistoric gun porn

Which nations favor 7 over 8?

And just how close to 8 do they prefer?
A thousandth of an inch will re-equate
The math, and then the headaches will recur.
A fraction of a gram of charge or shot,
And your ballistic tables have been turned;
And all the toys you knew are like as not
Replaced by ones whose names you haven't learned.
Have even once you ever stopped to ask
If history is writ in ink or lead,
Before you took upon yourself the task
To script the battles where they shoot men dead?
And every time a ball goes high or low
Your world diverges from the world you know.

Sonnet, 3/15/2012

For lack of power to hold in my embrace
The woman whom I love across the sea,
I bid my every sentence into place
And ordered every word to dance for me.
In classic form the poem did coalesce -
But wasted was the night that saw me try
To teach its words to mean (and bear that stress)
When all they knew to do was signify.
The words meant well, but could not execute
What I choreographed, my words to make
Immediate enough to substitute -
And so their perfect form I did dismiss.
No dance of language can ever replace
Holding each other in silence, and meaning together.

We last embraced before the break of dawn

We last embraced before the break of dawn;
You still are en voyage, if memory serves;
And not a single day have you been gone
Yet - drained, depleted, dry run my reserves
Of cool collection; lost is my composure;
Enervated is my fortitude;
Open are my wounds, for want of closure.
In your wake the world, to voice its mood,
Bids slightly dim my every source of light
And silence of your absence fill my ears;
Bids wails and weeping - then denies my sight
The mercy to be mingled with my tears.
I write the only thing that I can do:
I miss my beloved.
I miss you.

Sonnet #2

That there would come a time might be supposed
When this young manchild ceased at length to care;
His well of hope, like teacher's, welded closed
Before a world that left him in despair,
To sigh like Noah, forehead in his hands,
And no more watch the neighbors or the flood -
Yet still there stirs a heartbeat that demands
That conscience yet receive its dole of blood,
That will hold out for just another day,
That empathy not suffocate and die,
That faith be never lanced and drained away,
That hope not stop to ever wonder why
He midwives for a screaming world unborn
Accepting that all hope may be forlorn.

Confessions of a student activist

The time would come, I heard my fellows say,
To rise above the mediocrity;
Though knowing not the hour nor the day
When it would come, I wanted to agree -
To stand against the armies of the night
Whose persecution complex, in this game,
Has long been cultivated that it might
Best keep the Reichstag oiled for the flame.
But I am small, and dare not stand alone,
Nor, when the endgame comes at last, to fold;
No David, I, with sling and well-cast stone,
Nor Robin Hood with bow of burning gold.
What fellowship have I, to help regain
My life lost on the corner of Biscayne?

i has a sonnet nom nom nom

Originally posted here. Twice.

So when Tiel asked me to post it on one of my blogs, I figured that I probably should.

How could they not have known, I heard them ask,
Their child was an embodiment of sin?
How could they never once see through that mask
In all those years, to glimpse what lay within?
"How could they not, indeed?" I think out loud.
"The signs were there, and waiting to be read.
"Perhaps it was denial... maybe not..."
And let my thoughts run silent through my head.
Two Shoah survivors whose only son
Claimed families of victims to his name
For each new month that he stayed on the run -
How could they face that magnitude of shame?
And so I picked their bodies off the floor,
Threw them in the furnace and shut the door.