A Love Sonnet

I can't connect outside my intellect --
Excepting the deep love I feel for wife
And children -- one is natural, one a gift
From sources never known before -- this life,
An alien among the earthlings, sings
In tunes I cannot quite repeat, a feat
That makes me feel less fleet and sails
Me off to lands where I but feel defeat.
But when, on second thought, I must reflect
On all the beauty in my life, I shift
Back to the loves I have, and from me springs
Out lines of joy instead of whines and wails.
The chaos that I bring society
Makes me and it creative and more free.

Terror Birds

Beware the terrorists that always lurk
In every bush and building -- some lame jerk
With penis envy, ideology
Replacing love -- a useful idiot,
A boogeyman who we think we must flee
Because the baby just might have a fit.
A rare and useful idiot who gains
His enemies more power through his pains.

But little do the common people know
That rarest things create the greatest show.

With horse-head beaks that tear the flesh and rip
The smallest prey in two, the blood will drip
Onto the tongue and thrill the taste and baste
The air for every scavenger for miles
To trace back to the bones with little waste,
The blood-streaked bones all cracked in scattered piles --
An ancient land where terror was once rife,
The last of an extincting way of life.

Since little do the common people know
That rarest things create the greatest show.

In this, a time of war and rumored war,
When things seem more like Nineteen Eighty-Four,
When life, it seems, is in a great stagnation
And ideology's a terrorist
And we are losing every strong relation
Once based in love, now crushed under a fist --
And what is crushed is beauty, truth, the good --
You'll see the light if you'll but lift your hood.

Yes, little do the common people know
That rarest things create the greatest show.

We love our lives in Stockholm, with our birds
Who tell us what we want to hear with solemn words,
And we believe their every word of fear
When life is truly better, safer, war
And terror rarer now than ever -- we're
The gullibles who won't peak through the door.
The demagogues are who we have to flee
If mind, then body, ever will be free.

My Mind's Crucible

The throbbing fire in my soles abate
When I'm no longer conscious, and my hips
Send lightning when the storms arrive. This fate
Befell me from my birth in torrents, drips.
Rare blackouts, common twitches seize and freeze
Me -- never does this body please me -- ache
In joints and guts (so far there's still good knees),
My shoulders, back, migraines for goodness sake!
A cataract is coating my left lens --
The artificial one that had replaced
The one with cataract. I lift my pens
To say the endless things that I have faced.

But in the brilliance of the world I sing
Until these pains fade away to nothing.

Community

"Nothing must be allowed to distract from the world's elections." -- Anthony Esolen

Beloved neighbor, do not mark a check
Against me when we share a language, hope
Our children will find love, a common beck
By music we can share, that help us cope.

Beloved neighbor, do not choose to force
When we can work together, share a dish,
Behold a common place and set a course
From known to unknown lands, a common wish.

Beloved neighbor, do not take the path
Toward division--do not heed the cry
Of separationists--division is their math
When we would grow and add and multiply.

Far better that together, through the day
We join in our tradition, culture, play.

After Death

I've killed myself and celebrate that death
I had to die -- I had to bleed and burst
My heart, a self-inflicted wound, a blade
That made a soul that I would never trade
For past -- I would not celebrate the worst
Whose coffin's covered with dry baby's breath.

I sunk, enjoyed the chaos of the dark,
Enjoyed the dance and music of the dead
Inviting me to stay beneath the earth
Where I, they promised, now would find my worth
There in the silence, shadows. I'd be bled
To bring my voice into the meadow lark.

Just step into the river, lie and float,
The easy choice. A tiny troll, grotesque
And hideous, grabbed hold my hand and showed
A rocky rise no one could call a road
Or path and said to me in a burlesque
And eager voice to sing a higher note.

Why should I follow up a rocky trail
A being less inviting than the way
He showed me when the water offered me
A death of ease. It's hardship I would flee
In death -- why clamor, scratch another day?
Why try another thing that I could fail?

I stepped into the river, but the troll
Pulled back on me -- I stepped onto the bank
And knew I could not step into it twice.
The mountain path was swarming with gray mice --
I turned away and then I felt a yank
And I gave in to climb the jagged knoll.

I think I left more blood upon the stones
I climbed across than I had left behind
When I had ended my disordered life
And thought that I could leave behind the strife
Of Eris, Eros, Ares undefined
Yet heavy on my mind and on my bones.

The moment that I reached the plateau's peak
The troll released my hand and turned and said,
"Now you must go beyond. I cannot hold
Your hand," and then he turned to stone so cold
I shivered in the chill. But having tread
So far I could not let myself be weak.

I took a breath that I could see -- I gazed
Up at the final cliff to climb -- I'd lost
Myself before, and now with finger grips
I had a second life where all my slips
Would strengthen me, where every single cost
Would profit me, where downcast eyes were raised.

I struggled up the cliff face certain I
Would see the promised mountain meadow, land
Where I could stand in silent awe, where streams
Would quench my thirst at last and all that seems
Would then turn into someplace I could stand
And I'd be thankful that I'd had to die.

An eagle high above began to soar
And circle -- then it dropped and swooped beside
My head. It rose and made another dive,
But all it did was tighten up my drive
To climb the cliff and make sure I'd not died
To simply be what I had been before.

I plucked a feather from the eagle's tail
And felt a lightness, swiftness as I clawed
Up to the top and found the ancient field --
Arcadia, where all the poets yield --
And in that field I planted Jacob's rod
With knowledge, wisdom, beauty I'd not fail.

And there I found myself another voice
And there I found myself another mind --
And where I found myself, the eagle came
And in that other life we both were tame --
And here I found my riches, once unmined:
A life more beautiful, and now my choice.

On the Future

I have descended into happiness,
Descended into joy. I've fallen fast
To fasten to the dreary, darkling past
Where all mankind in sorrow must confess.
And here in damp cathedrals we will bless
The past with lies, the lies we love to cast
Into the wind and waves -- strap to the mast
And listen to the nihilistic yes.

I'm anxious for the future's upward slope
Into the mountain fields, the crisp, cool air,
The Milky Way spread out to drown the moon,
The spiral arms in curves of life, the hope
That lies between the nothingness. Declare
The truth, that we'll enjoy the coming noon.