sw00035usabys-13.feb.sonnets.4of25

4 of 25                                               

 1976 Today
                353 bicentennial year sonnets (47-60)

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February: Year-day 47

Whippets.  Dogs of war.  Flashes of delight.
Tricks of the mind.  Deceptions of the heart.
The charged astrophysicist's starry art.
The quickness of the swimmer, lean and bright.

Arrows of exertion.  Missiles.  A night
for the making of deserts.  The wrong part.
Bean soup floating a world of termites.  Start
today tomorrow.  Be kind to your sight.

If apple blossoms give peach blossoms fits,
perhaps the cherries will tear out their pits
and the oranges burst into umbrellas
and somewhere in a pineapple preserve
a banana with a kingdom of nerve
will detonate, you lucky gals and fellas.

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[ Since today is 2006's Thanksgiving Day,
  this prayer interlude:
  Lord Jesus,
  through each this moment along the way,
  thank You for Your gifts today. ]

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February: Year-day 48

Back to the usual, then.  Not because
it's easier but because it is calm,
and calm is what I need now.  Not a bomb.
There is no future in chewing what was,
or at least so I sometimes must believe.
Oh well, there are Green Stamps of the emotions
to save too.  I can't always live in oceans,
skipping ropes, cheering, crying on my sleeve.

That is the matter, isn't it?  Too much
unsanity tends to disintegrate
the experiencer of it, abort
in sections his protected growth, steal crutch
and sling and medicine from him, deflate
his sense of being, force him/ to cavort.

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February: Year-day 49

Question:  Will I actually make it through
this year, writing a poem a day?  And if
I do, will I end up old, bored, and stiff,
and have more deadened than enlivened you?
I hope not.  Oh, I won't be going boo
around every corner, or paddling a skiff
through every marsh/ you walk near; but don't whiff
by unnoticing; I am somewhere, new.

You'll sense, just as you have before, the warts
on the great umber squash, the hummingbird
coptering near moss phlox, the crazy bat
yipping out of the mouth of night, the courts
of hard decisions.  Everyone knows, word,
image, play; everyone's a poet, a cat.

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February: Year-day 50

D. H. Lawrence knew it: (there is no "I");
and Buddha.  Yet jailed Christianity
has led me otherwise; now Robert Bly
corrects that through his Leaping Poetry.

So the "I" then is physically three:
the reptile brain, which fear of death turns high;
the mammal brain, which foetal sittings free
then pass; and the new brain, which lights the sky.

Out of black comes white; out of white comes black;
out of both, or neither, the bows of dew.

As we find ourselves going back and back
let us also grow delightfullly new.

Cold, warmth, light: to survive; to make love, whack;
to spirit.  Learn each.  Let the last imbue.

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February: Year-day 51

Numbers all night, words all day, my brains work
harder than most people would care to have
theirs work, and auditing isn't a salve
or vitamin for any decent quirk
I have, not near the ways poetry is.
I make a living from it for my wife
and myself; and signed-for future goods knife
gently enough from it; but I won't fizz
in my three brains, or my spirit, or heart,
nor bubble, nor least of all suddenly
gusher--as I do when words form the base
I apply or swallow; from which I start:
to heal what sores and cuts appear on me,
to strengthen from within/ my persons' face.

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February: Year-day 52

How many images have been lost, friend,
like the carrot of existentialism,
the cauliflower of discontent?  Send
those to me you remember.  There's a chasm
here worth exploring, I'm sure.  Let us make
our ways into it, stubbing our soft toes
on wild roses of granite, thoughts to shake
our dreamings, dreamings of heavy snows

to bury our thoughts, to insulate them/
so they can germinate at/ the far end
of winter, wending up a leaf, a stem,
a flower for us somehow to befriend,
to inspect for a thorn, a bee, a small hem
of difference, to walk new from, to lend.

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February: Year-day 53
(#4 of 15 I removed earlier this year)

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February: Year-day 54

We die a lot before we have to die,
trying to choose the sunlight or the shade
or that nuance of these which suits our eyes
as we play the games from "real" to "charades";
trying to stay alive while our hopes dry
and the directions of our movements jade
and questions and answers tumble and rise,
changing faces until our shocked flesh fades.

We die a lot before we somewhat live,
meaning to take less than we have to give,
thinking our thinking right/ when it is wrong/
as aftersight proves foresight did not see
we could not become what we ought to be
without hurt, once tricked by a sucker song.

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February: Year-day 55

Walking with Janice to our car, Powers
of Mind by Adam Smith in my right hand
with Jeane Dixon's Yesterday, Today, and
Forever to titillate a few hours
my future-tending, in-and-outing mind;
talking about the balmy air, and how
it moves the snow better than the truck's plow,
we crook to geese intruding/ from behind.

Two hundred about, I guess: as I'm asked
why they make so much noise--but then am told
questioningly, "Are they communicating?"--
and why their V formation: as they basked
in sight in the minus Celsius cold,
thrilling us with their ancient ways of dating.

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February: Year-day 56

No idea today; so here's a line
and here's another, closing up, preparing
for a third one running now as far and fine--.
Line four already, when three was just airing?
Why, we'll be out of the fifth before we've
had time to taste it!  And as for six, it's
gone!  What!  What shakes here?  What's up this guy's sleeve,
anyway?  Seven?  He's giving me fits!

Eight?  Sorry, too late, I'm number nine.  Oh,
heavens to lime'n'rum!  I suppose ten
is eleven, and the twelfth rat will show
somewhere inside the thirteenth ship again--
that bad luck phantom--so we barely know
where fourteen floats, or how, or why, or when!

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February: Year-day 57

Those who die in battle I long will honour.
Under the cedars, I will honour them.
Under the palm trees, I will honour them.
Those who die in battle I long will honour.

Those impaired by battle I long will honour.
Upon the sidewalks, I will honour them.
Upon the highways, I will honour them.
Those impaired by battle I long will honour.

It matters not/ that I label them fools,
that war to me means someone lost his heart,
that pools of blood are never more than pools
when hearts could have ensured they did not start;
they too required courage who honored rules
made from the first to tear people apart.

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February: Year-day 58

War?  I have spoken on it, but once more.
The only revolution worth Earth's while
is one the Proletariat are for;
the only revolution worth their while
is one of refusal, refusal to,
for any reason, bash a skull in, knife
a heart, blast to coral or burn to goo
another human, castrate someone's life.

The pleasure of the rich, the pleasure of
the politician be cursed.  In the wood
a thrush in song, a trillium for love;
in the air, terns, spearing the wriggling foam.
Jonathan Kozol writes; his words are good:
The Night Is Dark and I Am Far from Home.

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February: Year-day 59

After all is said, nothing's left to say,
and saying that takes all the words there are.
And if to answer means to throw away,
then throw away we must,just as a star.

If I, or you, or you, incant a dream
where every line's a masterpiece of breath
and every shade shakes passion out of seem,
the emptiness so filled will bury death.

And creatures of intelligence will grow
and (through their need to love) communicate.

And rightly felt, those triumphs garnered so
will join with all their elders who create.

And each of these bright wonder forms of know
will spin deep worlds of being/ beyond date.

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February: Year-day 60

So this is Sadie Hawkins Day.  What fun!
Yet, what disturbance!  How shall--?  We call this
leap year: the year, one would suppose, we'd miss--
by leaping, I mean--a day, not put one
in.  On the other hand, the ladies leap
on gentlemen this day--are allowed to,
that is--though I doubt there are many who
now, if ever, such a tradition, keep.

At any rate, we go about enjoying
it, as we can, making a feast of little,
or so its seems, although we're not quite able
to much explain--perhaps we are employing
a mystery, a special kind of riddle,
or symbol of--our clasped hands/ on a table.
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Brian A. J. Salchert