Sonnet #414

The devil cannot be the devil all the time

How can anyone sustain a hate without 

a little sweetness in the kindling, without

A little cozy moment with the fire, a time

For the knife to clean before it stabs 

And twists and all the guns must oil

And wash away the hint of rust and toil

Like this is always homely, optimistic

Though the tools will hurt there is a joy

For devils in laying traps, antagonistic

Moments are precise, there must be toys

To practice with, there is a ritualistic

Pleasure in the work of anything, even evil

Do not confuse who is good with who is gleeful 

Sonnet #413

 In the morning, what drags me from my bed

Are the creatures that demand my care: the fish

In their prison awaiting the warden’s blessed dish

The dog in her eternal restless need for sky and fed

A bit of meat. The plants in all their reaching, 

I baptize daily in the heat, and check  jewels

For disease or defeat. Just me, alone, how cruel

Would I move at all? Would I care to be teaching

Anyone the mysteries of time and ruins

Hide in a single bedroom, a single kitchen, alone

Swelling in a sadness that demands pills to go on

Leave eventually if I must to miserly atone

For what use is a man granted earth as dominion 

Without the work of it, the moving of bones and stones?

Sonnet #412

 I had a dream again about the bad times

I was playing with my son in his room

Laughter, telling stories to kids at home

Is one of the great joys of life, and the slime

poured into the room and wedged me back

to the wall and hit me hard and formed a skin

to charm the kid without letting me in

I politely asked the thing to share, but the slack

of the ooze wouldn't let me through 

the screaming never stopped, so in the hall

where people could see it, the ooze formed into

the shape of a person who will lie to you all

why are we all pretending? Mute, all words stolen

i sat, waiting forever for anyone to listen

Sonnet #411

 The bear will take your heartbeat and there's nothing

you or I can do about it, not because they're bears

Huge, hulking things with claw and teeth, there's

nothing to fear from them because the city is watching

Right? We know they aren't supposed to have our hearts

We know that bears cannot be trusted not to rage

a passing blow, a scrape, a bite, and even in the age

where bears know better, they can only keep their smarts

for so long before the training breaks, so shouldn't we

take the heartbeats somewhere else? Somewhere

with no constant threat of claw and teeth, shouldn't we

take the children where there are no bears?

The rules are clear: wait for the bears to hurt them,

Before your heartbeats can be taken from them.

Sonnet #410

 To live with a bear is to live with teeth

Jaws strong enough to crush a coconut

And a smell like death where it breathes

The scratches on the walls where it

Marks possession, and curl down in 

All that furry flesh at night, I guess, and hope

It is sleepier than it is hungry, let it in

Your bed and feel the heavy arms rope

You into the warm belly. At first, it’s nice

To be comfortable and warm when night

Falls and danger lurks in the snow and ice

All right, you think, that’s all right, and all right

Okay, we can do this, just don’t shriek

Stay calm, stay cool, and don’t shriek

Sonnet #409

 There is a bear in the house with us

It goes where it will, growls and ambles

We must be quiet, and stay calm, don’t stumble

The bear will ignore us if we don’t discuss

The bear, or anything it likes: no honey

No berries, no elk, no fish, and never bother

The bear when it is busy, lest it bother

To be busy upon you. Set aside some money

And the bear will go to the store for bones

And you can find some peace, for now

Pretend everything is fine, it’s gone

And we can quickly be ourselves, sing, throw,

Remember how to dance or laugh, the phone

Rings, and it’s the bear, goodbye, we say, we love you

Sonnet #408

A village of protagonists, all on quests, assemble:

I have to explain, sometimes, to a person grown,

That when they are no longer in the room,

The people, there, continue. They don't resemble

Furniture, and do not wait in place for your behind

Since life is not meant for stillness, we get some coffee

go to work, make friends, and make our happy posses

But these protagonists assemble, seek rewards in kind

How strange to be a person in a world of heroes

To watch them being watched, being seen, building up

their little kingdoms, the genius of them rose

upon us all so suddenly, always looking outward, never up

In church, I sit in back and wonder why I must be anything

If this can't be enough, just a little life, a little time; I sing

Sonnet #407

 Beware to have a child with someone who

Only pretends to love because they’ve

Seen love on tv and the podcasts tell them

That love is all about them, every love story

Every media is about how they should be

The center of everything and treats the child

Like Peter Pan for Wendy: play with me forever

Never grow up stay small stay in my house stay

Obedient be ready when I am ready, or it’s your fault

And when the child is there the person is special

Everyone tells them their child is great thereby

Gaining attention otherwise impossible

And the child will never be allowed to have a life

because that’s not in the show. There is only one star.

Coming in November from Aqueduct Press...

 

My next book comes out in November from Aqueduct Press.

Cover art by J. Scott Coatsworth, design by Kath Wilhelm.

https://www.aqueductpress.com/forthcoming-pubs.php

Sonnet #406

 ten years ago, i thought I'd write a sonnet

every day until the book i needed had the voice

and ever since I write a little thing by choice

because ten years ago, I thought I'd try it

And who I was, I don't recall, there've been

some changes since, and all my cells

have been reborn, split and shifted, felled

sometimes, bled or cut or shed and swept to bins

Perhaps it mattered, all these years, these lines

these endless lines that whisper in my ear

that i pause and throw into the shadow times,

where nothing is sacred, and nobody cares,

and if they do, they care a smidge, a wicket, a tine

of fork could pluck the core of all my wear and tear

Sonnet #405

 We must discuss this crust of stuff

That clusters all around your bed

Abandoned books and bits of mail unread

And tea cups, coffee cups, water cups, stuffed

Effigies of animals, and lost socks, lost shirts

A lonely shoe pushed too far under 

The baleful mess that speaks of blunders

Make your bed, clean your room, dust, flirt

With perfection every day for failing here

Means failing everywhere, every little choice

Accumulates in your little tomb of room, fear

What mysterious archaeologists find to voice

Their judgments of your remains? what spiders

Emerged to defend your cluttered cellars?

Sonnet #404

 No time to work, no time to play,

Not on things that matter, anyway

Join the game of Monopoly

Where everything sucks and nothing is free

And the work of living: the fooding

the ritual cleaning, the joyful blooding

of the young at their rituals 

and the yearning towards the spiritual

are purchased for cheap so we can be

busy at business importantly

and art? an afterthought, an idle uselessness

i don't mind it so much, the loneliness

of the arts, but i mind how my time is best

with toil that has no meaning to the rest

Sonnet #403

 Be grateful you are offered a chance to help

Be grateful I am asking you and demanding

That all your hopes and visions of life are ending

Because you must obey the call of the kelp

The call of the seaweed, the call of the muck

That someday will become the limestone

Quarried by the ravens’ tools for their homes

When humans are all just ghosts that sucked

The life out of this world and the world sucked back

Be grateful you have a chance to do your part

Before the wild places never come back

So pull yourself together, man, and drop art

Drop love, drop life, find the bottom of a sack

And let it swallow you, any sack will do, no heart

Beats matter of yours, now, my lost one, my drifting hack

Sonnet #402

 Gravity, that trickster fiend, finds us floating free

Alone, and calls to pull us in where 

We will be connected, forge a planet, swirl

Dance around the orbit of the shimmering seas

And closer, now, they come together, until it’s tight

Really need some personal space, actually,

Like could use a break from all these 

Electrons and elbows and shouting and fight

Breaks out, and breaks out again, and boom

We’re boiling, now, slowly roiling around

We wrap to the edge where we become

A quiet, hard, lonely thing, craving someone

To push into us, the magma churns, we surf

The shell of turmoil back into the explosion