Sonnet #156

The killing freeze browned all the citrus leaves
It wiped lantanas down to brown like baking sun
like drought and sun, but it was cold, the trees
so cold, they broke the cells, lost to brown

They say it only happens every couple years
So fight to bring them back to life and harvest
What comes when the spring rain rears
And all the heat returns in summer, the hottest

Aye, we brace, we lose, and only a few degrees
Of chill in the wind, a very gentle dip from wind
The tiniest of moments in the greatest forces we see
a subtle shift in the air, a rock face fallen, a sin

A single sin, a single tailpipe adding heat to sky
The threshold is so small, and all the trees die

Sonnet #155

In fourteen lines or less, I shall explain,
Why we will never know if color is real
It was not discovered until the prism's grain
Extended out the ray of light like skinning peels
Until then we believed all things had a color,
But now we know all things reject the pigment
That we think they are, it bounces all over
With other hues devoured. It's a figment
of imagination, then, a flicker in the eye
A way to tell a shape from shape upon the plain;
At night, for all the universe is night, color dies
and there is only shades of black and grain
like ancient television screens distorting
We know it as we see it, a convenient sorting.

Sonnet #154

Nature remembers every cut, every stone
The city is a forest that we forget to see
We see the building past the trees, not the trees
But we never left her when we built our homes
There is no division between city and country
The trees on the streets rise up, the possums
and insects hum. The cats run wild, hunt for some
beetle or songbird or mouse, who sneak into our pantry.
The trees of the city, the grasses and hedges
The flowers that bloom and the migratory birds
We see only parking lots, not their edges
We see only roadways, unknown we are herded
Climb past the fences, walk where development alleges
But never start, and thistles break through the ruins, hard

Sonnet #153

For every season of the birds there is a song
Because to sing is to remember time
We hand our story down with music, rhyme.
Time that changes everything, we do all wrong
When we betray the music of our memories
That taught us how to live. The song of children
Is the song of learning, we tell them
How to know the letters, how to tell no lies
Then, the dancing season comes, the quarrels
The quest to be a strong woman or man,
The love that burns all flowers, burns all morals
The third season, we're the singers where we stand
Humming while we work, giving songs for sorrows,
Masters of the art of how to woman and man
Until the dirges come, the last season, winter, narrows.

With apologies to Shelley and Vonnegut

I met a sailor from an antique shore
He told me this... "Out in the cold shallows
Where the pollution persists, a poor-
Ly built tower lies tumbled and hollow
Upon some rust and rocks, a slogan there
Where once a giant name, writ-large
Decrepit, now, if it ever was more and better,
A seawashed gaudy gold-gilt plastic visage
Hideous and haughty, 'I am Trump, the winner
And the best president for the economy
Where oil wells pumped, and dollars shimmered,
Look upon my amazing properties and praise me!
I was the best president; everyone says so!"'
The lonely sea has swallowed all. So it goes.

Sonnet #152

oh hard bitter rue, what became of you?

dishwater green, and dun-colored yellow blooms

aromatic oils to kill your neighbors for elbow room

left a rash when anyone tried to walk near you

eventually little golden pimples emerged as infections

they turned black and pulsated, living, growing

Until the little eggshell cracks, exposing

The servants of the rue, upon close inspection

The tiny things cleared out the foliage, made room

For new growth, and ate away other infections

The bigger, the prettier, striped golden white and blue

Ate skins when they cracked to make new skins

Chrysalis, and patience for the fruit of the rue:

Swallowtails soaring like velvet paintings that flew

Sonnet #151

They will use the nuclear bombs again,
I know it's hard to hear this, but you must
Because the future is no place for just the just
The fact that men can dream of it is enough sin
To know they mark history by slaughtering
To know the war can be won by wiping out
Genocide with a phone call, no drill sergaent's shouts
And history will remember who, the world trembling
The feeling of being big, being strong, from a sneeze
That sinks a billion destinies, a little spark and fizzle.
The bombs will fall. I promise you this. The wheeze
of dying men who dream of glory see the puzzle
of geography as a territory to bring to knees
They will. I promise they will. I shout until muzzled.

Sonnet #150

So, Golgotha wakes for us, and we must stand
Upon the hill of skulls? That's fine by me
No one ever promised peace for an eternity
Let us stand together, see the temple, see the land
Feel the stab inside of us, the powerlessness
Aye, they wanted Barnabas, the rapist, grifter, thief
They rather keep their devil than change against grief
We will all bow down to Rome, to Pilate, to Barnabas
Let the world keep their sinners among sinners
We stand on the hill, above, brace with pain
Let the world shout their misery, pretend as winners
We will hold our souls, and wash away all stains
Be gentle on Golgotha, let them dance regrets and burns
Let the hurt reveal the strength of us like keening trains

Sonnet #149

What came first, the gender or the pronoun?

When Adam had his rib removed, was there 

anything to call him until the flesh became clear?

He, alone, requires no third, no second, no sound.

Without those two, must there be a first?

What point is sense of self without another?

Is God's voice in our hearts enough for

the measurement of a pronoun? What's worse:

The idea that the self cannot exist without

Another person to bounce off of it,

Or that the self exists when nature's out

and I am in, and I am not a part of it?

And, if we accept that Eve's our rib, shout

at her, and pronouns break communion, doesn't it?

Sonnet #148

Cancelled due to illness, shut the doors
Close the windows, go to bed, We're sick
and tired of all the cleaning, mopping floors
Washing dishes, trimming trees, let's stick
The laundry in the baskets for a day
Let's call the repairwoman tomorrow
Let's be sick and lie in bed and pay
our bills tomorrow, and sleep in sorrow
Let the pain wash over us, let it pass
Drink no coffee, feel the headache split
the skull, embrace the tremors, harass
each other about who must deal with it
Cancelled due to illness, invent a sickness,
Anyone will do, and hide all day in blankets

Sonnet #147

In dreams, I was an angel that flew above

the crowd, when a powerful preacher lied

to an illiterate woman, preached hate, I pried

his tongue from his mouth, and drove

the preacher away from manhood, now a dog;

Chased dogs away from the wriggling flesh,

Invisible by will, I hid it in a creche

Of a high closet, wrapped in old towels, a fog

descended on my flight of invisibility

I soared above the world all night, stealing tongues

of men who spoke of hate, voted in irritability

Say they own half the diocese, say they won

the world, once, and keep it in perpetuity.

Take away tongues; change them into dogs that run.

Sonnet #146

Let us add to the seven deadly sins:
Ungratefulness is high on the new list
For it burns a resentment that spins
The heart into a hatred behind a friendly kiss
Also, let us add call waiting, because
It is very disrespectful to hold the line
And so impersonally engineer the laws
of customer service as weaponized time
Envy and jealousy, I think, are combined
Because people confuse them, these days,
And gossiping to harm: instead, let's entwine
All three of those together. Let's say
There are deadlier sins than this, burns and kills
But every generation has new ways to harm through will

Sonnet #145

Placelessness is a country I know too well
The airport waiting areas, the bus stops, the roads
The giant interchanges where highways cajole and goad
The benches where I rest, insomniac at my hotel
The gardens are meticulous, here, pruned
Into perfect geometries of blueprint drawings
The dumpsters fill and empty by unknown beings
The blowing trash has neither origin nor wound
We are all the drifters of this walk until we die
Until then, smile, be clean, polite and quick
The staff will yawn, the manager will not lie
The locals will be color and the food will be thick
The displacement of the self is the shell
That sanitizes us into a bravado of well

Sonnet #144

The things that no one tells you about kites:
There is no skill so great it overcomes no wind,
The best time to set one up is in the twilight
When transitions come and clouds unwind
When it's up, the tail is prettier than wings
The way the bobbing, dancing tail weaves
And caresses, to angels, this is everything
Pull, release, pull, release, to climb above the eaves
The ornery places of the sky are where the angels pass
To snag one on the line like a fish of heaven
Consider carefully how to catch what comes to pass
Where would one keep the angel? A jar? A battery? Bread unleavened?
When night comes, the steady tug is how we know
The ribbon tail cuts shimmery through moonlit clouds' glow