Ceremony

I could of course imagine anything

From clouds of floating ink to mindful axes;

From soldiers ceasing soldiering to sing

To people happy to have paid their taxes.

I could imagine far beyond the real

Giving a shape to what had had no form

And grapple to my soul with hoops of steel

Those strange imaginings that keep me warm.

I could produce from nothing endless idylls

That would improve the world which I was given,

And though my Rome might burn while Nero fiddles

I would not notice how its fate was riven.

Imagination bodies forth the strange

To keep us calmed within abnormal range.

Verdict

Justice is blind, but only in that she

Should not weigh anything except what's true.

She does not choose it random, fitfully,

Nor does nor should she choose what she will do

Based on opinion or identity.

Justice is served we say when we've gone only through

The proper forms and done it honestly

In such a way that Justice will ensue.

Justice upholds the right. This means the law

Should not sway wrongfully, nor self-abuse;

If it is chance, or biased, that's a flaw

That means there is no Justice, or she'll lose.

We all know what we saw last May. And so

We know where Justice was--and we still know.

Panic

One thing that I did not expect:

I'm absolutely terrified

Of what this jury will decide

And then of what will happen next.

A few decisive lines of text

About how George Floyd lived and died

Now written down but not yet eyed

We'll have an impact so direct

I tremble with it. Even I

Though neither black nor Minnesotan

Can feel the history congeal.

This kind of day we know we try

The systems that the people vote in

If they can judge what's truly real.

Thematics

There is no single sonnet theme

No necessary topics here;

It could recount a weirdass dream,

The architecture of a pier,

The sense of being straight, or queer,

The hope of future joy, the pain

Of stubbing toes, the sense of cheer

That's generated by the rain

(Depression too), the constant strain

Of unrequited love, the fields

That stretch to Kansas, thick with grain,

The sound of battle, swords on shields,

Whatever else we can conceive

Can be a sonnet, I believe.

Rain

There's something calming in a good hard rain,

Something that simply does a body good;

That quiets an unquiet, rowdy brain.

I love to hear it rattle on the hood

Of the parked cars that line the neighborhood

Which will not move, as long as it goes on.

I listen longer than I likely should,

Out of the evening, deep into the dawn,

Until the rain itself is dried and gone,

And everything is quiet but my mind.

I watch the flowers bloom across my lawn,

Christened with rain, ecstatic, unconfined,

And know we are alike. The downpour brings

A quiet music to which all life sings.

Repeat after Lope

Caesar it was, who all the world exceeded

Though he stepped over Pompey to achieve it;

And both of them, as if more proof were needed

Of pointlessness (and I can well believe it)

Triumphed in turn on Marius and Sylla.

And in an age before, great Alexander

Conquered the same: Charybdis to their Scylla,

And evidence that time may well meander

But leaves no oxbow lakes. Time's river flows

Consistently, and leaves no one behind,

But in the process, we can see it goes

Back over paths that repeat and rewind.

So after Caesar, came Augustus, who

Conquered it all: but it was nothing new.

Alvin

Warm water oozes higher from the vents

That obfuscate the shape of what we see:

An underland, ectopic and immense,

Reaching up to dark infinity.

The beams our little lights produce illume

Only enough to show the shadows creasing

Across the oddly colored building bloom

Which toils unseen, unknown, but never ceasing.

The thick red lips of creatures in the seams

Make everything around them terrifying

It is an image never made for dreams

But for a nightmare where the world is dying.

We must ascend, and hope it will not follow

And wish the world, perhaps, a bit more hollow.

Bulbous

A little light

Is just enough

To pause the night

And see our stuff.

But if it fails

And darkness rises

Each poor heart quails

Before surprises:

A single chair

Slipped out of place

Will cause a scare

That loses face

And we all head

In fear to bed.

Suez

We cut a narrow path across Suez

To save ourselves from going 'round the cape;

We lined up ships like candy in a Pez

So tight that they (and we) could not escape

When finally a ship had grown too large

To navigate and spun out of control:

A ship? Without its steering, it's a barge,

And foundered on a non-existent shoal.

It blocked for days the passage at one end

Sending us back two centuries and more.

When these things happen we then all descend

Into the patterns we held hard before:

And so it is a miracle, I think,

We didn't all wear ruffs, or start to stink.

Geography

I miss Seattle in my bones

I mean I really really do

I have a sudden constant jones

For the PNW.

That does not mean I do not love

The Midwest, East Coast, or the rest

But rather that I'm fondest of

My roots back in the new Northwest.

I miss the pine trees all around

The rain that isn't really rain

The mountains framing Puget Sound

The coastal starlight on the train.

I love the life that now is mine

But now and then I have to pine.