Glue

The time I spent with you was necessary
I could not be myself right now without it.
My other needs and wishes often vary
But always I need you - you cannot doubt it.
I am perhaps - no certainly - less glad,
Less chipper than I am all other times.
But you must not think that you made me sad;
Nor do you bring about my angry rhymes.
The only solace that I have from these
Is you and how you always make me feel;
When I am struck by massive, deep unease
Your presence keeps me tethered to the real.
And what is real? Our love, and how it makes
Me whole again when everything else breaks.

Dry

if I'm a sponge, then you have wrung me dry;
If I'm a well, there is no water left.
I will be angry if you ask me why
My resources are suddenly bereft.
If you just paid attention, then you'd know
I'm tired and I'm empty and I'm sore.
But you are blind to what lays others low
And do not understand I don't have more.
Just let me be, and do not try to squeeze
Blood from the rock, lest it should shatter me;
I usually am eagerer to please,
But right now that seems pure stupidity.
I need to be myself, and let me do
Nothing for others that I don't choose to.

Done

I cannot do this shit. Not anymore.
It's just too much. I'm fucking done with it.
I don't care what you think you need me for.
I do not give a fuck about your shit.
I'm through. I'll let you know, if you still care,
When maybe someday I can deal again,
But right now you can shove it you know where
And dealing with it is an if, not when.
Just suck it up; I've done enough right now.
I've spent too much of me on this already.
It doesn't matter if you have a cow
My grip on my emotions is unsteady
And I'm just getting started. Go away.
That's as polite as I will be today.

Fantastick

I am so sloppy sometimes. Seriously.
I could have done this better, I presume.
But things are now as good as they could be,
So I'm not sure if better has much room.
I like this life, these ways, and who I am,
And I imagine you feel that as well;
And therefore though I'll always wish to cram
A little more joy in, I cannot tell
How that could happen. Though it did not start
As well as it could have, let us remember
That a beginning's but a little part;
Things change so quickly: just recall December.
So while I may be slowly, silly, slow
I'm really happy now, just so you know.

Countercommute

You get strange glances when you go the way
That no one ever is supposed to go;
They look at you as if they want to say
That you must not know what they all do know,
And yet they can't assume you don't, and wish
They could convince themselves you were insane:
The type of glance that always seems to fish
For answers it can never hope to gain.
You must ignore them if you want to be
Yourself, and not a drone others control;
There's nothing more depressing you could see
Than someone who has jettisoned their soul.
Walk on past stares and even sidelong glances;
Life only lives in taking awkward chances.

Shadow Puppets

No matter how insistent I may be
I cannot change some aspects of my life;
I may be able to express more glee,
Eat healthier, avoid destructive strife,
Perhaps learn some new skills, dance, act, or sing,
Or even traipse about in formal wear
But I'm not in control of everything;
Some parts of me will just always be there
Despite what I decide. Yet I don't mean
Those parts of me are bad, or I'm dismayed;
I simply mean they serve me as the screen
On which the others' shadows are displayed.
Of these there's one I think you knew I'd mention:
My need for you, your love, and your attention.

Used To Say

Across a table you're so far away
Although our hands on it are intertwined.
I search for something wittier to say
To keep your head and eyes ever inclined
Towards me in interest, not turned aside
To see what else may seem of interest here.
I worry that I am no more supplied
With that which keeps your concentration clear
And on me than I am equipped to make
The table that we lean across - and yet
No matter what detours I seem to take
In our discussion, or what I forget,
You stay with me, your eyes locked in on mine
And you know what? That really suits me fine.

Runner's High

There's always such catharsis in a run
The interplay of legs, torso and arms
Is of a sort that cannot but be fun
And speed itself, of course, has many charms.
But in the heaving chest and stretching limbs
There is a special purity of spirit;
A healthy body singing loving hymns
To its own pleasure must perforced endear it
Unto itself, and make a pleasure grow
Out of the sweet concordance of the sprint.
It is a waste to ever go too slow;
True joy comes feeling the decisive print
Of dead heat in the legs and muscles racing
To keep up with the deep ecstatic pacing.

O Night

Dying should be easy, automatic
A fall immediate to its intention.
A simple motion, not blocked by a static
Tension in the service of prevention.
But far too often it's deliberate
Slow to arrive no matter how approached,
A solid bar - no way to shiver it -
Standing between the death that has been broached
And its completion. I wonder how is it
That something natural can so resist
Although resistance can be so exquisite
That that could be why barriers exist.
But why is death so hard, when it should be
Somewhere we all come instinctively?

Dreamers Often Lie

I have my preferences and you have yours
And somewhere in between is what we do;
Therefore I fear that each of us just stores
Up disagreements in between us two.
I try to realize we aren't the same
And not obsess on where we disagree
Nor seem to indicate I think my claim
To mutual decisions ought to be
Greater than yours. I know we should be equal
And I prefer it so, the way we are;
But still I struggle with that logic's sequel:
That we must compromise. And yet so far
Nothing we've come to by that process seems
To have been tamer than my wildest dreams.

Spawn Point

Life has never been too clear to me.
I always wonder what I ought to do.
I'm sure that other people wonder too,
But that does not help my uncertainty.
I try my best to face reality,
Without quite knowing what that is. A few
Times I have thought that maybe then I knew,
But I am certain now that cannot be.
So as I bumble through, I cannot tell
If where I've been is where I should have gone,
But since I don't believe there's a respawn,
I can't redo it, so I might as well
Believe it is. At any rate, right now
I'm happy getting here, no matter how.

Folgers

The hardest part of every single day
Is letting go of you. Why must you rise
When even day has not? That, sure, denies
The meaning given to the predawn grey
Which must have been a signal crying "stay
In bed" to us. The sun himself still lies
Down in the lake and false flame strangely dyes
The west horizon; why must you away?
And yet I know the reason, and desire
That you should go when your necessity
Compels you to, even away from me;
Nor would I have you think I am a liar
When I say that I care for you. But I
Cannot shake off the urge to keep you by.

Blasé

I want to feel blasé about you leaving
Not from some lessened feeling about you
But from the instinct that reduces grieving
Related to the things you often do.
Again, not, dear, that I desire to see
You leave me constantly; rather that each
Day you must go to work, and so leave me
Only if you started within reach.
So I would trade constant departing for
The prior presence leaving must imply;
I would grow hardened to that act therefore
But both of us would know the reason why:
I only want to watch you leave because
Of how close that implies your presence was.

Instead of Sheep

How can I count my blessings when I know
That all of them are in their nature one?
This knowledge on its own sucks all the fun
From counting them, and seeing whence they flow.
There might be two, perhaps I should say so,
But one is simply where I was begun,
By who and how, which though I'm glad 'twas done,
Was really done so very long ago
I hardly count it in my modern prayers
Though I am thankful for it nonetheless.
The other is the main one I confess,
Because it did not catch me unawares,
In youth, but was more recently received:
That is your love, which I somehow achieved.

Violent Disagreement

I am not good at being quiet when
A point I disagree with has been raised.
Sometimes I hold my tongue, but even then
The strange disquiet of my face has blazed
Louder than words. And if I speak, I yell
Or am accused of doing so, which I
Can never (on my own I cannot tell
Because I'm always loud) fully deny.
So I try to avoid those places, those
Bad situations where I want to scream.
I'm worried that it means I'm going to close
My self around a self-made episteme
And not engage with what could prove me wrong;
Yet how else should I try to get along?

On My Head

I won't be satisfied
Except I know I will;
I cannot be denied
Except that I am still.
I want to claim I strive
And push on to success
But I'm glad I'm alive
And full of happiness
So nothing seems too bad
Or needs to be repaired
And since I am so glad
Your ears should now be spared
The din of my defiance
Or too-loud self-reliance.

Matzot

This is the penalty we pay each year
For our obedience. Unleavened bread
Does not exit the body easily,
And so the gut makes its displeasure clear.
I wish that it could send a note instead,
Some little memo to appeal to me
And ask me not to eat it. Yet I must,
So every year, about this time, I know
That pain will suddenly and deeply grow
Until I feel that it or I must bust.
It is the symptom of our utter trust
In our commandment. If we let it go
No pain would come - we eat it even so
And welcome this, even despite disgust.

Mirabilis

The days I know I'm going to see you are
A miniature miracle to me.
The time you'll be here is my guiding star
High over the horizon so I see
The hope it shines, of possibility
And follow it in wonder, 'til I find
When I have come to when it ought to be
That it is better than I had in mind,
As if it were intelligent designed,
And almost overawes me. I adore
Every time I see you, and I've pined
Over an hour's absence and no more.
So light my heaven with your coming beams
And all day long I will exist in dreams.

Breathless Charm

On days like this, when I am feeling crappy,
I look around to seek distractions out.
The only constant source that makes me happy
Is when I'm in the middle of my scout
And see you smiling at me, by my side.
I know that it seems sudden, strange, and new
But still it's something well and truly tried:
I feel far happier when I'm with you.
There is no better way to make me smile
On dull days covered with a coat of gray
Than to permit to divinely while
An hour or two or even three away
With you. If you are present, all is well
And when you're happy I will simply kvell.

Show and Tell

I show my feelings better than I tell
Although I whisper often in your ear;
Sometimes I know you think that I speak well,
But every time I do, I'm struck with fear
That what I say will fall completely flat
Deflated like an incomplete soufflè;
And since I am quite paralyzed by that,
I often think I don't know what to say.
But when I'm with you, I can hold you close
And press my nose against your ear until
My feelings are so obvious and gross
You cannot fail to understand my will.
And there are better methods, tried and true,
All of which let me show my love to you.

Sinistrous

All the things I do in care of you
Are done for you: do not think otherwise.
And yet don't let it come as a surprise
That there's another motive when I woo.
I do not mean a sinister, untrue
Or vicious motive. Nothing that defies
The bounds of morals, you must realize,
Comes into what I say or what I do.
But everything I do for you is meant
To make me happy too when it is done;
So when my efforts seemingly are bent
Only to give you pleasure, joy, or fun,
Be sure that I take pleasure also there
For that's the other motive of my care.

Fussbudget

I want to be beyond completely clear:
The things I do for you I do for me.
You know, of course, that I love you, my dear,
But I'm not certain that you really see
Exactly what that means: the pains I take
To make you happy and to find new ways
Of turning what might once have been dull days
Into delights for you, will never make
Me tired, nor are they at all a sign
That I doubt you will stay with me. Instead
They are how I express that you are mine
And are the meat on which my love is fed.
I fuss because I want to; please believe
It's not because I think you want to leave.

Timing

I cannot tease you properly unless
I let myself entirely confess
The depth of love I have for you. It's true
I could be meaner than I've been, but so?
My love is deeper than a simple screw,
And if that's all we have it will not show.
I joy in what we have, of course, and bless
The sense of hunger and of emptiness
That fills me when you're gone. All this you know.
But sometimes I don't think you really do
Realize how much I've let it grow,
Unless I choose a rougher way to woo,
Which does I will admit meet with success
But only when my feelings are express.

Over Again

The days are never long enough with you
But always drag whenever I'm alone.
I don't think I am saying something new,
Indeed, by now it's quite hackneyed and known,
But though I risk becoming just a drone
Repeating what's already been gone through,
I want to say it still. So do not moan,
The repetitions, though there are a slew,
Are only symptoms of my growing love,
Which cannot rest until it is expressed,
And searches for the words it cannot find
Until it just enacts the double of
Its prior self repetitively dressed
In common terms. I pray you, love, be kind.

John Donne

I could write you poems like John Donne
That pun quite wittily on Christian tropes
And yet I know you hate it when I pun,
Which dashes all of my prospective hopes.
For if you didn't mind it, I could tell
Of how for Easter one indeed has risen,
Or narrate a descent down into hell
Since lacking your grace is, like hell, a prison;
I could describe in paraphrase how your
Unwarranted and thereby purer grace
Has saved me from the fate I faced before
And how your mercy raised me up from base.
But you hate puns, and I must leave them by
Sometimes I ponder using them, and sigh.

Differences of Kind

There's only so much missing you that I
Can stand, but there are oh so many kinds
Of missing you that I can so. That's why
Prolonged and lasting absence always finds
A special angst in me that shorter times
Avoid; not simply - though somewhat - because
The mass of deprivation never climbs
As high in short spans as it always does
In longer absences, but also since
I find new ways at longer points to feel
The pains that all your absences evince.
The time without you often feels unreal
Because so many different ways to miss
You crowd around me. That's why I hate this.

Even If

Even if the world outside goes mad
And everything around you falls apart,
Even if the happy place you had
Begins to break, and almost breaks your heart,
Even if the safety that you've known
Becomes a chaos that you fear to enter,
Even if your joy is overthrown
And an infection deeply stabs its center,
Even in a universe opaque
And all unwilling to give you its aid
Where nothing gives and everything will take
So you are sad, despairing and afraid,
Know I am there for you to hold you tight
And keep you warm during the coldest night.

The Fault

There must be consequences; this I know.
But do not let them come today, O Lord.
On other days let venging tempests blow;
Today's a day that I cannot afford.
I know of course no man can pick the hour
Of his comeuppance, nor shall know the day,
But I ask not as if by my own power
I could cause a dilation or delay,
But rather plead for mercy. Let it be
Another time, some other day, and I
Will be as quiet as a lamb, and see
Only true justice in it, nor ask why.
But let it not be now, let me have this
This one suggestive moment of true bliss.

Again

There are some things I do not wish to do
Returning to the past is one of them.
It's not that I desire to condemn
That past, or that back then when I passed through
I didn't like it, but rather that to
Return my life to its previous stem
Would pain me. My life now is such a gem
That I would hate to part with it - or you.
So do not make me tread those paths again,
Or feign to be once more what I was then;
Do not revisit what has gone before
In present aspects; I remember when
Things were much different, but want no encore:
I like the way life is now so much more.

No Better

You are the best that I could ever get
Only because there's no one better left.
Of all the women I have ever met
Or could, you are the best. It is a theft,
Or feels that way, to take you for my own;
I cannot have deserved you, so it must
Be by some trick that you have finally grown
To love me too: I cannot call it just.
Rather I am the author of a sin
To make you mine so far beyond my right,
Nor can I even to myself begin
To justify how you could find delight
In me. So you're the best not just for me,
But out of all the women you could be.

Needle

I have seen mists shroud everything in sight
So that the Water Tower was obscured;
I have been deafened, so I never heard
What others said to me, and this despite
My every effort straining to get right
The almost-sound that carried past each word;
I have been felt all my senses unassured
Far more than in the blackest quiet night.
Yet no removal of my senses could
Alter the single sense I have of you;
Even in dark and silence, dear, I knew
Where you should be, and what it was I would
With you. You are the star that lights my being
In greater senses than mere petty seeing.

Topoi

I spend so many hours on my way
To visit you, with nothing else to do
Other than write. I have a lot to say,
And most of it of course pertains to you,
But even that becomes repetitive
For you to read after I write so much.
So I look out for other themes to give
A try to; yet I've never quite found such
A deep, inspiring, and delightful theme
As you and what you make occur in me.
And so I am defeated in my scheme
To lay those thoughts aside for poetry.
I fail the task, though it was self-assigned:
I cannot write without you in my mind.

Containment

I no longer really care if any
Other people know how we two feel.
Of course sometimes it's pleasant to tell many
About our love, but does that make it real?
No, it is loving that makes love increase
And sweetness that makes sweets pleasant to eat;
So long as we two love and never cease,
It does not matter how many we meet,
Or of those many, whom we choose to tell.
It only matters that we love each other,
And since we do, then everything is well:
We can tell everybody and their mother,
Or nobody at all. Boast or be still
Who cares? Our loving is an act of will.

Waverley

I wait with almost patience but do not
Even in my optimism see
A way to edge away from this dull spot
And find somebody interested in me.
Had you but come I would not now look for
This quite unlikely way to find some pleasure
But I'm not going to stay here anymore
Waiting for you to seek me at your leisure.
If you desire me, then tell me so
Do not assume I will be here forever
Or that by miracles of course I know.
When did you tell me? I can answer: never.
So I'll no longer dance attendance on
You here. Well, in a minute I'll be gone.

Waning

I'd like to think I won't in time forget
The joys of seeing you, in every sense.
But I must fear that very soon I'll fret
Myself out of my happiness, and fence
Away my pleasure from my everyday
Remembering only frustrated hours
When I did not know what I ought to say
And mere contentment seemed beyond my powers.
I know myself, alas, and know too well
How easily I fall into a funk;
If I will so again I cannot tell,
But I have seen before how I have sunk
And so I fear it. But this sonnet will last
To serve as beacon to a better past.

Reversed

It's easy now to tell you why I love
But far too sappy ever to confess.
Of course I still love you, nevertheless,
You know that, dear, but it's a model of
Excess to tell you quite how much I do.
And yet I do, so frequently that you
Are slightly mocking of my wild excesses
Yet let me say, it's worth your mockery,
Worth everything that you could throw at me,
Worth all embarrassment that deeply presses
Into my soul, worth all the teasing guesses
About my often-doubted sanity,
Worth all of that and more, to honestly
Tell you how much I find that your love blesses.

Tu Sabes

You know that I'm no good for you, of course;
I try my best, but I could hardly be
A compiler of good, much less a source.
Instead I suck the good from you to me,
And take unjustly what I can't produce.
I am a parasite upon your good,
And you accept my playing fast and loose
With what belongs to you. I wish I could
Know why you do - I know it's love, but that
Hardly explains its own base, root, or cause.
Sometimes this makes me feel an utter prat
More often, it just simply overawes.
But though I know you must know how I am
I'm grateful you don't seem to give a damn.

Generic

I wish it would just end;
By now it should be done.
The way frustrations tend,
For me and everyone,
I would have thought it might
Have burnt itself all out
Or disappeared at night
By some unrealized route.
Instead it is still here
And I am sorely tried
By having my good cheer
By other hands denied.
So it is unabated
And I must be frustrated.

Potsherds

My poetry is only so much trash
Except where it connects at last to you.
If I burnt the page and left the ash
There would be nothing lost except a few
Moments when you saw yourself in there,
And smiled to see my love expressed in print.
There is no art, no purpose save to share
That love with you. Its virtue's in the hint
It gave of my intention, not the words,
Which I so valued when I wrote them down.
They are but scattered unadorned potsherds
Whose only meaning is to say a town
Once rested here. Their only good is how
They told you that I loved, and that's done now.

4/20

You wanna bet those guys are high right now?
I hope they are: such giggling inane
Remarks would be easier to allow
If they were either drugged or else insane.
I think the former: recognize the day,
And how they speak. Not what, but how. Think of
The rambling, the hiccups, and the sway
Inside the words. They fit it like a glove,
A sad cliché but one I doubt they could
In this their current state, strain to recover.
Nor do I think, as is, they really would,
For pot in people's minds oft seems to hover
Regaling their good sense with its wild tales
Of silliness in adolescent males.

Fondered

How many boring hours must I spend
In whiling away myself while you are gone?
I know these days will, in time, have an end,
But for the moment all they do is spawn
An utter boredom that I cannot shake.
The poems I inevitably make
Will not, cannot, be quite enough to turn
A day of boredom into something better
While I am battered in this quiet churn
Tied in my boredom by your absent fetter.
It never is your fault; I cannot blame
You or the fates, but merely my own soul
Which without you feels trembling and lame
Far from its sense of purpose and its goal.

No Secrets

There are some people in whom I confide;
You are not one of them. But hear me out:
Those I confide in I call to my side
To tell my problems, and my secret doubt,
To pour my fears into their willing ears
And lean on in the hardest times of life.
By contrast, you already know my fears.
I talk to you regardless of all strife
And of its absence. I will talk to you
Telling you everything no matter what.
What I confide to them you always knew.
So I do not confide in you, then, but
I do much more. I have no secrets of
My soul left to confide in you my love.

Over and Over

What are you looking at over my shoulder?
I swear there must be something there, else why
Do all your spirits seem to wilt and moulder
As whatever it is goes passing by?
It cannot be the look within my eye,
Because you will not meet them while you stare
Out past my head. But still you try to lie
And tell me there is nothing over there.
Do you imagine that I do not care
Why you are peering past me in the gloom?
I'd rather be with you than anywhere
So it disturbs me quite when you entomb
Your eyes in nothingness and will not see
The person standing right before you: me.

Wheres

When you disappear, I worry, dear;
I wonder where you went and why you did.
It isn't that I harbor any fear
That I'm the reason you went out or hid,
But rather that I'm worried for your sake.
I want to help you, and to make you happy
No matter what that might, at some point, take.
I know that this must come off kinda sappy,
But that's a risk I'm willing to concede.
I don't know where you are, but I do know
Wherever that may be, I'll always need
To be there for you when you choose to go
And when you choose to stay. Come back to me
So we can be together happily.

Like the Rain

I love the rain. Even a drizzle seems
A pure delight at times. But make it warm?
Not hot - the rain's not scalding in my dreams -
But warm enough that when it is the norm
I will not freeze to death or catch a cold.
I'd rather see a sunny sky than that,
Though in the main, I will admit, I hold
A sundrenched sky's uninteresting and flat
Compared to rainclouds out on the horizon,
Grey as Athena's eyes, and puffed with rain
As high as head upon a Heffeweizen,
Ready to in an instant moment drain
Their lovely waters on the earth below.
O, on warm day, let all the raindrops flow.

Scents Memory

It smells vaguely of citrus on the train.
My mind insists on wandering back to
The time I saw...but there lies too much pain
For me to think about it. If I knew
That this would happen; ah, but knowing would
Change everything. I can't imagine that.
I stand again where once before I stood
And see the same things that I once stared at
But everything is different. I did not
Want to be here...by why would that change things?
It hardly matters what it is I sought,
Only the smell, the thought, the pain it brings.
Where was I? On the train? Well, let it go.
The pain is all that's left now, dull and slow.

Broth

I do not bake because I am in love
Nor do I love simply because I bake.
To cook with you is not a promise of
My adoration; I don't always take
A lover when I join a fellow baker.
Rather I find this solace just in you:
Only with you do I feel like a faker
If I deny that everything I do
From choice of recipe to how we eat
Is centered on your appetite and wish.
Only your taste determines bitter, sweet
And savory. For you I make each dish
And you I love - but baking's not the reason
Rather I find my taste in how you season.

Bounces

Where is the virtuous rationed restraint
I felt I used to have? It has departed,
To go I know not where; and yet I ain't
Even a bit, a smidgen, broken-hearted.
Of course I'd rather be reliable
In my good sense and common rectitude,
But somehow I am glad that I am pliable
And all in all a far more hoopy frood.
I let desires that I have exist
And even exercise them if I can;
My knickers are not always in a twist,
So being thus I am a happy man.
I'm sorry if my non-restraint's annoying
But I'm too busy with you over-joying.

Dam

Why did you harden Pharaoh's heart, O Lord?
If he was willing, why did you persist
In making him refuse? Had he ignored
The great decree to let all men exist
Too long to let him have his reason then?
Was there a purpose to make him say no
And thus to punish Egypt once again
For not letting your chosen people go
When he was ready to be free of us?
We know that you are great and glorious,
But why, O Lord? Why make them suffer too
When at long last our pain was ending? Why?
I cannot understand it. Why did You
Harden his heart and make their firstborn die?

Dayenu

It would have been enough to set us free
It would have been enough to bring us out
It would have been enough, as we can see,
To give to us Shabbat, without a doubt.
It would have been enough to sing hosanna
To save us from the Pharaoh's angry bands;
It would have been enough to give us manna
When we were starving in the desert sands
It would have been enough, O holy Lord
To grant us Torah, and with it the Law;
It would have been enough without the sword
To give us Israel through might and awe.
It would have been enough for us to serve
But God's great grace does more than we deserve.

Numbers

They wandered forty years, because they built
A calf of gold waiting for his return.
Imagine if you will the pain, the guilt,
Those aged few had lived at last to learn
Before they died and Israel could go
Out into Canaan. Then they quailed again,
And even Moses God would only show
A glimpse of what he promised. Ah but then,
Under great Joshua they took the land,
And marched past Jericho, stopping the sun,
So God delivered with a mighty hand
More than the strength of Israel had won:
The land of milk and honey he had sworn
Would be theirs ere their fathers had been born.

Moses

All boys were to be killed - and so she hid
Her firstborn son in rushes in the Nile
And set her daughter to see that he did
Not drown. There came toward her after a while
Pharaoh's own daughter, who discovered him,
And took him for her own, raised by a nurse
Who was his mother. In his age his vim
Did not allow him to permit the curse
And whipping of a slavedriver to slay
A Hebrew - and he slew the overseer.
He fled, but was sent back by God to say
What Pharaoh was not soft enough to hear:
To let God's people go, by God's command
Who led them out thence with a mighty hand.

Exodus

There rose a Pharaoh once who did not know
Joseph, and he looked on Israel
And saw a foreign people. "They have no
Connection to the land, and who can tell
What mischief they will wreak?" he said "so let
Them be our slaves, and kill each boy they bear
So they will not grow larger." Thus he set
Them under him, and none were found to dare
To throw him off. Yet God heard Jacob's call,
And sent down Moses out of Midian
To with a mighty arm remove them all
From Egypt with a sky obsidian
And many other wonders. They would roam
For forty years - but then they found their home.

Four Questions

Why's this night different from all other nights?
On other nights, we may choose what we eat
From either bread or matzah, but by rights
Tonight is only matzah. Either sweet
Or bitter herbs, on other nights, are right:
Tonight we eat only the bitter herb.
On other nights, we lean or sit upright
Tonight our leaning we must not disturb.
On other nights, we do not dip our food
Not even once; it is not customary.
But on this night it would be beyond rude
Not to dip twice: this custom does not vary.
So says the youngest of us who is able
Every year around the Seder table.

Small Talk

When I write sonnets of the sun and moon,
Or how the wind is howling in my ears;
When I imagine slowly ticking years
Full of the humid fruitfulness of June,
When I describe the shrieking of the loon,
The weather on the point, or ticking gears
Locked in their motion, when I speak of beers
Turned into bread, or how some singers croon,
Know I am thinking then of you, not them.
For all my poetry, on every theme,
Fiction or non-fiction, memoir or dream,
Has you as its originating stem,
And every syllable I set in ink
Ties to my love by that connecting link.

Forgive My Unbelief

I can't believe I'm still in love with you
Not from some doubt that says I shouldn't be,
But rather since, each time I think it through,
I wonder how I'm still made so happy.
I would have thought by now my love would burn
Less hotly, or have burnt itself all out.
Instead - as I was very glad to learn -
It burns more brightly now. I used to doubt
That being with you could be half as good
As thinking that I was with you; but no.
I find it's better than I thought it could
Have been, and I'm in shock that it is so.
So please forgive my unbelief - I'm just
Shocked by the joy that comes from love and trust.

Author

I wish I had a poem in my head
To write out on this page, so blank, so white;
I have a line or two, which you have read,
And now I'm empty, unhappily light.
I ought to be inspired, since I am,
In my own life, ecstatic, full of thrills.
And yet this poem doesn't give a damn
It won't let me record those heats and chills.
Instead it wants to ramble on and on
About itself, and how I should have written.
If poems were like people, and could fawn,
I'd say that this one simply was self-smitten.
And yet I let it write itself this way
So who's to blame? I really could not say.

Grey/Gray

I live inside a fog when you are gone
A real pea-souper, old-style London fog,
In which no sign of sunset nor of dawn
Can penetrate the dark that seems to clog
My every faculty: I do not know
If it is day or night or in-between,
For either way my world's a dull grey glow,
And anyway, what would a daytime mean
To one who's sun is elsewhere? How could I
Claim to be warmed or lit when you are far?
I only sit and stare - at nothing - sigh,
And wonder how you're doing where you are.
So do I really live? Why yes, I do
I live my love vicariously through you.

On Hendiadys: A Little

Technically, hendiadys is a rhetorical term, so it's not strictly something about the sonnet, poetry, or the blog medium, which are the usual topics I discuss here. But it is a consideration that comes up frequently in my experience of writing the sonnets for this blog, so I feel a small discussion of it is not out of place.

For me most frequently hendiadys comes up not in its pure sense (choosing between a noun and an adjective) but in a slight variation: choosing between an adjective and an adverb. This is because, to use Wikipedia's example, "The Sound and the Fury" becoming "The Furious Sound" changes both the emphases and the syllables of the phrase, while by contrast turning say "dully flat" into "dull and flat" does not. This means the choice occurs more often in the latter situation, since the meter does not demand either and it is a true choice.

I find that the adverbial construction unsurprisingly tends to emphasize the adjective, while the parallel construction emphasizes both - which is a greater relative emphasis on the (now ex-) adverb. But I also find often that the adverb flows more strongly, while the adjective causes a pause, or at least permits one, and that the parallel feels odd in some way. So I tend to default to trying to use the adverb, not that I always do. But the distinct tonal shift I hear between them - the one that makes the doubled adjective in parallel sound so strange - may be only an aural tic of my own.

Of course the elephant in this room would be "dull, flat" with the parallel, non-conjunctive form. But that, while it is probably the neutral spot between these two, also affects the meter differently, so I can't use it as easily to arbitrate. Still, it cannot be forgotten, and probably means that all this discussion is about a small percentage of all constructions. But it's still worth thinking about: what do these small changes mean?

Vanilla

I am a boring man, deep down inside.
I know my likings, and I choose to do
Mostly what I know will please me. Tried
And true solutions seem the best to me. A few
Well-tested and well-known solutions are
Enough for me. I usually choose
Domestic, simple things. I do not bar
Myself from new things, but I like to use
That which I know already if it's good.
And since I've known myself a long time now,
I'm well aware of what it is I would,
And what I can, do - and, yes, even how.
So do not look for much surprise from me:
I'm comfortable with what it is I'll be.

Cold Outside

Today of all days there are two of us.
No more, no less, exactly what there should
Have always been. I think it's obvious
That two and only two is what I would
Prefer. You know I love to see you here,
And so you also know I love to be
Close by your side, without another near,
So that the world contracts to you and me.
My happiness is at its most complete
When you and I converse alone together,
And though it may be sickeningly sweet,
I've come to like all this inclement weather
Because you want to cuddle close and stay
And let the rest of life just fade away.

Chat

The nights when you're in bed before I am
And there are many, I am sad to say,
Feel like the world has pulled a dreadful scam
To rob me of the purpose of my day.
The due reward for everything I pay,
The sweat, the effort: all it is I earn
Is to, at night, recite what I have done,
And hear the catechism you return
In our confessional: a one-on-one
Exchange of what it is we have begun
And what we'll do tomorrow. Without that
I cannot tell what was the reason for
The work I did - my life is dully flat,
And where I once felt rich, I know I'm poor.

Talkie

That day is incomplete which isn't shared
With you. If I can't tell you what went on,
What everybody did, and how they fared,
The day when all that happened is just gone,
As if it never happened. Telling you
Is half or more of all the joy I find
In everything I choose to say or do,
So missing it is hard. Unless cosigned
By your attention, nothing counts as done.
Of course I feel the same about your day:
I want to hear the stories you have spun
Out of the things that happened on your way.
And so when you are absent, what am I?
Both wells that feed my happiness are dry.

Watered

The rain depresses my inanity
And makes me ponder deeper than I would.
On sunny days, the world is wild and free;
The things I want to do I know I could.
But days like this are less silly, more sad
Yet only in the older, calmer sense.
I think about the options I have had,
With introspection, not ebullience.
Do not imagine that I hate the rain,
For without days like these, who would I be?
I fear my life would be naïve, inane,
And empty of the meaning I supply
On days like this. I love to watch the drip
And let the world possess me in its grip.

Instincts

I follow instinct poorly, when I do,
And even when I try it comes out wrong.
My analytic parts are far too strong
To let them go completely. I'd like to.
But I just have to think everything through
Even if sometimes I think it wrong.
So rationally I mosey along
And never know if instinct would hold true.
Yet is not thought an instinct on its own?
A reflex, at the very least, it is.
And so the thoughts that crackle, pop, and fizz
Inside my brain are instincts too. I've known
Myself for many years, and so I know
It's instinct in me never to let go.

Syllogistic Logic

We cannot see ourselves and cannot know
The wild excesses that our love can bring.
And yet I fear that, as in everything,
Once we have started, we can't take it slow,
And so those all around us will soon grow
Disgusted with us, and the way we cling.
Still I would not give up for anything
The hold we have upon each other. So
I must admit I find an impasse here,
For we will not, cannot give up each other,
And yet I cannot wish that we should smother
Our friends with such a feeling. It is clear
What the solution is, and I'll derive it:
Henceforth we must spend far more time in private.

Impulses

I try to touch you every way I can.
You've noticed how each time you're standing near
I find a way to put my arm around you.
When you're too far away, my hand will span
The space between us; if hands must be clear
Of bodies, then our heads will have to do,
And that's just when in public. As you know,
Whenever we're alone, contact will come,
With hands, arms, legs, and more intimate things.
I cannot bring myself to let you go,
And when I lack you, I make up that sum
By holding tighter when next fortune brings
Us both together. Lie with me, and touch:
There is no contact that can be too much.

Prophetic Soul

I knew a woman once who could see fate
Unfold in front of her, like on TV.
She didn't like it much, but if you'd wait
Around her, she would tell you what she'd see.
I heard some things from her I didn't know
And doubted, but they happened anyway.
I wonder now and then if I should go
And ask her once again if she would say
What I should do - she hated shoulds and coulds -
Based on the visions that she told me of.
I have, as she once told me, many goods,
But never did she tell me if I'd love.
I know she knew, but she would never tell,
Because she knew that knowing would be hell.

Forecasters

It wasn't going to be this cold today;
We were supposed to cuddle in the park.
But now the sky is overcast and grey,
And very soon it will be getting dark.
Tell me why it had to be like this.
Why did everything freeze so quickly?
It seems but yesterday that we could kiss
Under a sun that beamed approvingly
And warmed our weary limbs, when, tired but glad,
We slumped together on the grass outside.
When did the weather turn? I swear we had
More time than this before the summer died.
But it is chilly, and I cannot bear
To freeze while you pretend that you don't care.

Abbey

The arches spread their tops up to the sky
As if supporting something that's not there;
The tumbled stones are witnesses of why
What once was covered in now almost bare
Of any indication that might hint
At glories lost in former days long gone.
The windswept walls have almost lost the tint
Of paint, as that which swept them marches on:
The wind, forever howling and mad,
The rain that dribbles endlessly about,
The acid in the rain that strips the sad
Vestiges of what was beauty out.
I wonder what they thought that they had left,
Those men who raised the stones that lie bereft.

Unregrettable

Each day has moments that have slipped away,
Which could have been more gracious, or have been
Better commanded, better received, or may,
When thought of later, seem to usher in
A different feeling than they meant to bring.
I know these moments, and I feel them slide
Out through my fingers, almost ruining
The passage of the other times that glide
Less fraughtly past me. Yet the loss can't quell
The joy I feel so often when I see
That I'm with you, and you're with me as well,
And so each moment is spent wonderfully.
Perhaps some things aren't perfect, but I've seen
That other grass, and it is not as green.

Metatopos

I love the poems you reread at night,
The ones you whisper secretly, alone
In quiet syllables, without a light,
In moments when you want to toss and moan.
I like to linger in their writing, too,
And think of how you'll read them on your own,
And thinking of it, do as you will do,
Amazed to see my love once more has grown
Where I believed it maximized already.
Most of all, I think what was unknown
But has now been conveyed: a sudden, heady
Mixture of the unseen and the shown
Which motivates my writing, and which gives
The sense in which each reread poem lives.

Auld Lang Syne

I'd rather not obsess about the past
And yet my mind is ever drawn that way;
I cannot put by thoughts of yesterday,
And further back, I worry what may last
From what you were before me, and so cast
Some shadow on the present when I say
An innocent remark, that somehow may
In unknown context be a bitter blast.
So though I'd rather in an ideal world
Be ignorant of what has gone before,
Keeping our prior doings tightly furled
And clinging to each other even more,
I cannot risk it, or my mind won't let
Me put the past away. And yet, and yet...

In The Choosing

I ought to spend my hours fruitfully
Attending to the words I ought to hear.
And in some deeper sense, I ought to steer
By that good guidance which is offered me
From everybody's generosity
Which points me to a way, broad, paved, and clear,
Easy to tread, and lined with joy and cheer,
Which I should follow most religiously.
And yet with every step I fall away
From this soft path, and walk the harder route;
I keep self-counsel, not the common word.
I fear that path is flat because the herd
Has trampled it, and so I make my way
Myself, across the rocky field of doubt.

Proven

There have been hours - sometimes almost days -
When you were not the only sight I saw.
There have been minutes spent without your praise,
Or when your wishes were not quite my law.
Say, half a dozen times I've been with you,
And not spent every moment blessing fate;
I ever dare to say - it might be true! -
Some of those times I found it less than great.
Once or twice, although I doubt it's more,
I haven't thought to smile when you came
(But I'll admit, if someone's keeping score,
I may have grinned unthinking all the same).
But these are just exceptions to the rule
That for my love, the sight of you is fuel.

Statistics

The sky looks so enticing, yet I know
It lies to me about the world outside.
Too often have I seen that lovely glow
Only to feel the pain of light that lied.
I do not blame the sky - it's not aware
Of what I read into its burnished beams.
I simply blame myself for seeing there
A fond fulfillment of my warmest dreams.
Yet I will venture out, I know, to see
If this time is the time the light is true.
And who can tell? This once it just may be
To make me rethink what I thought I knew.
But on the off-chance that again I'm wrong,
I think I'll hedge and bring a coat along.

Borrrring

The time I ought to have slips through my fingers
And hours disappear alluringly.
Whatever moment I may dislike lingers,
While pleasant days are over too quickly.
I thought the days were long when I was young
But not quite middle age tells me I'm wrong.
Where once time waddled, it has long since sprung,
And only in displeasing is it long.
So why let angry days and boring nights
Maintain their hold upon my sullen mind?
Why let time lovingly count my despites
And countenance the way I am confined?
The answer's what my heart already knew:
Because those few short hours are with you.

Dubiousity

I wonder if I disappoint her still,
If anything I do is ever right.
There's something in me says I always will,
No matter what she says to me each night.
I cannot trust myself, although she does,
To do what I should do, because I know
How foolish I can be - how dumb I was -
And so I think that folly will still show,
After some interval and make it clear
How much I am not worthy of her love.
I know I'm hardly good enough - not near -
And someday she will be awarer of
My folly, and be disappointed then
I fear it is no if, but just a when.

Pacific

The flow within my brain I cannot dam;
It rushes like a river to the sea.
It is a central part of who I am,
And will be so to him whom I will be.
I write these poems in my misery,
And in my joy they also will appear;
When I feel light I write parodically,
When deep and dark, my poems make it clear.
Nor do they simply mirror what I fear
Or hope; they pour from me in endless waves
On every topic at all times. I peer
At them as from the shore their ocean laves
And see past the horizon a great flow, a
Mighty ocean; I am its Balboa.

Marie Antoinette

You want to have your cake and eat it too
And that's alright; the urge is quite expected.
But once that wish is carefully inspected,
I have to wonder how you're planning to.
What is it you imagine you can do
To have a cake once it has been delected
Or make it pass your stomach unaffected
And still be present just as good as new?
It's better far to simply eat the cake
And let its memory live in your mind
Than to pose for yourself this awful bind
Between what you can keep and you will take.
Enjoy the taste, and do not be confined
By this enigma: simply learn to bake.

Eccentric

I fear you are too much deceived in me
To find, as I now fear you do, some good
In what, I'm sure, is in reality
Great sinfulness, if it were understood.
The adoration that I give you should
Be properly directed otherwhere;
That's not to say, of course, I really could,
But that I ought to - and you ought to care.
The joy you find in my distracted stare
And how you claim to see in me what's best
Show that you think somehow my love is fair
Ignoring that great flaw that spoils the rest.
Yet as my love won't change, I find I'm glad
That you draw good from what in me is bad.

Pastiche

Silence is no herald to my joy;
It is the cause, it is the cause. Now I
In silence pass my day without annoy,
And do not doubt I do not wonder why.
Nothing will come of nothing: do not speak,
And nothing willl come out, so it is quiet.
I give much thanks it did not stay a week,
But left, and now the house will hear no riot.
I have not drunk a hundred words of his,
For he has not a hundred in his tongue,
And yet the point and period now is
That he is gone and my aged ears feel young.
I know the sound, but now I know the silence
Without the need for desperate acts of violence.

Missed Connections

The lady chose deliberately not
To look me in the eye, acknowledge me
Or otherwise express a single jot
Of anything - but I could tell that she
Knew what she did, and chose it, rather than
Not having seen me. No, she turned away
With that close-studied blankness which I can
Decipher easily is meant to say
Nothing at all, and mean that nothing too.
The lack of eye contact - not quite avoided
But rather simply vacant - says she knew
What she was doing, and she had steroided
Her slight indifference to make it giant;
Unwilling to admit it, but defiant.

Four And Twenty Blackbirds

Oh, I will sup on parrot meat tonight
Sauteed, perhaps, or fricaseed, or raw;
I hardly care, for I will gladly bite
No matter what; just let me finally gnaw
On that damn bird, and I will deal with feathers,
Bones, beak, and claws, I hardly care at all.
With every high-pitched squawk my conscience weathers
And very soon I will not hear its call.
Then there will be a parrot dead and gone,
Another bird plucked and consumed for dinner.
I cannot let it see another dawn
For one of us two must emerge the winner
And so it will be me. This bird will die
Perhaps I'll simply bake it in a pie.

Peace

I feel a pulsing roar within my ears
That urges me, go onward and destroy.
I try to block it out, but it adheres
To every surface in my mind. I toy
With giving in to it, and breaking things
Ripping to shreds whatever suits my will;
And when I think of that, destruction sings
Inside my soul, and I cannot be still.
The beauty of the uncreative urge -
That wish to shatter what others have wrought -
Is what will make of me a thanaturge
Desiring to reduce all things to naught.
If I could but find silence, then perhaps
I might be better - but the noise entraps.

Threats

I'm going to kill this bird - I swear I will.
It will not give me peace, by night or day.
It is a choice of me or it to kill,
And in that case, I much prefer to slay.
Its chirping keeps me up for half the night,
And worse than that, all day it deafens me.
It seems to scream at me out of pure spite
A more annoying creature could not be.
The few times it says words I do not mind,
Even though it just repeats its name,
But when it simply squawks I want to find
A roasting pan, and treat the bird as game.
I want to break this cockatiel in half
And in the coming silence, madly laugh.

First Aid

Alone, my fingers cannot paint the sky;
I cannot reach the universe myself.
Nor can I linger here, eternal elf,
To watch the eons as they wander by.
I'll never alter continents, or force
A river from its smoothly flowing course,
And though I do the best I'll ever do,
And make that best the best that it can be,
I have no high or mighty destiny
Which will by my endeavours become true.
But in conjunction with another hand,
I can be more than I have been before,
And where I once could neither speak nor stand,
With help I could do both - and maybe more.

The Sleepers

The sleepers sleep beneath the stone
They do not answer mortal calls
They hear a music all their own
Composed of distant waterfalls,
Of earthquakes otherwise unfelt,
Of oozings from the nether deep
And glaciers creaking as they melt
During the dark eternal sleep.
But as they listen to the dark
Their minds, unconscious and unknowing,
Slowly expand and make their mark
On rock about them ever-flowing.
The land is shaped and wrought, 'tis said
By those who sleep beyond the dead.

Tell Me, What's That For?

Sleeping is an evil, but a necessary one
A pleasure in performance, but an evil all the same;
It takes away the time for other pleasures to be done,
And counterfeits a virtue under an assuméd name.
For sleep and rest are far apart, yet sleep would claim the title
Of being rest - a virtue sure, and wonderful to feel -
And under color of that name would seem to be both vital
And virtuous, and therefore by pretended good would steal
Into our lives at evéry occasion that it can.
I do not mean we should not sleep; I do not wish to die,
And as Macbeth found, sleep will help the better part of man,
But still I see how much I sleep and have to wonder why
For when I sleep, even with you, unconsciousness will bar
Me from my rest since it prevents me knowing how you are.

Stop Motion

A minute is a lifetime - or a few
When I am waiting for you to arrive;
I almost wonder if I'm still alive,
Because my heartbeat stops when far from you.
How is it that I have not aged a day
When twice my life has passed before my eyes?
I look into my mirror with surprise
Seeing brown hair where I expected gray.
Yet why is it I chide the hours for
Their long dilation when it seems I bide
Within some vault whose magical inside
Vacates the time that should have gone before
And leaves me younger than I ought to be?
But please return, and bring back life to me.

Warranty

Too too much schlock can wear upon the soul,
Grating against the better parts of man.
Excessive sap can also take its toll,
And so too over-adoration can.
If all of this is dangerous to do,
Why is it that we still engage in them?
Why do we serenade, pursue and woo;
Why do we not instead ban and condemn
The impulse to express in overplus
Our sentimental selves? Why do we let
Such subtle, harmful, and insidious
Tendencies to settle and to set
Within us? Why? Because they're far too pleasant
In every moment when they are still present.

Movements

Merciless the hours move by me
As insignificant I watch them go.
I cannot stand across them yelling no,
Yet were that a possibility
I would encourage them to stop and see
The seeds they planted germinate and grow.
Because I try to stem that tide, I know
Just how intense a minute lived can be
When it is spent with you. Oh, it is vain
To seek to slow the impetus of time,
Which will sweep on, a second in a second.
But if a poem freezes in a rhyme
The instant that it was conceived and reckoned,
In this my time with you will live again.

Weathervane

Buffetted by warm winds all day long
I stand and feel the breeze flow through my hair
Imagining that nothing can be wrong
In such a pleasant and a wholesome air.
Yet even as I frolic in the wind
I cannot hold too close to this conceit.
I know too well how heaven can rescind
Its blessings, and make happiness retreat.
So should the wind now warm turn sharp and cold,
Or day turn suddenly to close-shut night,
My current joy, made obsolete, would fold
And rise as sadness as I prayed for light
And heat. But still despite the chance of turning
I revel in the warmth within me burning.

Election

No words can witness and no tongue can tell
The whole extent of what I have to say;
And yet, of course, I try. You know too well
How much I babble in a normal day;
Now multiply that pure inanity
By several thousand, and raise up that sum
To its self-exponent. Then you will see
Only a part of what nonsense will come
When I try to express what's in my heart.
So though I fail to say it as I should,
Be kind, remembering I cannot start
To bring out what is in me. Call it good
If I but say my hope is in your grace
That takes my love and lifts it to its place.

Advice Column

Who am I to say to you
Do this or do not do your will?
I may cajole, flatter or sue,
But may not dictate good or ill.
So with that understanding take
This calm advice I give the weight
You think that it deserves, and make
That judgment underlie its state
In your esteem. I know full well
This is no scripture that I write
But still as far as I can tell
It's proper wisdom in my sight:
Love me, and take the love I give
And in joint joy let us both live.

Wide Shut

Having fun is just a ruse
We use to justify our choices;
We run far off from all bad news
Ignoring all dissenting voices,
And there sit and say we mean
Only to enjoy and cherish
Pleasant things, until we've seen
Whatever is unpleasant perish.
We push away all thoughts of ill
In name of fun, and pure denial;
And though I know it, I still will
Pass on understanding's vial
Drugged with deep unpleasant truths
Of ending loves and dying youths.

Realms of Gold

When were the hours long enough for this?
In what sweet country do the nights stretch out
In endless moments of sufficient bliss
As if pure joy poured from some open spout
To equal or exceed what happened here?
Is there a world in which this feeling lingers
In its full power, muscular and clear,
A tingling in the kidneys and the fingers?
If so, wherever this may be, or when, or how,
I'll find a way to travel there and be,
For I cannot endure it ending now
When once this paradise opened for me.
There must be such a time, and such a place,
For otherwise, whence came this spark of grace?

Glass Darkly

If I could find words lightly to express
The way I feel about you, it would be
But little in the way of tenderness
And nothing in the way of honesty.
In every poem that I write, I see
Some spark of it, but none contains the whole;
And so I struggle onward endlessly
Always in sight of, never at my goal.
It would be far too simple if my soul
Were easily poured forth in words and phrases;
The virtues that I'm trying to extol
Are far beyond me, and my honest praises
Cannot reach to the mountaintop they seek:
And yet I must, and will, attempt to speak.

A Little More on Meter

So the last line of the last poem I wrote raises an interesting quandary, or at least question: what meter is it in? The line is "Even just a parenthetic smile," and the answer you give (which can differ!) depends on three factors: how you pronounce "smile," what the surrounding context is, and how free your scanning is.

First of all, it makes in this instance a great deal of difference how you pronounce smile. Is it one syllable (smyl) or two (smy-uhl)? If it's the former, we have a couple options: this could be iambic pentameter with a missing first unstressed syllable, trochaic pentameter with a missing last unstressed syllable. Alternatively, if it's two, we again have two options: iambic pentameter with a missing first unstressed syllable and a feminine ending, or pure trochaic pentameter.

Usually we would say it's best to just take the simplest scansion: in this case, trochaic pentameter. But that's where context comes in. Pronunciation of smile is not done in a vacuum: we have to pronounce "worthwhile" in the line before. Now obviously the choice here is more dialect-based than a true free choice, and "worthwhile" gives us either pure iambic pentameter (two syllables) or a feminine ending (three) and fits in perfectly well with the preceding 12 lines of iambic pentameter. But there's the rub: in my dialect at least, that's a feminine ending (it's three syllables) so we must pronounce smile with two syllables. Yet then it wants to be trochaic. But the poem likes iambs a whole lot.

Here's where freedom in scansion comes in. If you're free in the sense of saying "ignore that context, scan the line as the line," hello trochees. If you're free in the sense of "ignore that easy, logical, obvious trochaic scansion and twist the stupid thing into iambs," well, you have to add and subtract syllables. Eek. So it's a matter of your choice of what is fixed: the rule of cleaner scansion or of coherent context. Personally, I say it's a sonnet: the meter is fixed, so twist away to make iambs. But it is not always an easy choice, especially with less fixed forms of poetry, or more confusing lines (imagine if half the lines were like this: would you twist them to iambs or the others to trochees?).

Zzz Zzz

Every time I glance down at my phone
To check my messages, I hope you're there.
And when you're not, I often sit and stare
Because just looking I feel less alone.
I listen closely for that lovely tone
Which means I have a text, and then I glare
If it is anyone but you, because this care
Is all in search of you. I only hone
My hearing to hear you - bugger the rest.
I want to see what you have sent to me,
Whatever (and whenever) that may be,
Rereading messages with interest.
So text me something, so my wait's worthwhile
Even just a parenthetic smile.

Memento

I jumble up the hours and the days
Remembering sometimes a year ago,
Sometimes a moment. Each memory stays,
Unwelcome visitor, until I know
Exactly where it came, where it will go,
What use I ought to make of it, and why,
What light on present issues it can throw,
And where within my bosom it will lie.
From all of these I craft a sense of I,
And turn its focus ever onto you;
I can recall each time you made me cry,
And whether I was glad about it, too.
But mostly I recall, no matter when,
That smile of yours, and wish for it again.

Quotidian

Even when there is no time to spend
I know I'll talk with you far longer than
Is justified by you being my friend.
I ought to cut back - I no longer can,
But I can't muster up a sense of sorrow
About the thought that we will talk again
No matter what the circumstance, tomorrow.
I will be overjoyed to hear you then,
As I am always, since I am addicted
To your sweet words and how they touch my soul.
The weakness I have here is self-inflicted;
I don't know when, because the feeling stole
Into my heart some time ago. It's bliss
To talk to you even without a kiss.

MIT

I do not worship in the way of you;
I'm not sure that we even share a god
Yet when I look at what you say and do,
I know that this is right. It might be odd
To say we think the same when we are based
On different premises, and yet I feel
When we approach the problems which we've faced
The similarities are far more real
Than any difference that might lie beneath.
So while I don't deny - no, I embrace -
The ways we differ, none of them have teeth
Enough to bite my nose to spite my face.
We share our moral sense, and that's a sign
That it is right that you should still be mine.

Foggy Weather

You cannot see the water from the street.
The buildings disappear into the sky
As if their builders left them incomplete
To baffle tourists as they pass them by.
The street itself is clear as day can be,
But everywhere beyond the instant need
Is bathed in greyish unreality
And its existence is a point of creed.
I cannot prove the water is still there,
Or that the buildings rise up to a point,
But if it isn't out there anywhere,
Or they are cut, then something's out of joint.
We take the world's continuance on trust,
Not from conviction, but because we must.

Spenser

The bird squawks loudly on his lonely perch
Unhumaned and unhappy in that state.
It is the pulpit of his empty church,
From which he enters into self-debate
Of whether man is worthy of himself,
And if the parrot models off the man;
Whether he has been stuck up on a shelf
Where no one thinks to reach for him - or can;
And other great dilemmas - most of all
Whether his human will return to him.
In plaintive song he sermons forth a call
Which but returns with a diminished vim.
Like him, I chirp away my useless words
For loneliness is not only in birds.

Formalities

I cannot ask you rightfully to be
Forever with me; that is wrong to ask.
And yet that sets me to a harder task:
To figure out how I can properly
Say just how much I want you here with me
Without requesting that, yet never mask
The deep desire that I have to bask
In your dear presence, loving guiltlessly.
Pretend I've squared that circle: let me say
I love you, and I want to be with you
And yet do not imagine I want to
Leave you no time to wander your own way.
Assuming a solution lets me spend
Less anxious times in searching towards that end.

Newly Improved and Corrected

I won't pretend it might not be worthwhile
To hold my tongue more often than I do,
To sit around and more silently file
My thoughts away, and not make much ado.
Of course it's about nothing, in some ways;
It always is, and that's how it should be:
Too much solidity obliquely strays
Into an overworked solemnity
And cannot extricate itself as well
As light, unrooted speculation can.
If this has worked for me, I cannot tell,
But this is why I hate a blanket ban.
Perhaps it's better being quiet, but
It's very hard to keep my damn mouth shut.

Loop the Loop

I'm spinning out of what was once control
Down in a headspin to a field of black.
I feel the suction pulling at my soul
And the dull ache of wanting to go back.
There is no part of me that's fully whole,
So all of me at once feels partial lack.
I cannot execute the proper roll
To right myself - the stick has too much slack.
And if I wreck, then what has been achieved?
What value is there in another crash?
Will I be missed? Bewailed? Remembered? Grieved?
Or will I be devoured by the smash?
I can't pull up, and so I will find out.
I only wish I didn't have this doubt.

Disappointments

Why am I still pining after you?
The theory was, once we were hand in hand,
That wouldn't be a thing I'd have to do,
But it still is, and I don't understand.
Why are you distant from me, why must I
Always be chasing what I caught before?
Was every prior promise just a lie,
And am I crazy that I wanted more
Than just a different name attached to less
Than we had had? Is it ridiculous
To want a piece of greater happiness
And call it by the simple name of "us"?
And if it is, then why am I still here
Pursuing what will never let me near?

Paris Metro

I see a face I almost think is yours
From some half-angle down and far away.
This apparition seemingly encores
A dozen times each ordinary day.
Each time I yearn to run across to you
Only to see, on second glance, I'm wrong.
And yet the next time I will want to too
You'd think I'd learn from this before too long.
Yet I can't help myself. Again I see
Another face that's almost yours, or seems
To share a something of you, and of me
For it's the face that haunts my waking dreams.
I persevere in seeing you because
Of all the joy I felt the time it was.

Slipped

I fear your leash has no dog following;
You've spent so many hours leading it,
Loving its moods, enduring hallooing,
Teaching it to roll and beg and sit
What will you do now it's no longer there?
I cannot tell you why it left your side,
Or how it slid from off the leash you bear
In vain. I do not know if it espied
Another dog and sought it on its own,
Or if it simply yearned to be more free;
It might have died and left you all alone,
Or be as lost as you, confusedly.
But if you'd like to hear advice, why then
Search for another dog to lead again.

Adjusting

I've spent too many hours in this way,
Sighing pointlessly to have you here,
Knowing deep inside what I should fear:
You didn't want to come here anyway.
It got so frequent I knew what to say
Before it even happened, and could peer
A little through the millstone to make clear
The reason why you would not come today.
So it is hard, in some ways, to accept
That, in despite of past experience
And reams of well-attested evidence
In whose accumulation I'm adept,
That you wish you were here as much as I:
But knowing that, I'm happy while I sigh.

Dualities

What could I say to you that would have done
As little as the sonnets that I wrote?
Or rather what is there under the sun
That could, as well as they have done, emote?
What signs could I have made that, all at once,
Could have expressed as much and moved as little?
I'm both a total unromantic dunce,
Incapable of moving you one tittle
And he who writes his heart onto his sleeve
Embarrassing himself, and yes, you too.
We both may wish that we could disbelieve
The double strangeness when I write to you.
Yet as time passes, their effect has waxed
While their emotion already was maxed.

Kissing

There's nothing quite as charming as a kiss;
No other way of such quite as much
In such a little package. I'd swear this
Before a judge, a jury - any such
Body. If they should demand from me
Some evidence of this decisive claim,
I would present the proof so palpably
That none might disagree. For it should shame
Any to fail to know this mighty fact:
That kisses are the currency of love,
And that as such they are the perfect act
To say forever in a moment of
Immediate, supreme, and rapid motion
For kisses show efficient, full devotion

IRS

My love for you must be some form of death
For that's this world's one utter certainty:
The unavoidable ceasing of breath
A slow, hard inevitability.
Yet I must love you, so it must then be
A relative of death to love so dear;
For this is also sure, definitely,
And to be certain, must be death I fear.
So now that I have made it very clear
That love is death, am I a suicide?
I long for love, and ache to hold you near;
I cannot be without you by my side.
Yet I yearn not for death, no, not in practice
So love must not be death, but rather taxes.

Howl

The day that I don't love you? That's the day
I don't know what to do. It empties me
To even think of it. What would I say?
How could my self continue to still be
Without that central, signifying fact?
Of course I know that life would soldier on,
My synapses would fire and react,
But something wonderful would still be gone,
And that which makes the bare biology
More beautiful, and higher, would be broken.
So do not fear that possibility,
Though these words linger having now been spoken:
To think of this is but disaster planning
To cope with what comes after my unmanning.

Folly Bergere

Many years ago I thought I knew
A few small things about how women thought;
Such confidence I had was dearly bought
From all the bafflement that I'd lived through.
I thought I had an idea what they'd do,
And what it was, by doing it, they sought;
I fantasized I knew how life was fraught,
And what of what I'd seen was false and true.
You probably expect me now to mock
That old imagination, and to say
That in the gap that's grown from yesterday
I've put that understanding into hock:
And so I have. But still I sympathize
With those naive and too-convenient lies.

Slow Hand

In endless hours washed with boredom I
Have spent an undistinguished, lazy life.
The shapeless clouds that waft across the sky
Sliced at the bottom with a butter knife
Have more direction than my empty days,
In which each evening is a pointless choice
Between undifferentiated ways
Of doing nothing. If I have a voice,
It's very quiet, and quite well drowned out
By day to day concerns that lazily
Slide by my eyes. I have no time for doubt
And no excitement to encourage me
To do, or act, declare, express, or say
A single thing. It's easier this way.

Comet

The days are brighter when my shooting star
Shines forth her beauty and her sweet delights;
She overwhelms both Phoebus and his car,
So days can't be distinguished from the nights.
But oh what nights, when she is in my sky!
There is no darkness, no, no shame or fear.
I gaze in wonder as she wanders by
And by her fulsome light my poor eyes steer.
By her illumination all is light
And I need neither bulb or candleflame
To see the love that swallows up my sight
Or note the joy that with her coming came.
So as she flares above me, all my hours
Are blessed by her beloved meteor showers.

White Walls

An empty channel broadcasting white noise
Could not be blanker than I felt that day.
The customary, effervescent joys
That coat existence had been stripped away
And all that I was left was tightness, pain,
And certainty that somehow I had been
Wronger than I dared to think: insane.
Even looking back I can't begin
To contemplate experiencing that
Again, and still surviving it. That raw
Exposure to my sadness simply sat
Within my soul, and with a hungry maw
Ate up my happiness. I pray it will
Never return; I cower from it still.

Internal Medicine

I marinate and stew inside my mind
And every thought infects the others' juices.
I cannot quite partition them by kind,
For they slide through whatever mental sluices
I place between them; all my thoughts conjoin
And make a common of their worse defects
So that I pay myself in too-clipped coin
No longer potent in its good effects.
I am devolved from who I ought to be;
The self of me has made itself the worse.
And though still recognizable as me,
I get less so the more that I rehearse
My problems in my mind, and make them grow
Larger than they really are, I know.

Juntamos

Oh, do not doubt my great desire
Nor my love for you unbounded.
I am but white if I'm a liar,
And any doubts are all unfounded.
Nor do I doubt, in honesty,
That you reciprocate the same;
I do not think you screw with me
Or make emotion just a game.
So let us set aside our worry,
And whatever else annoys
Depression, doubt, concern, and fury,
To bask in measuring our joys.
Be mine and I'll be yours as well,
Together we could pass through hell.

Unfair

I feel like I'm an imposition
Like I should just leave you alone
But look at it from my position
I thought that you wished to be my own
I had imagined you desired
To sit with me, as I with you,
And with our senses thus co-fired
Imagine nothing else to do.
But silly me, you wanted only
To have me when the rest allowed
And so somehow I feel more lonely
Possessing than when unendowed.
I thought I would be satisfied
But now I just feel set aside.

Buddha

I get so very tired of the way
That every time I get what I desire
It brings more cares. It makes me want to say
That I have everything I could require
And so I'm done. But no, it won't be so.
I'm not so lucky, or quite that well trained.
I have desires, and can't let them go
Nor am I sure that they could be restrained.
I want, I yearn, and so I set this up:
I will attain, and so be disappointed.
There may be half the water in my cup,
But how to say it? I feel quite disjointed.
It would be easy if I did not want
But wishes well in me as from a font.

1, 2, 3

I wouldn't really say this was a test,
But you can recognize the warning signs.
I know, of course, that you will do your best,
And that will be enough. Your virtue shines
Through even darkened glass, so how could this
Be any trouble? It will be alright,
And nothing that you do will go amiss.
I didn't make this, and it isn't quite
What I'dve done if it were me in charge,
But it still counts, and you'll be good at it.
My faith in you as always is quite large,
And trust me when I say you're good at shit.
So even if this is a test, you know,
You'll do just fine. You know just where to go.

Drip Drip Drip of the Raindrops

Some folks complain spring does not arrive,
As though the seasons answered to our whim;
Some say it makes them sad to be alive
When sunlight covered by the clouds is dim.
Too often many whine about the dark
And seem to think the clouds should serve their needs,
While others claim cold weather is too stark,
Yearning until some warmer stuff succeeds.
Most huddle under awnings for protection
From what they then disdain up in the sky.
None look upon the damp with much affection;
They say it shouldn't be there and ask why.
I don't care what the weather ought to be;
It's raining, and that's good enough for me.