Sonnet #369

 When I write, a single line and then another

Becomes the sound becomes the word becomes

A picture forms that’s worth a thousand words,

And pictures painted each a single thread runs

In single lines clumped in bunches, makes

The world more beautifully rendered reveals

As much from what is not than what it takes

From pigment fragments, crushed ochres; reels

Of film a frame a frame a frame a single word

Eventually spoken, and we in our cities mowing lines

Into the ground and laying bricks of work

Each one of us our little lifeline bending and entwined

From far enough away and deep enough inside

We are bound together into a single gorgeous line

Sonnet #368

Give me the cosmos in fourteen rhyming lines

And I will tell you all exists for love

For what fair use is all this void and shine

If only one can feel the pull and shove

Better shared and better faced with you

Hide under blankets and whisper in the dark

About the mysteries we are too afraid to view

The black telescope beckons, will we hearken

The trembling darkness of the endless sky

The galaxies upon galaxies made for show

Be told and sung grow old and teach why

Discuss the color of the stars, grow old

In endless chatter where the edifice accumulates

For love, all for love, the cosmic glory we recreate

Sonnet #367

 I have a box I keep for my beloved

Inside this box, I wait to be adored

When I get home from work, I shove

Myself into this box, and when they’re bored

They let me know how good I am

For waiting in the box. I am petted. 

Take me out and feed me toast and jam

But outside the box I am hated

A simple metaphor, I know, but listen more

For there are boxes inside boxes, outside boxes

There is no polite society without the box stores

Where we choose ourselves, and move from boxes

To other boxes like molting skin: boxes slam

Into each other, and bruise our skin

Sonnet #366

 The children raised on robots will not cringe 

At work the robots make; they will long

For strange ephemera like I remember tire swings,

metal lunch boxes, the theme songs

Of Saturday morning cartoons, climbing trees

And the world they build with robots will

Never feel like home to me, but to these

Small ones dreaming the screens will be all

Their homes will be flatscreens, floor to ceiling

Always predicting and running algorithmic

Visions of whatever makes them metrically idylling

The lights and cameras and machines of smoke 

And mist will fill them up always in a kind of bliss

And I on my deathbed will long for a window, the sun’s kiss

Sonnet #365

 All that is lost should stay right there

Where would I even put it? There is no room

The cupboards uncluttered, the cabinets bare

Are cleaner now and prepared for whom

Or what or where or why, just leave things clean

For now. And those lost toys wandering free

Like the ghosts of cats will curl into the seams

Of ancient photographs, remembered fondly

Oh mug, oh shirt, oh pen, oh piece, I wear

The echo of you all, always, but better now

I leave my shelves for dust, and wipe them clear

And let my dreams be empty, make no show

Upon the fabric of the room, for whom or why or what

Comes cluttering along, I do not know, yet