Pate de Foie Gras

That goose laid golden eggs, I'm telling you!
Not through and through, no, that would be absurd,
A layer in the shell, where that damn bird
Secreted something...listen, if I knew
How I could turn a flock of geese into
That sort of bird, I could just say the word
And I'd have millions. Have you ever heard
Of anything like that? But it's all true,
Even though I'm counting on the fact
That no one will believe. The eggs were gold
Beneath the normal eggshell, and the yolk
Had gold in it. All that the story lacked
Was wizardry. And so when it is told
Everyone just laughs like it's a joke.

December

The winter winds its way about our hearts
And slides itself into our very souls.
Its sedentary chill so slyly darts
Into us that it hides beneath the rolls
Of coiled fat and cannot be expunged.
It therefore does not lie on the outside,
In some external world in which we're plunged
But underneath the skin. We try to hide
From this, and blame it on the world,
But every time we do, we are deceived;
The winter is within us, tightly curled
Within our breasts. If it is so conceived,
The way to warm ourselves is not with fire,
But with the contemplation of desire.

Limitations

My love is boundless, and so uncontained
That no one may describe where it can end;
It is so free, so fully unrestrained
That though deep contemplation may yet lend
Pretended comprehendibility
To it, it cannot help but over flow
The limit that my thoughts suggest to me.
It reaches out so far that I can go
Beyond imagination and still find
Its presence, deeply felt and immanent.
It stretches on outside my paltry mind
Nor is its power ever fully spent.
My love, indeed, is like the World Wide Web;
It springs beyond all thought of pause or ebb.

Compare

Comparisons are odious to me
For every one I think of has been done
By some poor poet lost to history
Or by some great but enigmatic one;
No matter which, it cannot be done now,
For these days are too conscious of their past,
And like a tyrant's subjects humbly bow
Before the very shadow he may cast
Cannot abide a former influence,
Nor re-embrace a once-beloved conceit.
The sad, unvavoidable consequence
Is that the spectres of the past defeat
All hope I might have had to compare you
To anything I might have wanted to.

In Potentia

If you were with me now, what would I do?
I'd probably do nothing; I'm too scared.
Of course, that's something you already knew,
So you would wonder: what if I had dared?
If I had courage, and you were with me,
And if we two were totally alone,
What would I do? If I were fully free
To make the moment utterly my own,
And boldly face the possibilities?
I think I'd say I love you, and before
The shock of saying it wore off, I'd seize
That chance to tell you everything, and more
Not with my words, which are too meek and mild,
But with my actions, passionate and wild.

Staring

I wonder if I'm staring, so I stop;
I close my eyes, but I still look at you.
I'm no longer admiring the view,
Instead I use internal Photoshop.
I know your face so well that I can pop
It up in front of me, and so I do,
Without my eyes. And that way, too,
I can without a difficulty crop
Out anything that I don't want to see
(You know I have your smile memorized
And so I see it even with shut eyes).
But I would rather see reality
Than anything my mind could have devised;
It's never good to live with pleasant lies.

Ender's Game

That gate is down. So orient yourself
As if that gate were down, and not in front;
Flash-freeze your legs to make a shielding shelf,
And push off your position with a grunt:
They cannot hit you, and you will fly past
Down towards the gate. Think differently, think fast;
Don't let yourself apply the lessons learned
One place too strictly to another, for
If you do that, you're likely to be burned
By someone else who thought about it more.
A harder problem means a harder task,
But not impossible, if you think right;
It's critical to think of what to ask:
The better thinker has the greater might.

Belonging

There are so many places I could be
And look around me saying this is home.
In many varied sorts of company
I feel content, and should not need to roam.
Yet every place that could be home to me
Is not the others, and so incomplete;
For such an infinite variety
Filled with so much that's kind and warm and sweet,
Means everywhere I am I can still see
Another home to which I could return.
Each home I have could just as easily
Be where I'm not, and therefore where I yearn
To be, and to come home: there is no rest
Until one home defines itself as best.

Uberthought

Too much contemplation is a sin
As serious as murder, for it will,
With subtle overthoughts covertly kill
The bright impulses that by leaps begin
To give life meaning. Too much thought will pin
A living hope to paper, make it spill
Its glory into dullness, and so still
Whatever breath it had, and turn its skin
Into a trophy stuck upon a wall.
Let thoughts be thoughts and fly off into air
And let them, if they chance to tumble, fall
For beauty only happens when you dare
To let the moment happen once for all,
Instead of hoarding it with too much care.

Morning

It's strange to do things in the morning now:
After I get up, I mean. It's weird
For by some alchemy (I don't know how)
My daytime hours have all disappeared
For many years, and as they reappear
I don't quite know what I should do with them.
Of course, each minute of the day is dear,
And if I treat each moment like a gem
It hardly matters where the sun is. But
All times are not created equal, nor
Can I afford to treat them so. I shut
My eyes against the sun, and loathe it more
Than I can say; it's therefore mean of morning
To spring itself upon me without warning.

Never Gonna Get It

There have been nights when I could sleep, of course,
In calmer times, when less was on my mind.
But now the end of day is less than kind
And keeps instead perpetual divorce
Between me and my rest. I know the source
Of this unease, and yet I cannot find,
Even with the cause so well-defined
Any solution; neither will nor force
Has power over sleep, nor can I solve
The problems whose consideration brings
This sleeplessness to me. I simply turn
Over and over the confounded things
Which bar my rest; and still I cannot learn
A magic which might cause them to dissolve.

Fusion

How did I find myself so lost out here,
Wavering uncertainly, unknowing
Which way to turn, or where I should be going,
Or what the dangers are that I should fear?
How can I have forgotten who is near,
And who I wish was near? The seeds I'm sowing
Will, I am certain, when they are all growing
Rise upwards to the sun, but it's unclear
Which tendrils they will raise. How can this be?
Am I a fool, or do I simply seem
To be one, for I am incapable
Of opening my eyes enough to see
Where I am wandering. I do not dream,
Yet comprehension seems impossible.

Again

I am not ready to begin again;
I thought that I was finished, over, done,
But here I am, right were I had been then,
Returned to where I started, at square one.
How to begin? How to reprise a scene
I improvised so poorly when I first
Presented it? Of course, I do not mean
To step by step repeat what I rehearsed
The first time, but, since I have now returned
To where I was, it seems the thing to do;
To yearn again where I recall I yearned,
And all those ancient passion to renew.
But must I? And if not, what's going on?
I feel returned to times that should be gone.

Youth

I barely notice as it slides away,
The motions are so subtle and so slow,
Not even measured in each passing day,
But in the years which calmly come and go
Meandering as if, their purpose lost
A melancholy age ago, they wept
Cold tears that chilled by time into a frost
Whose slow expansion, even as they swept
Forever out the circles of the year,
Forced them out of the straight path to the curve,
Which now I follow, frigid and austere
Bent to a never-ending frozen swerve.
And so I waste away in time's dark chill
Forever moving yet forever still.

Off Tune

Unspeakability is just a trope,
A way of saying by omission what
Cannot be said - it is a way to cope
With what the mind will never cope with. But
Taken too far, it turns upon itself,
And thoughts that otherwise were safe to think
Are shunted off, placed on a mental shelf,
And over time, allowed to simply sink
Into oblivion, and be unthought,
A fate, I fear, which will accompany
The thoughts which are perpetually caught
Within my mind. I won't let them be free
Until I can convey them, which I can't
And that, unspeakably, in the constant.

Willfulness

My arm reached out and found that you were there,
Pulling you in to nestle close to me
My fingers curled around a lock of hair
Twisting it, but only lovingly
My shoulder dipped to let you cuddle in
And soften its sharp pointedness for you
My other hand reached out to stroke your skin
In hope that greater contact might renew
The comfort you had felt before. My knee
Reached out to yours, and pressed against your side
My eyes turned towards you and adoringly
Stayed close to what they saw and opened wide.
All these parts acted on their own, but still
Engaged their actions with my larger will.

Semper

Where is the beauty in a long, slow death
When life drips out in ounces, and the heart,
Exhausted, pumps with every tortured breath
With just that much less strength, and every part
Aches with a pain unbearable until
It has been born because there was no choice,
When everything is longing to be still,
Yet motion must continue, when the voice
Which whispers it is over is a scream
And yet with every breath is proved a lie,
A wish-fulfillment false as any dream,
Because despite the will, one cannot die?
It lies in dignity, I've heard it said,
But who is dignified when almost dead?

Clarity

There is a terrible lucidity
Comes in the moments right before a death;
The blinded eyes will stare like they could see,
The haggard jerking of exhausted breath
Will cease, and seem to flow with sudden ease,
The limbs that struggled will no longer so,
And all the symptoms of the dread disease
Will seem to end. But with this hopeful show
Comes nothing else. There is no stop of pain.
It almost might seem cruel, but still compare
What was to what it is, and don't complain,
For pain is always easier to bear
When that which caused the terminal decay
Has, even for a moment, gone away.

Blessed Are The

I think there's something else you're thinking of
Or far more likely, someone else. Oh well.
It won't do any good to talk of love,
No matter what I say. I'd like to tell
You so, so many things, but what's the use?
You're hardly listening, and if you were,
I'd only put you off with such profuse
Avowals. I imagine you prefer
A quieter approach, but even that
Will not avail me; so I will not speak
(Itself a thing that some would wonder at).
Permit me to pretend that I am meek
And, without asking, tell me where your mind
Is wandering, and where your heart's consigned.

Christmas

I am not like most others on this day
I do not worship, and I do not spend
My time in quiet contemplation. They
Who do not so are often, in the end,
More likely to be found beneath a tree
Ripping open presents, or if not,
Where most of those who, superficially,
Are like me are: consuming quite a lot
Of Chinese food, whether because Chinese
Or Jewish, it makes little difference.
But I indulge myself in none of these
And so instead I find, in present tense,
That I am simply here, nothing to do,
Except to wish: Merry Christmas to you.

Boring

There have been times, I know, when you
Were bored with me, and rightly so;
There are some things I like to do
And others I do not, I know,
A knowledge which I act upon,
Which does not always suit those whom
I'm dealing with. I do not fawn
On others thoughts, nor give more room
To their decisions than my own;
Therefore with my decisive ways
I've noticed I have sometimes grown
Annoying over many days
By doing what I want, you see.
But now, at last, we two agree.

Lights

I used to see a light inside your eyes,
A mischievous and frisky sort of thing
That made me look at you and realize
Even your happiness could have a sting.
You had a little touch of what I saw
As recently as when I saw you last;
And yet the little doubts begin to gnaw:
Is what I saw in you already past?
Have you already turned to walk away
And leave me here to watch your back depart?
I'm not sure if I should ask you to stay
To finish something you refuse to start,
Or is it something you've already done?
In either case, I wish it were begun.

Nightsweats

I look for you, but cannot see your face
Although I long for you to hold me tight.
You held me once in a more desperate place
Full of the horrors of the endless night.
Where are you now? For now I need again
The comfort I fear only you can give.
Lend me your arms, just like you lent them then,
And give me reason once again to live.
Come back to me, and hold me just once more;
Be here, be near. Why are you far from me?
Do you not hear me desperately implore,
Of if you do, do you hear callously?
In darkness I need someone to cling to
I wonder if it shouldn't have been you.

Benny

His body isn't even warm
He's barely breathing, and he's still
A shadow left in feline form,
A monument to his own will,
He will not leave, he will not go,
He keeps forever clinging on
I think sometimes he has to know
How much we'll miss him when he's gone.
We don't know if he's still in pain
He's quiet, as he always was,
We feel the life inside him drain
Wishing we were wrong because
We love him. But he's going to die.
We don't know how to say goodbye.

Timelessness

When did the time we had abandon us?
I know we didn't leave it on our own.
Nor can you tell me it was always thus,
For I'm aware the urgency has grown.
So where'd this come from? Once we were prepared,
With time available, hung on our hands,
Now we are timid, and a little scared
Of running out in face of time's demands.
If we still had what I believed we did,
I would be yours, and you would be with me;
But since the time we once possessed is hid,
I do not know where we will end. For we
Are left with no time, nothing we can do;
Where did those hours go? I wish I knew.

You Look At Me

You seem to wonder why I catch your eye
Or how, and how I always seem to be
There with a wink as humour passes by
Across your face and you're looking at me.
I think you're questioning how, when you glance
Sidelong at me, I'm looking back at you
Invariably, and if it's by chance
That when you mime to me I catch that too,
And imitate your silliness. You pause,
Seeming to ponder how I'm always ready
When you look, no matter what the cause,
To catch the every tremor, every eddy
Of your emotion in your eyes. Here's why:
I'm always looking at you. Aren't I?

The Way

What is a love that vanishes with pain,
Or lets an obstacle prevent its reach?
It must go on when pulled against the grain,
And lie beyond the damage done by speech;
Two hearts communing should be one inside
Although the outside may be different,
And true love must not ever be denied
Unless by such a deeper love is meant.
That love which vaunts its own depth must resist
The dark temptation of too much expression
Lest it should fail when it does most insist
Allowing shows to mask inner recession.
Let love be shown by that which is not heard,
For virtue's in the action, not the word.

Faith

I promised I'd be with you 'til the end;
Whatever happened, and whenever, I
Would be with you until the day you'd die.
Whatever life or death might choose to send,
Even however you might choose to spend
The time you had, I would be with you. My
Promise is unshaken. I don't lie.
I will not leave you now. I am your friend.
But do not tempt me. Do not make me feel
As if I were a piece of furniture,
A chair whose presence could be counted on
Because it cannot leave. My faith is real,
But you must treat it more as if it were
A precious thing, or else it will might be gone.

Sensational

Something happens when I talk to you
Inside of me. I usually am cold
Such that a little shiver's nothing new,
But when we talk I feel a warmth enfold
Those parts of me that normally are chilled,
And all my shivers come from nervousness.
My chest feels stronger, as if it were filled
Where often I feel hollow emptiness,
Yet I feel lighter, like a strange deadweight
Were lifted off of me. With all of this,
Do you still wonder why I sit and wait
To hear your voice? It would be hell to miss
A second of your presence; for the lack
Of you brings all the cold discomfort back.

Unilateral

This isn't going to work. I wish it would,
But though I try and try, it always fails.
Of course, if it went well, it would be good
(That's obvious), but when nothing avails
To solve the problems that crop up so fast,
I cannot bring myself to even hope
That anything we build will ever last.
If I imagined we could ever cope
With all our troubles, I would not condemn
All this to nothingness, and yet I must,
Because we both seem so perturbed by them
That I, at least, cannot begin to trust
That we'll improve. I'm sorry, but it's true;
I have to think that you feel that way too.

The Season

There are no chestnuts roasting on the fire,
No tree to stand before the fireplace,
Laden with ornaments, no angel choir
Playing on the radio, no trace
Of presents wrapped, no carolers in sight.
The snowdrifts pile up around the house,
And all is dark except for candlelight,
While no one stirs (and that includes the mouse),
But not because we wait to hear a sleigh
Tinkle across the roof. We are, instead,
Cuddled inside our blankets, where we'll stay
More comfortable than if we were in bed
Enjoying winter. And that is enough
Without the other, ancillary stuff.

History

Much good it does me now to realize
The indiscretions of my past were meant
To serve as warnings, so I'd recognize
When times were different, how they should be spent.
It would have been so nice, then, to have known
I ought to pay attention, but instead
I wafted by them calmly, and have blown
My chance to learn the life I should have led.
If memory should help me, where is it?
It does not tell me what I want to know.
It can give me the pieces I should fit
Together, but not tell me where they go.
So I may ponder every last mistake
But never learn the lesson I should take.

Transigence

If we had time enough, I know,
We would be happy here together;
But we are running short, and so
I'm forced to sit and ponder whether
You will make the time for me,
Or I for you. I cannot tell
Which of those options it will be
But either one would work as well
As we could wish; so why instead
Are both of us too stubborn to
Accept that fact? I'm getting fed
Up with intransigence from you,
And you from me. Let's pause, and say
We'll find the time another day.

Interim

We took you to the vet; we know you're dying.
Of course we really knew before we knew
Just by the changes that occurred in you,
But now at last there is no use in lying
To ourselves. Your love for death-defying
Leaps is in the past, and you won't do
Even the normal things you had loved to;
But we must make the most of this. No crying
Because we have you for a moment still
Hanging on with us and life. We know
You're going to leave us soon, and yet until
You do, we promise not to make you go:
The time for that is left up to your will,
Or rather to your body, pained and slow.

Another Year

Another year, and everything's the same:
Her eyes, my face, my arm around her shoulder,
The little parties, and the guests who came.
Another year, and we are only older
Still with each other, still enjoying life,
The same small problems, in the same small ways,
The same fresh bread cut with a different knife
(Because the old one broke), the lazy days
Still spent together lounging on the couch:
All these are priceless, and they all remain.
I'm still the same irascible old grouch,
She still puts up with it, and keeps me sane.
Together it has been another year
And as you might expect, we are still here.

Taking

Roads can be chosen; each one leads one way,
Or through a branching, many, but discrete.
To follow one, I merely have to stay
Between its boundaries and in the street.
But here is a piazza, and the tiles
Pave every way around me; there is no
Defined direction, not for many miles,
And I cannot make out which way to go,
For if I wander any way, I can't
Be sure I will remain directional;
Or if I muddle aimlessly I shan't
Be positive of where my feet will fall.
To find a path would be a blessing; still
I cannot help but doubt I ever will.

Oh, Balls

Emotions are a set of billiard balls
Knocking across the table into pockets.
You're good or lucky if the right one falls
But all too often, if unskilled, one rockets
Far from the other it was aimed to hit,
And bounces wildly out of control.
Sometimes you think that one might barely fit
Between two others, but don't bet your soul,
Because too often it will ricochet
Off one, or both, that you thought it would miss;
Too often, rolling on their merry way,
They dodge the ones you meant for them to kiss,
And slam into another. Each collision
Seems independent of the best precision.

The Single Red Potato

It sits down by the staircase, mocking me,
The paragon of all that has gone wrong.
By now it should be gone, I shouldn't see
Its inexplicability for long,
But no, it still remains, it still endures,
The sole reminder of the day-to-day
Strangeness which no potion ever cures,
No set of exercises sends away.
I try to focus on the ordinary,
The normal and the plain, to be expected,
Those things that are relied on not to vary,
Whose eccentricity is not suspected,
Yet there it is, and I cannot explain
Its presence. It just goes against the grain.

Houston, Houston, Do You Read

No balls. Of course we didn't realize that meant
After so many centuries they felt no need
For balls. Instead we thought our heaven-sent,
(Almost literally) balls would breed
A sense of lack in them, and a desire
Or even, at more thoughtful times, a change,
And a return; but they do not require
Any such thing. Why would they rearrange
A whole society because three men
Vomited by the sun, arrived? Should they
Simply because there were some men again
Undo all they had done? Of course they'd say
No thank you. It is natural to them;
It's only us who now have a problem.

Shades

It used to be so sunny. Then it rained.
I'm not sure if it ever stopped. I'd see
The streaks grow on my window, as I strained
To look outside, but then I finally
Stopped looking, for the grey was everywhere
And I didn't need to try to see it there.
It might have stopped one day; I think it did,
Now that you mention it. How would I know?
The days are past when dusty raindrops slid
Down across the panes in my window.
Now I sit here, and all I need's inside;
I do not want to look out anymore.
There are no windows, so that I can hide
No matter what the weather has in store.

Resting Place

Oh Benedick, beloved feline friend,
The kitten who once batted at my head
To use my pillow, and who used to shed
The long white hairs that always used to lend
A touch of color to our couch, who'd spend
Whole days up on my mother's lap, and led
Us everywhere, slept on my parents's bed;
Can this be how your kitten-hours end,
Arthritic and unwilling, or unable,
To crawl up to the couch and take a lap,
Smell food and come to beg for what you want,
Or jump on the forbidden kitchen table
Always your favorite place to take a nap,
Quiet, stationary, old, and gaunt?

Ere I Saw Elba

I never thought. That's at the core of it.
I didn't think about what this would do to you,
Or anyone. I thought how it would fit
Into my own preciously held worldview
But not how anybody else would be
Affected by my actions. If I had,
I think it possible, indeed likely,
I would have found a reason, ironclad
And undebatable, to have refused
To do what I, for my own reasons, did.
I was not foolish, or a bit confused,
But merely selfish. What my wishes bid,
I chose to do. I'm sorry you were hurt
By something in my power to avert.

November

There isn't much to say I haven't said
Already. But I can't stop talking. I
Have followed everywhere that you have led
Without a murmur, yet I sit and sigh
Because you have stopped leading. Now you say
That I alone must search out my own way
Without your guidance, or more properly
Not chasing after you. I know that's fair
And yet it seems unbearable to me
To wander lonely when you could be there.
As I look to follow you, I mull
The possibility of saying more;
I should be silent, for my words are dull,
And you have heard this whole complaint before.

Horses

How would it all be different if you were
Where I would , in my weakness, have you be?
Would you be just as comfortable to me
As I imagine, and I would prefer,
Or would some unexpected change occur,
Inspired by a new proximity,
Making what seemed to flow so easily
Become a chore, or worse? I can't be sure.
But I believe, without a proof, that you
Would be the same as you are here, when there;
That all that would have changed is where you are.
And to speak truth, I think that if I knew
That wouldn't happen, that I would still dare
To wish on you as on a shining star.

Word Order

There are too many words, or not enough,
Or just the wrong ones, since I cannot say
Anything substantial. It's all bluff
And bluster, and the words get in the way
Of honesty - which isn't always bad.
Being too open, blatantly sincere,
Can be quite dangerous. I've often had
A definite and influential fear
That saying what I really think could cause
Disasters I can't mention. Words can tear
At places that cannot be patched with gauze,
And there are thoughts that nobody should share
With or without words. So sometimes I am
Happy all my words are just a sham.

Strength

I was stronger, then, I think. Or I
Was somehow different, and I didn't need
The help that I need now. I wasn't shy,
But neither did my soul demand to feed
On constant company; I used to rise
Alone and spend my day as I saw fit,
Regardless of the many pairs of eyes
That might have looked at me. I must admit
I do not know if they were looking then,
But now I notice, and I hope they see
What I intend to show. But then again
I used to be so strong. I used to be.
Now I require, or I cannot live
The small approvals only others give.

Lethe

I swim across the river, let it drag
The last of me from me, and I am new.
I feel the dregs of me begin to lag
And other feelings floating into view.
Am I myself? I do not think I am,
Nor am I anything I recognize.
The center of my mind is on the lam,
And as the water of the river dries
Upon my skin, I am renewed, refreshed,
Made whole, more whole than I had been before.
The parts of me that lately were unmeshed
Are integrated now inside my core.
But still, whose core? Who am I now? I know
Only that the old me has let go.

Charon

I'm probably in love with you, you know.
Actually, you do, and that's what's bad.
You were the best friend that I ever had;
I may have ruined it. Before you go,
Just let me say - it's worth it even though
You don't want any more. Although I'm sad
That hearing this won't, likely, make you glad,
I'm happy to have known you even so.
Don't pity me; although I didn't choose
My feelings for you, I have still enjoyed
Having them inside me. It has been,
Although you never chose to let me in,
And sometimes seemed, like now, to be annoyed
Be how I felt, too good a thing to lose.

Tragedy

He used to walk the hardest walks for fun,
Jump over any obstacle he faced,
Race all around the house to find the sun,
Bowling over others in his haste.
He used to balance nimbly on a rod
No bigger, almost smaller, than his paw;
And if he smelled a tuna or a cod
Launch into such a massive foofaraw
That we could not resist him (I admit
We didn't want to) and he'd get
The best parts, and, of course, as much of it
As he could want. So it is hard to set
A hand on him, and feel his bones; to see
Him try to walk, and stumble heavily.

Expression

I know you well enough, I think, to know
That flatness in your face is troublesome.
It only shows what you want it to show,
And so whenever you appear so glum
I cannot help but wonder what strange sight
Has made you choose to be so sad tonight.
Was it some minor fault that you observed,
And you could not forgive? Or was it more,
A terror or a crime that well deserved
That blankness in your face? You used to store
Your happiness and joy up there, for me
To, when I looked at you, see there;
Now I am worried, all I can see
Is trouble, lined with sadness and with care.

Two

It might be just the two of us. So what?
Cannot we two alone do well enough
That we need no one else? We have a glut
Of company so often that it's tough
I will admit, to think how we alone
Might manage, but somehow we will get by.
There is no reason we should cry and moan
About each other's company, so why
Would either of us doubt that we, together
Without the interference of the rest
Can have our fun, and without trouble weather
Our joint abandonedness? If you're distressed,
I'll help, and if I am, I'm sure you will
So all is well; and all will be so still.

Idols

I've been the man I thought I wanted to;
It wasn't very pleasant. Turns out I
Did not know everything I thought I knew
Or knew the what, but did not know the why.
My self-ideal was over-idolized,
The perfect person only as a dream.
Unfortunately, he, once realized,
No longer was what I had hoped he'd seem.
A false mirage of manhood, that was him,
And since I had achieved him, that was me;
I know now he was made upon a whim,
Though at the time I'd thought him certainty.
So please forgive me if I do not choose
To idealize; it's easy to abuse.

Compulsion

I can't help wanting you to be held close
In by my side, comfortably near.
I have a fear you might think that it's gross,
But I'm compelled whenever you are here
To force my hands down by my sides and sigh,
Because I know that my desires run
Beyond the limits of whatever I
Might be permitted. Once I have begun,
For other reasons, to encompass you,
I tear myself away by strength of will
Because I fear that if you really knew
How much I want to hold you, you might kill
Whatever hope of friendship we have left
And so leave both me and my arms bereft.

Grapevine

Text me something from your heart;
A simple message calling out to me.
Send me an email; I will happily
Read and respond to it. Call me and start
A conversation, for at least your part
Will help to satisfy me. Let me see
A letter in your own calligraphy;
I'll call it sweet, although your words are tart.
Communicate with me; that's all I ask,
And when you do, remember how I feel;
Is it really too arduous a task
For you to think of me and quickly steal
A moment for a message? Let me bask
In your reflected presence and appeal.

Distances

When you are far away I do not know
What I should do, or who I really am.
I don't mean that, in any way, you owe
Me anything, or ought to give a damn,
But merely that, in some way, when you're here
I have a greater sense of purpose, and
Because you are the point by which I steer,
I feel more certain I can find the land.
This is an issue which only concerns
Me, and not you, although I might pretend
That, like my own, your dear heart also yearns
To be with me, and so in time will tend
To bring you to me. If that should be true
You understand how much I still miss you.

Departure

I can't really believe I'm leaving here;
It seems like I should still be there, enwrapped
In your possessive arms. I do not fear
Where I am going, but departure sapped
The springs of my vitality, and made
My mind grow colder than my body. I
Would have, if it were possible, delayed
Our parting, but I know I can't deny
The stern necessity that calls to me
Demanding that I go; still I could wish
Although I doubt that it will ever be
That you were coming with me. As I fish
For consolation, this alone appears:
The time when I'll return so swiftly nears.

Sonnet Analysis: My Old Sonnets XIII

So this time we will look at a poem consciously, and intentionally, written to try to fit an older model. Obviously this involves archaism; but unlike some others we have looked at, this poem is not simply throwing archaism into an otherwise modern poem, but actually attempting to map onto those older expectations.

Ah, Muse, if thou wilt not stay for my sake
Nor listen to the reasons of my own,
And if hard-hearted towards me thou hast grown,
I charge thee yield thyself to my heartache.
Remain with me to sing my love awake
That she may see the seeds that she has sown.
Do not, O Muse, desert me all alone
And leave me that my heart may ever break.
Thy aid, pray lend to join me in this song;
Not spoke out loud, yet may its verses ring;
When that she reads, O, help her eyes along
That she may hear the love I have to bring,
And though around her other suitors throng,
Let her but hear my loving voice to sing.

What Went Wrong:
In modern terms, an invocation to the Muse makes no sense. It's just weird. But we'll pass that by for the moment, and look at the poem on its own terms: "listen to the reasons of my own" is faulty grammar, by which I mean that it doesn't actually make sense. The poem seems unwilling to decide whether it is a song or something to be read; it almost seems to alternate in the sestet, which can induce intellectual whiplash. Even for an archaic-styled poem, there are some harsh breaks - "not spoke out loud" and "leave me that my heart may ever break" are both perilously close to, if not over, the edge of too much syntactical telescoping, while "when that she reads" turns towards the other extreme.

Not Too Shabby:
Taking the invocation of the Muse as legitimate, it's actually not badly done. The Muse is invoked for a specific purpose, which animates the entire poem. The rhymes are strong, and the octave/sestet division clear. The (unrhymed) couplets in the sestet are, I think, effective, and other than the issue of read/sing confusion, they build effectively. I really like "I charge thee yield thyself to my heartache" as a surprise rhyme for "sake" and as a central line of the entire poem thematically.

Archaism:
This is a poem clearly written to be archaic. It does a good job of picking up the thee and thou correctly, rather than just sticking "-eth" on everything, but there are higher standards than that. The invocation of the Muse, the initial "ah," and the "thou" in the first line are all clear signals, front-loaded in the poem, of what this poem is trying to accomplish chronologically as well as artistically. This is substantially better than throwing archaisms in to make the poem work later after a start that implies a more modern sensibility. The fact that these elements remain used throughout helps as well. I would hardly call this a model of how to do archaism, but certainly it manages to leap the basic hurdles one should avoid tripping over if using archaism as an intentional effect: it does not misuse the constructions, it is formed around a conceit that is appropriate to the style, it continues the effect throughout, and it reads like a coherent whole once the conceit is accepted.

Processing

I can create, from sullen nothingness,
A tapestry of wonder for myself
Woven from the barren emptiness
Surrounding me. It then goes on the shelf
Up next to all the other ones I've made,
To be looked at sometime when I am bored,
Or never. It's a problem in my trade;
Creation is the process that's adored,
While contemplation and appreciation are
Merely addenda to the larger whole.
I do not say this with intent to bar
The critics of the products of my soul;
Rather to say how weird it feels to read
The products which my soul has given seed.

The Quest for Saint Aquin II

It can't be true-it can't. A robot savior?
A saint from the machine? Yes, uncorrupt,
But robots only mimic learned behavior
And have no fallen sin that can erupt
To spoil what has been created. No;
For man created him, and therefore he
Cannot be better than what made him so;
Yet if a perfect God created me,
May not, by miracle or blessed chance,
His hand infuse a metalworked machine
To raise mankind out of its fallen stance
And offer it a hope to be made clean?
The flesh, if it is flesh, is preserved whole,
But what may I declare about his soul?

Nuncio

Most of the poems that I used to write
Were written for you once unwittingly.
I know that all of them were awfully trite
But they were unrequited poetry,
Which, though it may be very well-intentioned,
Wishing only good for its subject,
Is far too maudlin ever to be mentioned
Especially when, as you may suspect,
It's meant sincerely. So let it pass by
The triteness and the over-zealous verse,
And though, perhaps, I may still sit and sigh,
Please rest assured I will not make it worse
By codifying what was extempore;
You will not see these sonnets anymore.

Red Line

How to describe who sat across from me?
I think I'll start off with the rainbow hat
Which, perched upon her head, appears to be
The crowning glory of her look; and that
Is supplemented by a zipper pull
Adorned with a small panda, and a pin
That bears a half a beagle, with two wool
Knit mittens on her hands. Wonder what's in
The manga-themed enclosure of her purse,
Or is that but a shoulder-bag? For she
Although the color scheme is slightly worse,
Also bears a flowered sack, I see,
And who knows which is which? I'll stop there
But you can guess the jacket that she'd wear.

Slush Fund

What's left behind after the fallen snow
Turns terrible is what we must accept
As punishment for having snow at all.
Where the beauty goes I do not know
But it is gone, and though we love snowfall
We love it only with a small "except."
Except the slush that slides beneath our feet,
Except the gray and dreary look of it
Except the texture, granular but wet,
Except the way it covers an ice-sheet,
Except how it will never seem to let
Our boots escape the way it clings like shit;
All these are necessary punishment
For thinking snowfalls are all heaven-sent.

Gerundive

The simple joy of just catching your eye
And watching something mad inside you bloom,
Making you laugh and laugh until you cry,
Cuddling close inside a chilly room,
Mirroring gestures, imitating sounds,
Collapsing in our mirth onto the floor,
Exploring what might lie beyond the bounds
Of what is usual, and finding out that more
Is possible than we imagined, seeing
The way you giggle when you suddenly
Notice a joke, or even merely being
Beside you when you're silly, means to me
More than you think; or just as much, since you
Always were good at noticing me too.

Frustrations

There have been days when I have been upset
With you, or, more precisely, what you've done;
Days when I've been unfair, and let
Some minor things, done jokingly, for fun,
Be blown out of proportion, but also
Days when you've consciously tried to
Annoy me. I am sorry even so,
Even for those, because, although you knew
That you would frustrate me, that was because
I was too tightly wound. I'm sorry, then,
For all the times when, I admit, I was
Overly sensitive. I am again,
But now, I think, I've kept under control
The anger that has terrified my soul.

Off Armageddon Reef

I must be subtle, for they cannot know;
Even the best of them would not believe.
The seeds their crazy founders chose to sow
Are sprouted, and continue to deceive
Their followers, who spouting Scripture claim
To be the vicars of an unreal God.
They call their founders by the blasphemed name
Of angels, and they do not spare the rod
For those who follow truth. Therefore I must
By secret means encourage in this nation
Which seems a model, honest, brave, and just,
The quiet seeds of hidden innovation
So they may find the truth. Should I fail here
The human race may die and disappear.

On Basilisk Station

It wasn't usual; they don't do that.
I mean, they never did those things before.
But now they're here, they have it all down pat,
Inspecting every case within our store.
They've noticed everything we tried to hide,
And made a pattern out of how we act;
They always used to let these things just slide,
And now they threaten us. What an impact
A single change of officer can make!
We thought that we were safe, and so we were
As long as he was here, but now we shake
In fear of her. They didn't use to stir,
But now they're everywhere, and we are done.
God damn that busybody Harrington!

Speculation

To overspeculate about a girl
Is dangerous; you don't know what she'll do.
She plays a little with a single curl
And you imagine she's in love with you,
Or flashes a shy smile toward your eyes
Which instantly, at least to you, implies
She wants to be with you. Of course, it can't
Ever be that easy, but you think
Or rather do not think, because you pant
After her every move, that should she wink
It must be meant for you, and therefore mean
She feels that way about you. Do not trust
These thoughts; they're overthought, and flow from lust,
And do not correlate with what you've seen.

Demiballade

As I write the poems that reflect the thoughts I grow
The influence of others has seemed natural to me
And I cannot help but wonder what that influence should be
Should I write the sort of poems that I've grown to love and know
Or despair of writing anything like that? I once could show
A forward sense of confidence within my poetry
And a knowledge of the future which I faced confidently
With a calm determination that the little seeds I'd sow
Would grow up to be enduring. But alas, I see them now
As the cripples of the litter, which have fallen in the dust
And are culled by every farmer, as tradition says he must
To encourage all the others; now I ask you, is it just
That my poems, from the influence they suckled like a sow,
Should be murdered just this easily, like dust before the plough?

Awesome

You're awesome. Yes, I do mean you,
Specifically, you. Stop reading this,
And go enjoy your awesomeness. It's true.
I wouldn't lie to you. Enjoy the bliss
That comes with being you, or that should come;
I know that awesomeness, although it should
Be well-rewarded, often seems to slum
Along with that which isn't even good.
Yet pluck your heart up, and go happily,
For you should know that you deserve to be
Joyfully exuberant, because
You are so wonderful. Remember that,
And when you feel out of sorts, like someone shat
On you; and awesome is as awesome does.

Rest Stop

It would be so nice just to say that I am done;
That there is nothing left I have to do.
Of course, we both know it would not be true
(There are so many tasks not yet begun)
But still, I would imagine it is fun
To have done everything you needed to,
And, as the shadows of the evening grew,
Relax and bless the setting of the sun,
Instead of cursing how it proves the hours
Have passed away unused. I look at those
Who seem to have such times with uncontrolled
Envy, and although each minute scours
My weary mind with new tasks that arose,
The thought of rest shines out at me like gold.

Cutesy

If I had all the time I could desire
I could not tell you what I really think.
Your presence and appearance both conspire
To make my mind forget the crucial link
That lies between a thought and its expression.
I'd simply stand there, gaping at your face
Which makes so powerful a first impression
That still I cannot block out or erase
Its image from my mind, and, staring, stay
Totally silent, as you looked at me.
Inside my mind, I know what I should say,
But with you there, as all that I would see
I could not speak a word. I'd stand there mute
To watch you stand there too, being so cute.

Parallel Poetry Demonstration

So occasionally a line arrives in my head, only to be followed quickly by another line formed almost exactly on the same lines (usually because I somehow temporarily forget the first and recreate it inexactly). Sometimes I like only one, sometimes neither, sometimes both. But I thought it might be interesting to create poems off of the two that just occurred to me, commenting as I go and showing (possibly) how slight initial differences in rhythm or diction can lead to different poems, as well as how I write a sonnet.

First Lines:
My poetry is parenthetical

My poems are all parenthetical

These are clearly almost the same line. The differences lie in rhythm - the first flows faster because there are fewer words that hit the stresses more firmly, while the second has that "all" that wants stress it can't have - and diction, where "poetry" implies the generality and "poems...all" emphasizes the discrete products.

Second Lines:
My poetry is parenthetical;
It hides inside the corners of my life

My poems are all parenthetical;
They hide inside the corners of my life

So we again have a singular/plural distinction: one is giving us a sense of immanence, with poetry hiding everywhere, the other of secrecy, with individual poems waiting to be discovered, or hoping not to be.

Now we speed up.

Octave:
My poetry is parenthetical;
It hides inside the corners of my life.
If I were settled, with a loving wife
And children, I think it is possible
I would not write it. My rhetorical
Flourishes exist to mirror strife
And flicker on the edges of a knife,
Not in a happy home, which is too full

My poems are all parenthetical;
They hide inside the corners of my life.
If I were settled with a loving wife
And children, I think it is possible
I would not write them. I would be too full
Of other thoughts, for happiness is rife
With great distractions, and it lacks the strife
That opens space for poems. As I mull

So first: yes, I pronounce all the A rhymes the same way. I was as surprised as you.

Now we really see the difference between the poems. While I will concede I could force either octave onto either opening, I feel these differences flowed naturally from the differences in the openings. "Poetry," which had a faster flow and a sense of immanent, immaterial poetry, slides easily into general thoughts about not writing "it" and about the "rhetorical/flourishes" that make up my poetry. It wants to talk generally, and talk about how I write, the characteristics of my "poetry." And it does so with only one sentence break, smoothly. "Poems" is jerkier, with an additional sentence break, and it takes a different tack. It is not as interested in broad poetic strokes, but in the "space for poems" and being "too full." Poems hiding in the corners need space; poetry can exist at the same time as whatever might fill those corners. "Poems" is interested in the mind and how it juggles multiple inputs; "Poetry" in the situations that produce different effects.

Beginning Sestet:
My poetry is parenthetical;
It hides inside the corners of my life.
If I were settled, with a loving wife
And children, I think it is possible
I might not write it. My rhetorical
Flourishes exist to mirror strife
And flicker on the edges of a knife
Not in a happy home, which is too full
Of other thoughts that dampen that raw sense
Which touches poetry. If all is light,
Where are the shadows which inspire song?

My poems are all parenthetical;
They hide inside the corners of my life.
If I were settled, with a loving wife
And children, I think it is possible
I could not write them. I would be too full
Of other thoughts, for happiness is rife
With great distractions, and it lacks the strife
That opens space for poems. As I mull
That possibility, I ask myself
If that could make me happy. Could I be
Satisfied with life too full to write?

Obviously the differences have widened, partly because the end rhyme needed for "Poems" threw it in a new direction, partly because "Poetry" had not actually caught up to "Poems" and it's thoughts about "other thoughts." Each is going for a three-rhyme sestet, but the themes have clarified their differences: one is about situations, and the other space, even as both are obsessed with when the narrator would not write a poem.

Finish:
My poetry is parenthetical;
It hides inside the corners of my life.
If I were settled, with a loving wife
And children, I think it is possible
I would not write it. My rhetorical
Flourishes exist to mirror strife
And flicker on the edges of a knife
Not in a happy home, which is too full
Of other thoughts that dampen that raw sense
That touches poetry. If all is light,
Where are the shadows that inspire song?
But if I were to penetrate the fence
Surrounding happiness, I fear it might
Make both the joy and poetry go wrong.

My poems are all parenthetical;
They hide inside the corners of my life.
If I were settled, with a loving wife
And children, I think it is possible
I would not write them. I would be too full
Of other thoughts, for happiness is rife
With great distractions, and it lacks the strife
Which opens space for poems. As I mull
That possibility, I ask myself
If that could make me happy. Could I be
Satisfied with life too full to write?
If all my poems pile on the shelf,
Or even lie unwritten? Such a sight,
I think, would scare the joyfulness from me.

And we're done. "Poems" ends frightened of the lack of space; "Poetry," worried that everything, not just the poetry might fail. Neither optimistic, but not nearly the same. The rhymes in "Poetry," which was always more direct, run CDECDE, where "Poems," always more jerky, is CDECED. Even the endings, each in fear or worry, differ according to how the beginnings did: one concerned with space, joy being "from me," and the other situations as a whole, with both "joy" and "poetry" being utterly spoiled. I think these changes flow logically from the initial small differences, and I think they are each a good reflection of the initial mindset of their first lines.

Envy

Everyone's a little bit obsessed
With how what you have differs from their own.
Listening to them, I get depressed
When all they do is sit and sigh and moan.
Yes, yes, I get it, he has what you don't,
And therefore it, of course, appeals to you;
You can't imagine, or at least you won't
That he might think the opposite is true.
I cannot claim that I do not do this,
But when I do, at least it's consciously.
I know there is no proof that I'd find bliss
If I had what does not belong to me.
And yes, I yearn like they, and you do, yet
I don't let yearning make me so upset.

Times

Time heals all wounds and lets all evils pass,
But equally the good may fade away,
And evil over time may well amass
A greater power than it has today.
Why should I let the hours sweep on by
In blithe belief that all they bring is good?
We must remember that all things will die
Except, sometimes it seems, those we wish would.
I do not make the time my enemy,
I simply must refuse to claim it serves
For mere improvement. If it should, for me,
Then I will be contenter with its curves,
But as I cannot tell right now, I must beware
And judge tomorrow only when I'm there.

Ruts

For just a moment I was worried there
That we were stuck in something of a rut.
It wasn't much more than a minor scare,
Hardly worth my mentioning it. But
These moments come more frequently these days,
And build to greater worries as they rise.
I try not to be bothered when they raise
Those bigger problems, yet although one tries,
It isn't easy. How can I relax
When we so often find ourselves in stress?
We overtrace again the same old tracks,
Routines that whose boundaries we never press,
Yet fill with troubles, minor, yes, at first;
But who can ever recognize the worst?

Intentions

I'm never certain of myself; I mean,
I'm always definite about the facts,
But I can never be quite as serene
About the way my own action impacts
Another's happiness. I never know
If what I did, intending but to please,
Was taken as I wanted, and, if so,
If it has been successful. When I tease,
I almost half-expect I will offend,
And when I mock, which I will often do,
I simply pray I will not lose a friend,
For I can't guarantee I won't. With you
This tendency is greatest, for I fear
You'll miss how much I tend to hold you dear.

Moods

I sit with frozen feet and wonder why
I chose to go outside, or even leave
The comfort of my bed. The morning sky
Is dark as evening, and I do believe
The sun had fled us. Let us therefore pray
That it will rise tomorrow on a day
A little less uneasy than this was.
Of course we cannot know if that will be;
But I can promise you that if it does,
If something thaws, then I will happily
Go dance about with you, enjoy the sun,
Ignore today's cold feet and soldier on.
But if it's like today, then I am done;
My joy in this is very nearly gone.

Invitation

Curl up against me, and let time slip by;
Who cares what storms may howl on outside
When we two can in warmth and quiet lie
Entwined together, letting such things slide
Unnoticed past our windows? Hold my hand,
And let my fingers tangle up in yours;
Together we can mutually withstand
Whatever trouble builds up out of doors
Because it will not matter, if we two
Can cuddle up inside. Let us be one,
And let's ignore the rest. I'll cling to you,
And you to me; consider that part done,
What else can matter? Come and sit by me,
And everything is just as it should be.

Blizzard Warning

It's strange to think tomorrow will be changed
(That's always true, of course, but not this way)
My sense of what the world is rearranged
When all is covered with a coat of snow.
No more will dreariness consume the day
Because the sun will sparkle everywhere,
While yet revealing nothing of below
And hiding all beneath its coat of white.
No longer will the cracking asphalt bear
The brunt of eyes that critically gaze
Upon its fading grandeur. In the light
All will seem as if it were revealed
But underneath the snow's aggressive glaze
Instead all secrets will remain concealed.

Hurting

I said I'm hurting, but I didn't say
How I was hurting, nor did I say why.
You used to cause me pain once, and someday
I swore I would return it, though I die.
I used to curse at you and at the sky,
And kneel before whatever god, to pray,
That seemed most probable to answer my
Fervent desire that you ought to pay
For what you did to me. And now, instead
Of futile wails, I take in my own hands
To power to reciprocate the past.
I'll make you, like I did, wish you were dead
And as the hurt you feel slowly expands
I'll know I'm hurting you myself at last.

Detroit

The city has a melancholy air,
Its history shown through the faded cracks
On dead marquees long since gone, past repair.
Even the bright glass building somehow lacks
A sense of self-elation or of cheer.
Where sunlight ought to naturally flow,
Reflecting some suspicion of a clear,
Sharp hope, instead unlikely shadows grow
As if the glass were possibly opaque
Or sunbeams could fall flat. The hazy sky
Is cloudless, yet not blue. Can sadness take
The color from the world? Here it will try,
And as I wander through the dreariness
I must suspect that it has had success.

Blank Stares

If you would listen...ah, but why ask that?
I know you won't and so I could derive
Any proposition I aimed at
By working from that principle. I strive
To be as fair to you as I can be
Yet every step you fight me as if I
By thinking of the possibility
Of your attention spread a filthy lie
About your character. Is it so bad
That I imagine for a second you
Might care if I was happy just a tad?
Or is that simply something you won't do,
And so my efforts are all merely vain?
If so, please tell: it's driving me insane.

Credo

Too many critics look too much, I think,
For hints of intertextuality.
For being heavy-laden, poems sink
Beneath the burden of eternity.
To say an image in a sonnet must
Be correlated through a lenghty past
To ancient writers is a sort of lust
For hope that our own culture may so last.
I do not mean that poems can't refer
To other poems, or derive more weight
From what the other meant; I just prefer
To take the poem in its native state
Before I let the ancients show they'd worn
Its garlands when its author lay unborn.

The Obvious

When I am cold she warms me with her touch,
When bored, distract me with her conversation;
We don't go out to parties all that much,
Or anywhere that takes a reservation,
But where we go, we keep close company
And find each other interesting enough
That there is no place we would rather be.
On those occasions when my voice is rough,
Altered with anger or with grief, she brings
A sense of comfort by her very presence,
So great that whatsoever trouble clings
To me is sudden in its evanescence.
It's not a thunderbolt thrown from above
But I am happy I can call it love.

Whirligig

I never know if what I do is right,
Although sometimes I doubt it. If I think
Too hard about it, sometime near midnight,
I know it's unproductive, but I'll sink
Into a mild fugue of self-debate
Discussing endlessly if what I've done
Is what I should have. As I sit and wait
To end the inquiry I have begun,
Attempting to outlast all my self-doubt,
Another part of me recursively
Wonders if I should try to root out
The over-self-reflective part of me,
And so around we go. It never ceases
Until my worries tear my mind to pieces.

Sonnet Analysis: My Old Sonnets XII

I realized that I have not analyzed a sonnet that I had real issues with in a while. So it is time to do so! It's always more interesting, as a matter of craft, I think, when I can take one apart.

I wondered if I wandered by a star
Or built my house upon a fire-mount
The light was growing, greater now by far
'Til it had passed capacity to count
Or measure. All the senses were aglow
As if the eyes had vanquished all the rest
And, as the victors in the senses' row
Had all the other put under arrest,
That all of them did see the growing light.
So far surpassed this sweet event my eye
That I, bebaffled, did renounce my sight
Believing it must sure have told a lie
But true it was, now poor I must admit
For dark is here now you my vision quit.

What Went Wrong:
The horrible, horrible pseudoarchaism. "Fire-mount"? "'Til it had passed capacity to count" (a verb that would make no sense in that context anyway)? "That all of them did see"? "So far surpassed this sweet event my eye"? "true it was"? "poor I must admit"? "now you my vision quit"? And for the love of God, fun as it is to say, "bebaffled"?

Let this serve as an object lesson: if it sounds wrong, don't write it. Just because you, or in this case obviously, I, have some absurd idea about what might have sounded right several centuries ago, that doesn't mean you should inflict that vision on a poor defenseless sonnet. There are better ways to say it. Yes, in some slight pathetic measure of defense it might be said that all those terribly twisted inversions of syntactic order allow the important words to hit the stressed syllables, but that's hardly an excuse. It's best to look at a line with meter, rhythm (of the sentence as distinct from meter), and syntax in mind, and, if you decide there is no good way to say what you want to say and rhyme without violating at least one of the three, pick the way that violates the fewest (preferably none or one). In this case, I clearly chose to violate both rhythm of the line and syntax to preserve meter, which is a poor choice. The saddest part is that the answer to "where did you do that?" isn't a single line; it is, in a sense, the whole poem.

Besides that, of course, the archaism also shows up in the diction, with invented words. Bebaffled is at least fun to say, if a little pointless given that it clearly simply tacked on a syllable to baffled. Fire-mount is silly, and not in a good way. It sounds tacky, archaic, and yet unlikely to have actually been archaically attested. In short, it has everything negative about archaism and none of the positive.

Besides all of that, if this were a better poem I would comment on issues like the confusion that the syntactical mish-mosh introduces at the end of the poem. I would also note that "row" is a false rhyme, since that use of the word should really be "rauw" rather than "roe," but has to be "roe" to rhyme with "aglow." But there's just so much more to comment on...

Not Too Shabby:
So is there anything that can be salvaged? I like "I wondered if I wandered" for the use of those two echoing words together. If it were not surrounded by all the other archaisms and silliness, "bebaffled" would actually be a fun coinage. And for some reason "all the senses were aglow" appeals to me as an image, especially the implication that other senses than sight were involved. It should be "all my senses," but it still sounds good. Sadly, that's about all that wasn't too shabby for words.

Drinking

There have been times (and this is one of them)
I could have started drinking - and I should,
Because I think that all my problems stem
From too much self-control. The things I would,
If all were as I wish it could be, do
Are left behind because I do not dare;
To drink, therefore, is cure and solace too,
Because it makes me feel like I don't care,
And so I find I act that way as well.
Thus have I proven that I ought to drink,
And yet I do not. Why? I cannot tell,
Unless because I really like to think,
And thinking is not helped by alcohol;
Therefore, alas, I do not drink at all.

Trainspotting

Just how pretentious do you have to be
To read that here? How great do you
Imagine that you are, or how puny
That you must compensate for it? Or do
You do this for yourself? You cannot say
You read it for your pleasure; I'll believe
That fairytale if I find out someday
That men instead of women can conceive,
But not before. No, this must be a front,
Projected to display an image here,
Which seems ridiculous, and, to be blunt
Highly unlikely, and a little queer.
Oh, you're a grad student? I'm sorry then;
I promise not to bother you again.

Caves of Steel

I can't go out there. None of us could go;
The days have passed since men could walk outside
On Earth. We do not cultivate or grow
Our food there; like ourselves, we choose to hide
The yeast-vats in the caves. So no Earthman
Could have gone there, even to do this thing.
How do I know? I simply know none can,
And that is all the proof I need to bring.
Not even hatred, burning strong and bright
Against you robots could make anyone,
Even of strong will, dare think he might
Endure the full intolerable sun.
I know there must have been some other way
For no Earthman can brave the light of day.

Causation

I write under compulsion. That alone
Should warn you that my words may well be feigned.
I do not write as if they were my own,
But rather in a rather modest, pained
Almost apologetic style, since
They come not from the heart, but from the mind
Coerced by circumstances, which convince
Even the most stalwart, unconfined
Of us to write according to their will,
And I am neither. There, do not be
Surprised to find write these words but ill,
Because they have no little grace to me.
Yet still I write them, though not by design
And in that sense they are accounted mine.

Requiem

I knew that I would never see again
The well-worn fingers or the craggy smile,
The gruff head-nod he used, his gentle style,
So out of place within that face. But when
It happened, and he left for good, ah then,
I didn't notice for a little while,
As if I could no longer find the file
Containing him in memory: denial
Of service from my mind. And then I'd reach
My hand into a glove, and find it his;
Or suck a coughdrop that he gave to me,
And feel his memory begin to leach
Back through my skin. With every touch it is
A full, returned, and loving memory.

Sonnet Analysis: My Old Sonnets XI

It isn't every day that I look through my poems and discover one I like and yet don't ever remember writing. That was, however, what happened this day, so here, without further ado, is the sonnet in question:

I look at you and I remember when
I wrote you poems; and you read them too.
They said what everyone already knew
But you were happy hearing it again.
I think I knew what I was doing then;
I wrote because I was in love with you.
I can't imagine what else I should do.
Sometimes I wish I were like other men
And not impulsive in the way I've been;
But then I think of what I used to write
And how it made you feel, and how we were.
It's times like that, I think, when I prefer
To be myself. I hope we can begin
To heal those wounds and make us both all right.

What Went Wrong:
I'm not a huge fan of rhyming homophones, much less having one such rhyme end a sonnet; but I did it here. I am not sure how "I can't imagine what else I should do" fits into the poem, other than as a vehicle for the rhyme. It would probably be better expressed as something like "And didn't know what else I ought to do," because that would avoid the following pitfalls it currently falls into: standing unattached to previous or following lines, having major stresses (particularly "should") fall on unstressed syllables (and the penultimate is a bad syllable to stress), and falling into the present tense when it should properly be in the past. The last problem is especially pointed because it is clear that in the present the narrator can imagine what else he should do, in that he has apparently stopped writing the poems. Putting the sentence into the past (with something like "didn't know") would solve this difficulty.

Not Too Shabby:
This is a poem that does not really reach for rhymes. The exceptions are above, but the awkwardness of the standalone line at seven has little to do with reaching for a rhyme and more to do with poor construction (I think the suggestion above would fix it) and the homophones are present precisely because the poem refuses to reach for any different rhyme than the one the sense presented, which happened to be homophonic. There is a difference between reaching for a rhyme (and thus twisting the sense, syntax, or both of the line) and picking a non-ideal rhyme that fits into the line, and this is the latter. I also like the flow of this poem. The initial quatrain hits one beat, the next three lines are another, then the next two, then the next five are all really one beat, although it could be divided into two and three. The rhythms of the ever-smaller groups followed by the larger, almost too-large, group seems to reflect, in my mind at least, how thought can follow small paths into ever smaller detail and then suddenly shoot up into a broader point, much as the poem does. Or if that's too highfalutin for you, which I think it might be for me, I find the flow attractive because it bridges the octave/sestet structure, allows enjambment between lines with different rhymes but does not break individual lines, and gives the poem a strong sense of narrative. Finally, I like the diction: the words are simple, they express meaning very straightforwardly, and they sound like someone might actually say them in the order presented. Yet the poem manages not to sound simplistic, because the rhythm, flow, and rhyme are all so strong.

Worries

What does it matter if I'm uninspired,
If drearily I drift from day to day,
Uncertain of myself, what I've desired
And what, if anything, I have to say?
Is it important if I'm unenthused,
Bored with the situations that I'm in?
Should I be worried that I have abused
The gift of life in being what I've been?
Where others see a clear blue shining sky
I've always only seen an empty sheet
Punctuated by a brighter spot,
But no more special for it. So, should I
Be too concerned? Or should I just retreat
More fully from the world and my own thought?

Understatement

I might admit there have been better days
When less of me was sinking in despair,
I have spent fewer hours in a haze
Of blank confusion; I have been aware
Of more of my surroundings, I have seen
Better results derived from better work.
Where now I'm dirty I have once been clean,
I have done duties I now choose to shirk.
There have been times I smiled happily
At sights that now elicit but a groan
And people that I now refuse to see
On other days I would not leave alone.
Yet all that said, although the day was rough
Because you're here I call it good enough.

Paraleipsis

I can't tell you what you mean to me.
No, literally, I can't; I don't know how.
Poems won't do it, and they used to be
My best, indeed my only, strategy
For self-expression of this sort. But now
I have no options, since they will not do.
What can I say? It all sounds insincere,
No matter what I say. I'm trying to
Invent a way to get across to you
How much I care, but every time, I fear,
I think of anything, it falls too flat.
I'm out of words, and that is very rare,
Indeed a wonder you should marvel at,
While I can only gulp for words and swear.

Last Ditch

No place is safe, no corner seems secure;
They're coming for me. Listen, you can hear
The distant drums that paralyze with fear
My comrades, and indeed myself. We were
Once mighty, and our fame could well ensure
That no one ever dared attack us here.
But now that very fame has cost us dear
For we are weak, yet nomads still prefer
To raid the promise of our better days
In hope of riches we no longer hold.
Our former glory makes attackers bold
While present weakness will not let us faze
Their least assault. And therefore go thy ways
Before like us thy life is bought and sold.

Vain Compliment

You did so well when you discouraged me
Not quite so well that I was not intrigued
But well enough I knew it could not be
That you liked me. Although my thoughts were leagued
With strong desires, they could not achieve
The sweet fruition of believing you
Were interested; I could not conceive
That, though I wanted it, it could be true,
And that is to your credit. I must say
You almost left me wondering sometimes
If there could be a chance some other day
For stolen kisses and excited rhymes;
But when your attitude was well-inspected
I found myself quite pleasantly rejected.

The Wanderer

As I wander randomly
(Nothing ventured, nothing gained)
All at once it comes to me:
My relationships are strained
Not by anger, not by greed,
Not by false things or by true,
Not by hunger, not by need,
But by what I did not do.
I did not expand my heart
To encompass others' needs
And thereby make them a part
Of the self that in me breeds.
Had I done this, had I grown,
I would not now be alone.

Doors

Another me, somewhere, is wondering
Why the train doors just closed in front of him.
Instead I wonder if, upon some whim,
He, in the midst of verbal thundering
Against the fates, whose blinded blundering
Left him to freeze, is, with a certain dim
Insight, or with a frigid kind of grim
Insistence born out of the sundering
Created by the doors, between what's warm
And him, beginning suddenly to write
About a figure, like in every way
To him, in person, body, mind, and form,
Except for this: that on this very night
He got into the train and rode away.

Desires

I know what I want, and I want you
At least as you're constructed in my mind.
This blunt admission puts me in a bind:
Will you react the way I want you to?
And if you don't, then what am I to do?
Your soul is never by my thoughts confined,
And yet the way I think it is designed
Has led me where I am. If, then, I knew
You would not take this statement as I'd hope,
Would that make you so different that you would
Not be the person that I think you are?
And if it would, I question if I'd cope
Productively with that. I doubt you're far
From what I think, at least; that much is good.

Snow Cover

All imperfections slide away with snow.
It won't admit the differences they need.
Wherever snowdrifts in abundance grow
There there is calm. The land is freed
From its dependence on native terrain;
The dip no longer has to bow its head,
The marsh no longer bears its humble stain,
The burnt-out field no longer looks so dead.
While life retreats before the snow's approach,
The quiet contours on which life is based
Embrace the snow, and wear it as a broach,
Adornment for wherever it is placed
Until the spring replaces it with green
The snow. in blankness, keeps the ground serene.

-7 Degrees C

There's beauty in a darkness that you don't
Have to go out in; chill and white, serene,
An object, not a place, because you won't
Touch or interact with it. So clean,
So far outside the window, yet so near
To being messy; take a single step
And all collapses. This is what we fear:
That all the warmth, vitality and pep
We have inside us dissipate away
When we engage with what appears outside;
The darkness at the ending of the day
Just makes us want to run away and hide.
We ought to go out there; but it's so cold
It doesn't seem to pay off to be bold.

Quatrains

I know the reason I can't sleep at night,
I know why everything is in a haze;
I know why all my thoughts are wound so tight,
I know what puts me into such a daze:
It is not lack of sleep - that's an effect;
It is not work, for that is well in hand;
It is not illness, that common suspect;
It is not what I ate. I will expand:
My nights are sleepless worrying for you
If you are happy, and if not why not;
My days are hazy thinking what to do
To make you happy; I can never blot
Your image from my mind. I study it
And in that study, I spend all my wit.

Exegesis

Take a word - a single word, mind you -
And stretch it out a little, let it breathe;
Explain how it means what you want it to,
And as you do, prepare to subtly wreath
The words surrounding it with such a sense
That they inevitably stand to aid
Your reading, and so powerfully fence
Off other readings, lest you be gainsaid.
Be strong in this, and read it word by word,
Define your terms, and then march grimly on;
Be sure to let no countervoice be heard
Until the listener is fully gone
And all convinced; then, with the conquest won
Your work may pause, for what you sought is done.

Confessional

I seem to mend; and that itself is good.
As I get better, so the urge is less
To use this context solely to confess
As if a trace of absolution would
Cling to the words I write, as if I could
By simply writing flush out all the mess
Cluttering me up, and thereby bless
My future, clean of everything that stood
Between me and my happiness. Instead
I note the need to use this space for that
Has ebbed itself, not totally away,
But from the height at which it once had sat,
Down to a normal level; yet that said,
You'll note I've done it once again today.

Drowning

I think that, when you met me, I seemed strong;
That must be how your misconceptions rose,
For if you'd realized that you were wrong
You might not have been tempted to disclose
Your secrets in the hope that I might be
Able to help, because I seemed to deal
So well with my own problems. Knowing me,
As you did not, that seems a bit surreal,
As if the pilot of a sinking craft
Should try to give the wheel to someone plucked
Up from the sea out of a leaky raft.
Like such a person, I indeed had lucked
Into survival, but it should be known
Not through any credit of my own.

Sonnet Analysis: My Old Sonnets X

It's been a while since I analyzed a sonnet here; and longer since it was my own poetry I exposed to my glare. So I thought it might be nice to pull a random sonnet out of my sonnet sequence and give it the treatment. So here we go:

The night I met him, I was going to tell
You everything, and ask you on a date.
But something in me prompted me to wait
Although I strained against it. I could smell
That something wasn't right, and so to hell
With all of that. I wish that I could hate
One of you two, or destiny, or fate
For doing this to me, but no. O well,
Life is what it will be. I'll wonder though
While smiling and making conversation
What might have been, if on some other night
Not stopped by that incisive realization
I'd asked you, and you'd told me yes or no
But I guess it's better this way - right?

What Went Wrong:
Cards on the table: I kinda like this sonnet. But it's definitely not perfect. There are a couple lines that fall afoul of what I'd like to be a convention but isn't actually: they're all monosyllables, or all but one, which I really prefer not to see in iambic pentameter (this includes the first line, but particularly "With all of that. I wish that I could hate"). There are also a couple of lines with really awkward moves towards the rhyme; I'm thinking particularly of "For doing this to me, but no. Oh well," which seems to have realized midway through the line that there needed to be a rhyme at the end of it and just finished up the sentence ASAP and gone running on to the rhyme. Indeed, the entire insertion of "Oh well/Life is what it will be" feels strained, like a bridge that can't quite justify why the two parts it connects are connected. I could also point out the clear disconnect between the end, with its suggestion of the need for a yes/no answer, and the rest of the poem, with its implication that a no answer has in fact been received in some sense, even if not explicitly by words.

Not Too Shabby:
The rhyme scheme here, despite the reach described above, works well; the octave/sestet division is strong (and partly justifies the "oh well," as part of the turn) and the ebb and flow within the octave is also strong, with the rhymed pairs date/wait, smell/hell, and hate/fate encapsulating somewhat the modulations that section undergoes. I like matching the feminine lines ending in "conversation" and "realization," and along with that I like the interwoven (rather than simply cookie-cutter) rhymes of the sestet. My basic impression of this poem as a whole is that it is one of the (few) sonnets I have written in an Petrarchan mode that really takes advantage of the octave/sestet division and the ability to move on from a problem established in the octave and expand and clarify it in the sestet. The enjambment between the two sections works well for that. Combining that effect with the sudden turn at the end of the poem, with the monosyllabic question "right?", feels, well, right, and does a good job of expressing the uncertainty and indecisiveness in which the poem wallows. As a final thought on form, I also like the endstopping of the second line, as it clearly expresses the issue being explored, and allows the remainder of the poem to work itself out in two paired and enjambed sestets, yet another expansion of the possibilities of the basic octave/sestet design.

Colds

I do not feel the cold outside my door,
Although I know the temperature is low.
The heat does not affect me anymore,
Because you closed the door and turned to go.
Before, the chill was palpable to me,
An icy blast that froze my very bones;
But now I can ignore it easily,
Not noticing the winter as it moans
In windy form about the house. Instead
I wander up and down the empty hall
And lie awake upon my downy bed
Wondering if warmth exists at all;
It certainly is not inside, nor out,
And therefore I am left somewhat in doubt.

Surety

There have been times, I must admit,
When I've imagined I knew what to do.
That doesn't mean that I always did it,
But then, at least, I could pretend I knew
What I was choosing not to do. I could
With gay, intrepid certainty declare
That I was clearly doing what I should
Or else ignoring it. Now I don't dare
To make such boldly meaningful decrees.
I hedge about; I think, I may, I might,
Avoiding definition by degrees
Of claimed uncertainty. But is that right?
Or should I, as I used to do, feel free
To say I know my mind convincingly?

Memorialize

It's often easiest to just express
The puddled feelings of a moment's thought;
The problem is when one starts to obsess
About the moment, and the pain it brought.
To disentangle how the moment felt
From how you ought to feel, remembering
Is difficult: the two so often melt
Into one entity. A memory can bring
Too much reality along with it,
While times of deep remembrance seem to touch
The past directly. Therefore bit by bit
They slide into each other far too much
For easy disassociation, so
The boundary between them starts to go.

Adages

It is not always easy to recall
How much we should prefer prevention to
Its cousin cure. It's simple, after all,
To afterwards know what we ought to do,
Repair the damages that we can see
Explain the problems that we note arise
And then move on. The great difficulty
Is in awareness when the problem lies
Still in the future. Then we cannot point
To clear examples of what has gone wrong;
Instead, we have to gingerly anoint
An issue as a "problem before long"
And who believes that? Yet, as I have found,
I'd rather take an ounce than take a pound.

On Writer's Block

This blog updates multiple times a day, usually with new sonnets, occasionally but rarely with a more substantial post of analysis, definition, or simple explanation. The author (hey, that's me!) also writes rather a lot that does not go on this blog, particularly for his peculiar mode of employment. This means that he is well-acquainted with that strange bugbear that alights on all writers at some if not at all times, writer's block. And now, abandoning the third person, I shall write about writer's block as it applies, at least in my experience, to the sonnet.

Despite the profusion of poetry I post here, I have definitely gone through writer's block on this blog. If you're looking for when, look for a decrease in both the quality and the quantity of the sonnets that come up. I assure you you will find it. I find that in relation to sonnets, writer's block particularly manifests itself in the following ways: the inability to find rhymes, the inability to count syllables, the inability to make stresses line up, the inability to find a topic, and the inability to conclude a poem.

The first three categories are all fundamentally similar: the inability to put together the basic building blocks of the sonnet, viz. rhyme and meter. To work myself out of these sorts of blocks, I usually beat my head against a brick wall, by which I do not mean doing actual physical harm to myself but rather simply rewriting the line I'm working on maniacally until it comes out and the problem breaks. Sometimes I simply put the poem down and go do something else. But when I'm being particularly clever, which is rarely, there are two tricks I use. For meter, I start using monosyllables: it's very difficult for monosyllables to get away from you either in syllable count or stress placement, since they don't come in battalions but only as single spies, and they each take their own stress. Sometimes some monosyllables, particularly prepositions, are not too happy about being stressed near more important words, but since this technique ends up with them being surrounded by other monosyllables, the worst that usually happens is a trochaic substitution, which is perfectly fine. These lines tend to trip off the tongue in rhythm like a nursery rhyme, but that's OK; the rhythm is back, and the problem has usually broken. For rhyme, my trick is to screw with the rhyme scheme. Was I doing ABBAABBA? Not anymore. Now it's ABBCACAB! ABCCBA! Whatever works for this current line sense-wise will go there, and the rest will all come out in the wash. This is highly effective earlier in the poem, and still effective later; there's nothing that says your ABBAABBA poem can't end with a couplet, or that an ABABCDCD poem can't have an interwoven sestet. And since it allows you to finish the line you're working on with whatever feels right, it usually breaks the stressful part of writer's block, the inability to get a single line down on paper.

Topic difficulties are common to all types of writing. With sonnets, I find that love (especially unrequited love), the weather, and whatever I happen to be looking at are all particularly easy themes to simply splotch down and let run off on their own. Once the poem gets rolling on that topic, it may switch midway through poetic alchemy; that's perfectly OK. But the great advantage of a formal poetic style like a sonnet is that it actually lends itself very well to certain, well-worn and stereotypical themes. Sure, a sonnet can be about anything; but it can also be about the things sonnets are always about, and there's no crime in that either. Both sides of that equation are freeing when you are faced with writer's block.

As for the last issue; conclusions are hard. If it's a couplet that I'm having trouble with, I will sometimes do as I said to do with rhyme and just change the scheme: EFEFGG can be EFEFEF very easily. If the difficulty is that I have too much to say in too little space, I either go back and edit the preceding 1-4 lines of the poem, or I give up on definitive conclusions for a cheap fallback of uncertainty, which is almost always easy to squeeze into a few lines because it does not require tying up loose ends. I have also been known to change how I was planning to conclude, either making a poem have an unexpected twist or making it not have one I had originally planned. Finally, when both rhyme and sense are being a bother, I try to set myself up with fourteen or twelve syllables left (that is, fill the last line with six or eight syllables and then a piece of punctuation), put an "I" plus a verb at the end of the penultimate line, and rush through the last line to a conclusion that either rhymes with the verb (in a couplet) or with the appropriate previous line (while the verb also rhymes with its line, in a non-couplet situation). And the verb may change as that happens. That's my default way of ending a sonnet, particularly one with a couplet, and it will get you out of a lot of difficult places; even, sometimes, out of writer's block.

Processes

So many sonnets; always start with "I"
And then a verb; sometimes an adjective
Thrown into apposition, which can give
A subtle definition, or imply
The way the "I" will act, or did before.
Throw in some repetition, and restate
The problem, or the argument. Then wait,
Still spinning syllables you should ignore,
Until a few more lines of verse have passed,
Perhaps with flourishes; one might enjamb
Or substitute some foot for an iamb,
And then the end approaches us at last.
The "I" will seek in most ingenious ways
To find a final, pat, revealing phrase.

Outlaw

Something wicked whistled through the air
And landed in me; at least, that's how I
Would rather claim it happened. You were there,
And watched it happen; you can testify
That in reality, I chose this path.
I chose to turn away from what I had,
To turn instead toward violence and wrath,
To turn the good that I possessed to bad,
Denying what I was, what I should be.
There was no outer agent, you might say,
No other force that acted out on me
A larger drama; no, I chose this way.
And if you say so, will I recognize
The truth of it? Or will I say "she lies?"

Strange Fears

If I were open to you, would life be
A better place? Or if we talked of things
Less insubstantial than we do, would we
Be happier? To speak of fairie rings,
Whose stuff is nonsense, but so preciously
Stuffed with that nonsense that discussion brings
Nothing but a pleasant fantasy
Of how the fairy band in chorus sings
Its roundelay, is one small type of joy,
But I cannot shake off the dreadful fear
That if we cannot find a serious
Topic to discuss, we will soon cloy,
And end up simply ludicrously drear
Because we were so greatly frivolous.

Talks

We need to talk. You need to understand
What I am feeling, how you make me feel.
I am no longer sure if I can stand
The way you treat me, and I cannot deal
With indecision on so key a point.
We need to talk. The time is out of joint,
And if you will not talk to me, then how
Can we rejoin it to what ought to be?
If you don't talk to me, and talk right now,
Then I'll walk out on you. Just wait and see.
We need to talk. I think you haven't heard
A thing I've said; if you won't listen, then,
Don't think that I'll repeat a single word.
Come here and hear. I won't say it again.

Green

I am a little sadder than I've been
Not so you'd not it, but just enough
To make me wish that it were different. In
My short experience of being me,
I notice that it's never been this rough,
But that might indicate how easily
My life has gone so far; if I complain,
The sheer degree to which I have not seen
The evil others have, nor felt their pain,
For truly in this life I am but green,
Will be revealed. Therefore, though I am sad
And would not have the world be as it is,
I must release the sadness I have had
Letting it bubble off, to pop and fizz.

Old Wives' Tales

Between the trees, down by the lake, there was,
Some time before, a little house. In it,
A man, who is no longer there (because,
Some say, one day his aging throat was slit,
But probably because he was too old
To still be there) lived quietly, until
One day, a badger, fleeing from the cold,
Slipped in the house. The old man, with goodwill,
Offered the badger food, and watched it eat.
Being fed, it slipped back to the wood.
The next day man and house both disappeared.
I always wonder if the badger could
Have been responsible, and yet I feared
To ask the question, lest I seem insane;
But with the badger back, I can't refrain.

Metaphors

I'm a chunk of sugar granules chipped apart
Always sweet, but never smooth. The grains
Whose sheer tactility is but a part
Of their totality, here only stand
For that; although of course their taste remains
Central to the figure. How they band
Together in their molecules to make
A larger substance; how they scatter to
The wind if, by some mischance, that should break;
How they are separate when not clumped: these do
Not figure, for I stand in for the whole;
One me, and many grains - this is ignored.
Instead the broken clump stands for my soul
And I choose how that meaning will be stored.

Faces

You look so worried. Please, please, please calm down.
Don't start and stare like that. It worries me,
And if we're both like that, and one should frown,
The other will, by nature, equally
Be made unhappy. Please look up and smile,
Be merry, laugh - and fake it if you must,
Because if you pretend a little while
You'll find it sticks. If you are feeling fussed,
Unload it on me - tell me how you feel,
And let me know; because, as it is now,
I only get to guess, not know for real,
What your emotions are. Just tell me how
You feel, and let me help you. If you're sad
I can't be happy - so I want you glad.

Full House

All their faces are exhausted, lined
With soft concern. They whisper if they speak.
You'd almost think that they were all resigned
To something horrible - but then they'll sneak
A grin or sudden glance of warmth, and show
That underneath the seeming sullen gloom
There's still a spark of life. Since this is so
The quiet stillness hanging in the room
Seems strange, and almost acts as if it were
A separate creature from the people there.
Like them, it will not raise itself or stir,
And yet it lacks the other thing they share,
The possibility of changing. They
Won't always be as dour as today.

Question Your Grace

What if she doesn't? You should always ask
That question of yourself. Will what you do,
The monumentally impressive task
You set yourself to prove (at least to you)
That you love her, be worth it if she said
That wasn't what she meant at all? Is it
Sufficient in itself? If you're misled,
And her emotions and your own don't fit
Into a single mold, will you still be
Happy you began what you've begun?
If so, then do it, not for feelings she
May not reciprocate when you are done,
But for yourself. If not, why do for her
What neither of you may, in fact, prefer?

Care

Meticulous beyond what I should be,
I creep by inches up into my point.
Caution is the watchword inside me,
And haste would seem distinctly out of joint.
I calmly pause, consider what is known,
Debate internally a while more,
Collect the seeds of doubt that I have sown,
And contemplate each one; I can't ignore
The slightest factor that might have affected
The workings of the problem I perceive,
Nor can I risk one going undetected
And so I think and think, 'til I believe
I've thought it through enough. This is all true
But not in every case: only with you.

Irritations

It always seems to be the little things
Nonfunctioning computers, falling chairs,
A mattress with too many broken springs,
The sort of thing that, while no one cares
Too much about them on their own, will seem
The final straw when other things go wrong.
Large rocks will turn aside the rushing stream
The smaller ones inspire turbulence.
A note off-key within a favorite song,
A light that won't turn off, not matter what,
An explanation that just won't make sense,
Are little inconveniences, but
They gain importance in their context, when
They cause us to go "oh no, not again!"

Traditional

It is not icy blasts that freeze my face,
Nor melting snow that makes me seem to cry.
No cloud contained those liquid drops that trace
Their frigid path, 'til they solidify.
I cannot blame the winter for the chill
That hugs my bones too tightly, nor complain
When feeling frozen, as I know I will,
Of wind that cuts through me. None of my pain
Derives from icicles weighing me down
Or pressing sharply into my poor chest;
No lack of insulation makes me frown,
Nor does a tempest rob me of my rest.
It is your absence that I ought to scold;
Taking yourself away has made me cold.