WORD SONNET
Paradise
is
sitting
abeyant
in
a
new
friend’s
tent-
the
slapping
rain
plunging
down.
ITALIAN SONNET
I approach, rudderless, the darkened moor,
Where the crooked lighthouse normally sits,
Be there it may, but completely- unlit!
Yet I must set my course on her shore.
The coward caretaker trembled at the door,
The storm hammered in hellish, ghastly fits.
The mad tempest ran away with his wits,
His initiative drowned at the floor.
But hot winds have pushed the thunders away,
Brought new clouds that surrender to the moon,
Beautiful mistress! She dapples the bay-
Renders my damp night a glorious day-
Some cloud puffs are friends, some winds are a boon,
And fools full of fear should never hold sway.
SHAKESPEAREAN SONNET
I scoffed as I heard of love at first sight
Thinking it’d never happen to me-
I tried to reason with all of my might
Love with calculation, not fallacy.
But logic be damned, it’s every time,
Exponentially harder and faster.
It is reason I shun instead of rhyme,
My pupils dilated in disaster.
That’s what my brain claims, but maybe he’s wrong,
For although eyes see superficially,
The nose sniffs out hormones subtly strong,
Chemical love coming naturally.
I’ll let this infatuate garden grow!
Plant yellow Dutch tulips as Cyrano!
COURTLY LOVE
I.
I have a Platonic love, of a different sort-
My Pallas Aphrodite, Goddess full of wisdom and beauty both,
She is the ideal
The rest of us poor reflections
The only Form to Grace our Earth with unveiled presence
A shapeliness no circle can equal
Perilous to my sanity to behold the face of my abstract Everything
To marvel, quake in awe,
Wail and quiver at not having
Plato’s Athenian,
Come to us mortals in Troth.
No man can harness the sun or even stare too long ‘fore going blind
Blind as love
Part of perfection sits in me and raises me up,
Eudaemonic,
For even daring to dream of loving Forms of You.
II.
He who is not jealous can not love.
I am not jealous.
I am envious.
For I do not have.
I covet but do not covet love, which I hold in brightened, dark secret.
My passions invisible and obvious,
My Guinevere!
I am tired, tired of being ashamed,
For who I am is a lover.
A deep devoted fool,
Knight of motley and bells
That jingle for you, no errancy,
And herald a maddened gladdening heart.
I am more me because I don’t have you.
