Sonnet #324

We call the hard ones strong but they 

Are not. The jagged cliffs are shaped by sea

The wind blows down all the mighty trees 

And we sit upon the beach and sea spray

Tickles our noses where the wind catches

The drops, and we bask in that cool water

And swim among the reefs, fish scatter

And they are so small, so delicate, patches

Of light glistening and alive and so small

And all our strength all our hardness breaks

Upon the beach, where tiny sand’s pull

Gently holds us up and swallows us, takes

As much as it carries of our skin cells,

The tiniest worms devour the mightiest who make

Sonnet#323

No sonnet sits upon this place to make

a little sense from senselessness, no

poem dances out the poison, shimmy shake

The Tarantella is not needed her, so

too the military march, there is no poem

standing here, upon this moving mark

And so abandons pages, forgiveness, and pain

And carry all the things I might have heark-

ened in my brain, I let it all remain

I shattered up the rhyme scheme because no poem

is here, just scattering denials and words

that scatter into more words and a bit absurd

How we just line things up and say the words

And pretend that you can hear me speaking the absurd

Sonnet #326

From all the darkness that I gather

All the moonlight reflected, all the stars

I find the center of the warm dark, the bars

of the cage of the world of me, were 

I in sun, I cannot think for long, 

There's too much light, too much beauty

I have too much to live, too much duty

To the living world, but the dark song

lingers in my chest, the knowing what comes

For if it can be taken from me, it is not

me. If I could lose a hand and still be some-

one, then my hand is not me. If I could stop

My heart and pull it out and put another one

And I remain, eternal self, let all flesh drop

Sonnet #325

 Nothing prepares us for a restless night

We expect — we always expect — to dream

Expect to wake refreshed and stretch the light

But when the air is still and calm and we seem

Unable to breathe inside of it, unable to settle

It always comes as such a surprise, a gift of time

In darkness, a gift where we are left to wrestle

Out the ransoms of the daylight, scrape the slime

Off our psyche, read a book, go for walks, be still

Here is the restless hour, the long night, ticking clocks

Alone in this limping, humid storm-swept swell

To think and think and think until the mind is locked

And the windows finally shut, and night guests ramble

Until their voices stop, after the party, and words untangle

Sonnet #324

 For love, I trim my beard outside,

So little hairs don’t clog and mess the sink

I use the sliding glass as mirror where I think

The neighbors cannot see me, as I hide

Without a shirt, electric clippers whine and chew

And soon my beard is through, this bits of me

Tumble all about the deck, and they blow free

Where I know the birds and mice will gather through

And make their nests in my lost beard, I’ve seen them

Tossed them from an old galosh I forgot in the porch

Swept the empty nests away from under pots and when

I see the sparrows in the field and know how we touched

The field mice in the cinderblocks bravely

Stealing in my garden, we are connected, all of us

To I who plant and mow and shave and live and rust

Sonnet #322

All the places I have slept are always here

In the Dreamtime, I can feel the ache of camping

And the unsettled damp of motel mattresses where

I could not quite escape the musk, also stamping

down the exposed springs of dormitory beds

my body remembers every couch and hospital

Amy body, in the Dreamtime, knows when instead

Of waking from my dreams, I stay in them all

So ask me how my back aches and my knees groan

And I will say that when I sleep all sleep remembers

The lost lovers, whose beds became so cold, the stones

Beneath my back when I napped in a park, December

Comes, and my dreaming power grows, every memory

Of mattresses stacks upon the pea of self, I wake from every

Sonnet #321

Soon every mountain will become a carved thing

A head or pressing heroes or marching men with flags

Every face of rock is just a canvas, ready to ring

the greatness of the dead forever out of rocky slag;

Since every stone will be carved to be memorials,

naturally, the birds and insects will evolve --

they dance already on the statues in arboreal

parks, and will someday specialize where stone dissolves

into faces, and every nostril is a nest, and every strong chin

overhangs a shadow, shelters stone birds and insects

these future natives of a country all built of memory, 

will erode it, in time, where excessive breeding breeds neglect;

The storms will come, and earthquakes, too, and scatter

all these great men dead in echoless shatters

Sonnet #320

Dog barking in the night, I know this song

But I never sing along, because I think

Of Cinderella on her throne, queen of drink

Not pretty, now, and the birds and mice along

The walls are more loyal than the servants

That resent how she came from them and they

Will never be like her, the dust of cinder that they

Leave inside her napkins and pillowcases and ants

Allowed to crawl among the crumbs left on dresses

She swears they are doing it on purpose, but they 

Swear it is just the mice and bird caresses

For her whole life she lies awake at night, pray

To keep this place in life won suddenly say nothing

Hold all the night inside your chest, keep breathing.

Sonnet #319

The squirrel thirsts enough to chew upon

The thickest pomegranate rinds, to drink

The tartest, not yet sweet, the hardest sink

Of teeth gets but a drop, and throw them down

After just a few swift chews, and in these ruins

Broken ornaments and desiccation of the flesh

I harvest losses off the ground, and press

The fruit, or shake it, just to see what drew in

Where the skin was broken, all those jewels

My poor pink quartz, my gemstones of mourning

All that glittering, and that squirrel, desperate fool

Will be trapped in this place a season, hoarding

All the treasures of this fence-line, the cool

Days come; to eat the pomegranate seeds, in this burning

Sonnet #318

They’ll remember how you make them feel

Of course. They’ll remember what they think

Happened where the feeling cleans the sink

And washes dishes in it. The feeling peels

The dust back from the fans and spins the room

The feeling moves the furniture around

To dance the shadows properly and sounds

A lot like what happened, I guess, except the boom

Of it is all the work of feeling; Since feeling is first

Who cares to argue with it? Primary sources

Always seem the most reliable even when the worst

Source is the first source, and it pours and pours

All over the palace of memory, shouting and laughing

At the end of our life, the doors close with feeling

Sonnet #317

On my porch, a cat has taken land that was not his

A feral Tom, young and lean, has fought 

And won, and gleans his meals from drought

In my neglected flower beds—poor anoles

My green friends hunting moths in citrus shrubs

And all the singing toads of twilight in irrigation

Lines, I fear for them. This wild young son

Who likely fought his mother, wants no rub

Of human kindness: but I try to build trust

I negotiate his favor with bribery and calm

Like the chieftain before him, the black wild crust

Of my sidewalk, who rolled gracefully into my palm

Only to bite, I will try to make peace, be friends

Kingdoms rise and fall, the earth abides, without end

Sonnet #316

To love a wild bird is to love without
that love returned for birds are scared
of us, at best, or steal what we might share
Because we love the way they fly about
The place: they sing and paint the sky
But will we sacrifice for them? We will
Put out seed perhaps, or plant a hedge they fill
We keep the pets in at the fledging time;
Do we let the bugs swell in number?
They eat the bugs -- They need them --
Do we let the dead wood stay there
and fill the grass with flowers? When
mosquito sinks her tooth we spare her?
Birds eat them. They need them. So do we?
Would you dare allow the blood to spill for free?

Sonnet #315

Indifferent to the fascist state, the wild pigs

come before the morning twilight, to eat

among the food packaging left along the street

They have no natural predators, these pigs

Perhaps a car might strike them, or a hunter

With a strong gun, or a trap, but once they gather

In the fields, there's little left around to bother

And they wander where they will. Never

do they think of order, never do they think

That buildings can be made on purpose

By beings just like them. They sniff and sink

Their jaws into the detritus, and relish those

bits of food cast out between our teeth, our drinks'

melted ice pooled. Indifferent to fascism imposed.

Sonnet #314

The spirits of the night take feline form
Or perhaps a rodent, either way, they move
Where their spirit moves them, and they love
Where their musk is ripe. I hear the storm

Before I see it, the flush of birdsongs in the dark
The stars that dance between the clouds
The streetlights mute and hush and proud
A spotlight on every avenue, a chorus lark

The sunlight curtains all the narratives of night
I hear the storm before I see it, where lost
children wander in the street, unbroken bright
And the drifting papers of the world, the cost
Of doing business in a neighborhood, that shite
That blows around, and where's that storm? Is it lost?