fb sonnet 6

Inception, The Social Network, or I’m Still Here?
Woke up humming this, wonder what I was
dreaming about? Video Games brought me
here. New ink. We conquered the thunderstorms!
The pilot was fantastic! Who wants to come
with me? That is the question. Canfield’s diet
black cherry fudge soda, heavy on the ice,
splash of vodka. Summer awesomeness. Cake
Is Just A Four-Letter Word. Always wanted
the General Lee with the welded doors and the horn.
Baseball on the radio. Classic everything
turns to candy Americana. I thought
they were going to take my new candidate
for dumbest movie ever away. Salad’s made.

fb sonnet 5

Linguini, fettuccine, martini, bikini!
What is this rapture shit? Fun times tomorrow!
Come to downtown Danbury and write and color
all over the sidewalks! Party like a rock
in front of our beautifully restored fountain
in front of City Hall. Stop licking the cat,
baby, put on heart shaped sunglasses. Make
sense? The backyard trees are on a hawk path.
You follow me, I follow you. Black Lips
Voice of a Generation. This huge spider
was in my house! I love the iPhone! Classic
Americana. Kinda see-through and totally
Who wants to come? Volcano erupts in Iceland—
I guess I should go to the liquor store now.

fb sonnet 4

Gonna blow this thing up! 150th
anniversary of the Civil War
= just another excuse for the town
of Litchfield to fire cannons near my house
during naptime. I can't count how many times
the money from the tooth fairy was found
on the floor. Baby, put on heart shaped sun-
glasses. This is my jobhunting look. Going
out to dinner wearing a top that's way
too low, kinda see-through and totally
inappropriate! Who wants to come with me?
Where Rocky stood! And I am still listening
to Under the Boardwalk in my mind. A new
fortune cookie has been delivered to you.

fb sonnet 3

Stop licking the cat! What Lies Behind Your Eyes?
It must be the weather. Italy in June
is not bad—who wants to come with me? Honestly,
what is it with Tuesdays? Some days the best
thing about my job is that my chair spins.
What kind of person are you really? I am
loving the new Beastie Boys album. Mesa
Verde is such a magical place—who
wants to come with me? Stop licking the cat!
It must be the weather. Pukkelpop in August
announced today! Tuesdays should be abolished
and replaced with a second Saturday to help
us recover from Monday. Diggin' Hot Sauce
Committee Part 2. What kind of person are you?

fb sonnet 2

Brazilian Woman Wins Right To Masturbate
At Work! Awesome. Every light on my dashboard
that could be on is on. If I am without
my car for even a day I bring my ipod
or listen to NPR. I can't stomach
regular radio. I never stop dancing
for a dark and sleepy Monday. I will spend
five minutes picking up and balancing
as many things as possible to carry
upstairs before I'll make two trips. Do you
need to empty a closet in order to clean it?
The less you have around you the less you
have to clean up. It's taken so long, but it's nice
to know you'll be waiting w open arms.

fb sonnet

Leaving the Budget Subcommittee Meeting
tonight, I stopped in front of our beautifully
restored fountain in front of City Hall.
Karate chop no evil, pinch no evil,
squash no evil. More proof that pageant mothers
are fucking nuts. James out and Haley in . . .
one man, one vote can make a difference!
Oh man, that must have been awesome. I'm on
the hunt for a real good film scanner. My
next move? I just have to accept the fact
they're gone, move on & keep the memories.
Party like a rock star, that's what I'm going to do!
I need to get out of this house more. Is Gaga
channeling Carole Channing or Cruella?

Proverbial Sonnet (55)

A movie's a fine bulwark against time
but nothing outlives a powerful rhyme
like an insect of radiation-resistant airs.
I should have been a cluster of spiky hairs
stretching out and vibrating my wings
intuitively as I play my courtship songs.
My hate is a purple hydrangea that stings:
a yellowjacket tucked under mophead poms
with hard-shelled face and long black-seed eyes
and well-developed primitive mouthparts
for capturing and chewing what I should
have been. My hate is a minor pollinator,
a sweet-toothed scavenger disrupting picnics
and, nest-back, passing it on in trophallaxis.

A Sheltering Sky

Aurora borealis, born to dance . . .

Sidereal glaciers, love's invisible spiders.
Home is wherever I'm squatting with
Elvis houseflies in my hair.
Looking at the fjords of night between
The blue punk rock clouds, I recline and
Evaporate like juice in a pan. We sleep on
Rooftops whenever we dream, secretly
Inviting the leopards and cobras of
Night to stride and slither to our sides as we
Grind our teeth and sharpen our minds.

Solar winds, track changes, due north.
Karmic evolution, born to boot . . .
Yellow teeth of the sun tease my arm.

________
In memory of Jim Carroll
August 1, 1949 – September 11, 2009

And partly in response to Politely Homicidal's call for acrostic poems having to do with the sky

Proverbial Sonnet (53)

Good morning, kiss. You are awake. Today's back road
have blossomed behind my eyes. Ted Berrigan is alive.
The minute blue night was only pretending
to be awake. Your drive into work, a brown sliver
under the whirling print of an elegant finger, a middle finger
opening slowly in the direction of American Beauty.
American Beauty isn't only a movie. Good morning,
you, opening slowly, today's back roads, a kiss
in the direction of American Beauty. On the car windows,
commas, periods, and question marks of water —
no words wet this movie morning. A minute blue
blossomed drive beyond the wide rows of high brown
slivers. You are awake, on the back roads, which lead me away
from American Beauty, from behind my eyes, from the line,
          “Ted Berrigan is alive.”

________
This is a knock-off. For the real deal, one of the most beautiful American poems, see Ted Berrigan's Sonnet XXXVII.

Proverbial Sonnet (52)

If love ain't the ember in remember
then it's probably hate, or the shadow
of a pain so great it couldn't fade into
the light of day just around the corner
from any time, any place, mano
a mano, chest to chest, just me and you
and the open air, that kind of call to fight
like a rottweiler, to bite the proverbial leg
of the one you love, the one you hate, or the one
you masturbate in the forests of the night
all Tiger, tiger, forgetting the powder keg
of days and our flickering camp-fire brain.
Love, if you love me, think of me when you shower
as your animal soap and pegasus water.

Proverbial Sonnet (51)

Content yourself with rice; reveal yourself
with tea. Be childlike and sandwich bag the seeds
of summer's watermelon compassion.
Souvenir not only any rocks and shells
from the days you staked your ground at the beach
but the paper parking pass as well. Cash in
all but one of your chips from the casino,
or no, shake, rattle, and roll with emptiness,
but emptiness meaning weight divided by
itself, not that ticking, clock-faced zero.
It's not the heat but the resulting sweat.
The pounding sun begets the day's black eye,
not heavy rain or snow, not hurricane winds.
It's the commonplace that exhausts all means and defeats all ends.

Proverbial Sonnet (50)

Free will is a mountain. If you are moving
forget it. Turn on your radio and
detune it: the big bang can't be changed. Yet.
The crackle you hear is the echo from
a squirrel breaking an acorn open in
the shadow of a tree you can't not see
if you close your eyes and imagine that
furry irritable reaching after fact
with all of the pathos of climatology
or the arctic circle of a harp seal's birth—
let's go pick some elderberries. There is
no wisdom like elderberry wisdom.
Near wet ditches, dense thickets, or along
stream banks, we purple and break off easily.

Proverbial Sonnet (49)

In other words, you can lead a horse to water
but the bear, well, he eats you. Where do you go
from there? That's the burro in the valley waiting
for you to chinook your way down the holler
hillside. The deer that narrows across the road
to grok the other side chills, innovating
more intimately than most of us ever
will again. Nothing rocks north like a crow.
Get on that horse and cross-saw through the hate
of flies. Swat away time; anything clever
you cased inside, bandana, pack, and unload:
smoke out the force of comfort to contemplate
that patient valley burro who doesn't care
whether you dustle down or swivel in your chair.

Proverbial Sonnet (48)

So, as a diminutive of sound, a small
something sung or musically spoken,
becoming in time mainly a matter of the noise
it makes, moving south to the north in squalls,
making invisible love corporeal bone
by bone, turn by turn, admitting the sighs,
the blatant woe and reckless considerations
of love's reverence, a makeshift hacksaw
grinding so from sound against the ball
and chain of careful call and rejection,
knowing thoughts without lips sit like arrows
without a bow, aiming for the lightning smile,
angel-grappling, sow-wrangling, slight refrain
all procreant urge and incisive pain.

Proverbial Sonnet (47)

It's comforting to know that life is a
rough draft. Life is not a rough draft. It's more
of an improvisation, which is to say
it's like a rough draft that's final. Record
what happens, scoff and repent and be on our way
leaving behind those things we had in store
to share at least with those we loved if the day
had been uncluttered enough to allow for
those rough works, that sedimentary clay,
to come to light. Too sentimental? Sure,
but walking the picket line with mom when you're eight
will mark your words that way, your musical score
or iTunes playlist, your GarageBand remix. Tonight
we're going to party like when doves cry.

Proverbial Sonnet (46)

When plans B, C, D, and E, all fail,
it helps to take a walk in the rain, maybe
bring an apple, kick a can along the ground.
Don't mind the sewers that remind you hell
sits under us at all times, how daily
we wrestle its static energy, hands tied
behind our backs, like bobbing for apples
in a cauldron of seething excitations.
“Then there is a time in life when you just take
a walk: and you walk in your own landscape”
and snap a few photos with your iPhone
to post on your blog with words like leaves that shake
as a nervous squirrel creeps out along their branch
and peeks at you for some sign of your plan.

Proverbial Sonnet (45)

If this is part of a serial poem, I'm not
supposed to read what came before, what words
I put or fell together late last night.
But what do I care about cautions and theories
regarding the way I should make my poems
these days? I'll sit here and over-read
what I have writ if that's how I want to roll.
What's OK by Herrick is OK by me.
It takes more than two to flock together.
The line is a manner of looking things up.
Wing it, sing it, and bring it. Fling your feather
against the sky. Snip the paper cup
and pick the coated pieces for our new nest.
Theory's restless worm will lead us to it.

Proverbial Sonnet (44)

Who care's about the chicken or the egg?
What matters is more along the lines
of a fine mist: you can't feel it on your tongue
unless you stick it out. What matters is
a bad penny, the work that's never done,
a moss-covered stone louder than words.
After a storm comes, the day begins again.
What matters is the earth that angels fear
to tread; knowledge is up there in the clouds
for most of us to grab. What matters is
a puddle in the mud: there's no walking
around it. The rain is worth a thousand words
fools write down and rush to tell the world
about. What matters is a bird in the mouth.

Proverbial Sonnet (43)

It's like what the kids say: the heart is tangled
syrup wood. Love is a mangled metaphor,
an electric tiger stalking the avenues
searching for someone to play Scrabble with.
You hope it whispers a word or two to fill
in your rhyme scheme, but instead it opens wide,
grabs you around the waist, and wanders off
with your head and limbs dangling from its mouth.
You don't play Scrabble that way do you? With
a twenty-point bonus for making a word
that rhymes? Love does. It's wrenching. It takes the nuts
and bolts of the tangled tiger heart and twists—
lefty loosey, righty tigthy—until
its teeth dig through the engine of your mind.

Fall

There was too much time for talk. Old man summer
with his pretty-boy face and sunshine cane
wiped the drool from his chin before we noticed.
Young men flexing muscles as they walk the shore,
eyeing through their shades the bikini-clad
young women playing each other and stomp-
splashing their feet as they secretly spy
on the boys. Not us. Who are we anyway?
What green force brought us here to brown and wither?
We're not at the beach, are we? But then how could
you know, we're not even together. Don't
look at me that way, with your unflinching page-
ward eyes like spikes, as if I'm the one confused.
It's personal now, now that we hide in the nude.