Five Sonnets in Dimeter
Hitch-hiking into Franklin, North Carolina
Old Marlene,
she stopped for me
in her smoky green
Odyssey
and said to throw
my pack in the back
over the toe-
shaped urn that Jack,
her boyfriend, bounced
inside. “Okay.”
Then she announced,
“I’m on my way
to learn to deal
poker, and heal.”
Proof
The mallard pair
look so unlike:
his chartreuse flair,
her coffee cake.
But hidden with
a deft aplomb,
the stuff of myth:
a speculum
to prove their stars
aligned, a charm
each had in half.
So where is ours?
I lift your arm.
We laugh our laugh.
The Thousandth Time
But what if after
the fatted calf
and lavish laughter
we cease to laugh,
excitements flee
and grain and chaff
remain to be
threshed in stunning
monotony?
What if I’m gunning
for one more crime,
a wreck of cunning—
the thousandth time
will he be running?
Impressionable When I was supple
as new wet clay
one melody
could leave me a cripple,
stripped and lost—
and happy. When
can an air-dried man
be again impressed?
The thrill of bending
under that rush
of beauty’s push
should know no ending—
though half the charm
was taking form.
Keeping Face
Each day I sit
at this old desk
clawing at
my constant mask.
With luck it will
peel briefly off
only to swell
to some new spoof.
It grows from me.
What nourishes it?
Sheer vanity?
Unlearn, forget
the masquerade.
Outside is God.
Love this