My poetry portfolio, and links to my published work…
Sonnet I
To earth asleep my song arouse afar,
As a birth does bring a wake in ear itself,
And shakes the leaves and shakes down the stars,
So my call can call Pegasus off his shelf,
For my life hath in this line some interest,
Some color conscience garden growth and bud,
Here’s a hilly furrow, a seed’s address,
Now hear a black vine, it’s pushed by blood;
Or if tis fallen on rocky soil, to choke,
To straggle or swone, and tide what betide,
Then as a branch awaits the lightning its bolt,
I’d hold this wand high and boldly abide,
No matter Time, to wait with a weary arm
In arm, so this of me will make or mar.
Sonnet 2
This trough, or manger, was itself the grave
Of the Bethlemite, bier'd umbilical,
Let down by navel string, into this cave,
This world within womb, apocalyptical
Trumpets, tambors and symbols blare his ministry,
In lowing of cattle, fire’s crack, and the infant cries,
If we’d have ears to hear we’d muse divinity,
In every birth, every act of his babbling guise,
And ask shall this new born babe himself decay,
When his Parable’s stretched to the very rack,
When on some tree he shall himself re-lay
To die the innumerable death, still on his back?
Or shall we shout his resurrect on every third day,
When out some womb he does himself display?
Sonnet 3
In aspen woods there is a sacred space,
Which by the Bones I think the Crow had roost,
And there I took my craft: needle, thread, and lace,
And sewed Love’s idol. But not Cupid I’produced,
Not that casual boy, of the blind arrow,
But someone with a honey jar, sweets plenty,
And without wings, but an earthy barrow,
Where no eros fly, but grow in years many,
I sewed a Man’s great arms, love must lift much,
Above a Woman’s hands, must tender bruise,
Under Child’s eyes, love sees with tender touch,
With Lion’s grin, for you I’d much bemuse,
So what then was the figure I had sown?
Naught but this, which now to you I’ve shown.
Sonnet 4
If my bare heart shall be your blank, fire on
In words the wounds that’ve wound you up, let loose
Your ammo’s shot (that being, your amors gone),
On target that beats, e’en till the fuse diffuse,
Shoot, here’s fair mark: that hearts hurt (on hearts) hound,
Look, fair game, when the hart’s in the clearing,
Beastly love pounces its own tail, sans sound (thought),
And death rattles mingle with the cheering,
Yet now hound’s a’fell, and like the flat roadkill,
Only the tread (of the walk) can tell,
How hunt was stalked with some skill (to standstill),
To hear dwell, our mad dame (Mademoiselle),
In this’ our only ever claim to fame,
That poetry’s a muse-ing o’er dead game.
Sonnet 5
This is an entire optic, entirely
An Eye, sailing, on a sea of sunlight,
To catch the Eternity that, Hourly,
Drops like rain, from the heavenly birthright,
All these ornaments, of an endless air,
Clouds of corpse’d stars, newborn stars, galaxies,
Fill the Temple, of the head, from the stair
Of space, of such silent capacities,
(These commotions that – motion us – up
Brings back the Bowman, pulls back, the arrow string,
All the way to the shoulder, of Earth,
What are Heavens without the firmament’d Earth?)
Beyond the timberline another Eye
Ascends, a lone life, more than an eye,
A pool of water, in the palm, of a
Pinion pine’s Abrahamic bark, reflects sky
Just as much as you O’ catching Webb, the
Wind-slanting tree, just as much, sees All in ebb.