sw00047usabys-16.aug.sonnets.16of25

16 of 25                                                       

 1976 Today
                353 bicentennial year sonnets (229-244)

-
August: Year-day 229

Mr. and Mrs. Goldfinch dine on a thistle,
a Canadian Bull, just west of our
apartment, now and then notes of their whistles
lightly passing in to chase out the dour;

Janice and I chuckle watching them, him
in particular, as they flick down, poking
for seeds as the whisked down graphs a wind's whim
and the seeds crack as if/ on fire and smoking.

Olive-green yellow, charcoal black and white,
Mrs. appropriately harder to see;
Mr. (for courting) white, black, yellow bright,
roller-coastering in neat reverie.
Some things are especially to delight:
Mr. and Mrs. Goldfinch and, sometimes, we.

-

August: Year-day 230

I am the man who didn't know what's good
for him, and still doesn't, uninformed, weak,
not giving those worlds a chance which he should,
remaining silent when he ought to speak,
missing there what he'd certainly enjoy,
injuring enjoyments here with regrets,
daydreaming far too long about a toy
he could never be loved through, losing bets.

I am the man who may never know, dining
beyond his adequate means, buying pains
in commodities he can not long hold.

Why else do you think you'd find me here whining,
destroying my fields with my own harsh rains,
invading the sunlight with rays of cold.

-

August: Year-day 231

In the heart of my heart a red wind blooms,
a Jupiterian ire poised against
the deleterious Earth who assumes
too glibly still that it hasn't commenced
a nearly unstoppable death walk, set
as it too much yet is in "reason's" way
of turning while sub-s and supra-s are let
dangling in imaginations:  Hush pay.

Backwards goes the crab, futuring the past
in its primordial fancies.  On earths
as intractable as this one/ with its
diseased sight is/ I appreciate fast
reversals, the deaths of evils/ in births
of/ incredible beauty: night-wise wits.

-

August: Year-day 232

Ford and Dole; Carter and Mondale: McCarthy:
perfect subjects for reasoned worlds of song
such as this/ since each of them belongs
to a system of politics, is party
to a sort of logic despite his heart's
attempts at filling his lungs with the scents
of roses.  We've seen enough how they went
about and do/ to become special stars.

Position will make a star of one there
whether or not one wants it/ if the place
that position's ruled by is like this ball
of imposed importances.  All the care
in the universe won't disguise one's face
who presents himself to be seen by all.

-

August: Year-day 233

Precursor, owl of serendipity,
razor's edge of inter/personal signs,
image of you I follow/ by the sea:
here, with the dying summer, it is time
to make a position statement:  This land
of mine, this U.S.A., is being lawed
into schizophrenia, a scarred band
of murderers, no matter there's/ a Lord.

For pierced ears she needs her parents consent;
to end her pregnancy she doesn't.  Gay,
he's hated by/ some Christians.  I dissent.

Our shadows scurry around in a daze.
Miss Liberty's torch/ breaks off; shatters eyes.
Miss Justice, no longer blind, isn't wise.

-

August: Year-day 234

And the answer is:  I don't care enough.
Caught between worlds, tolerant to a fault;
too late in coming to terms with myself,
I cannot decide which direction will
benefit most, be a going less rough;
I cannot bring my regrets to a halt;
I cannot remove mistakes from their shelf
in my memory, make healthy/ what's ill.

So fears pushed confidence out of my soul
in those Fond du Lac fifties, closed and drab--
only here and there fulfilling with light;
and though writing poems is a constant goal,
it's only partially/ thwarted the stabs
of contradictions/ that make daytime night.

-

August: Year-day 235

Choosing priorities: the fight between
knowing neither wealth nor power nor fame
assures happiness and neither a lean
nor weak nor unknown status in the game,
however serious, of daily living
assures sorrow.  What's important is what
one does with what is, persistently giving,
changing, and building to/ overcome "but":

the qualifier that signals the naming
of barriers, excuses, indecisions;
that allows books of disturbing conditions
to delineate the terms of one's gaming
who has no sure answers, being impure
& unsettled in change, guessing each cure.

-

August: Year-day 236

Of course I want to kill and kill, and have,
though the bodies of my victims live on
because I soften each thrust with a salve:
a vaseline, a lie: I come upon.

Of course you have been killed by me, and will,
though you may not have noticed, and may not,
clambering to beat each other up a spill;
I'll zigzag to rattle you off your spot.

This purgatory's not for after life,
since equal chances for heaven and hell
are hidden in it.  So watch what you do.

Though every moment's a blessing: knife
and fork and spoon: I need, we'll know who fell--
unless we each to each here/ keep each new.

-

August: Year-day 237

To what world, if not this, do I belong
that I am not held as I want to be,
that I seek unions through fictions of me,
that I burn in silence over a song?

Though lives are short/ deep-crafted dreams are long,
clinging to the edges of memory,
magnificent pains from the mystery
of/ whoever made them.  I am star strong.

Arcturus, Betelguese, Sirius, Sun,
my whirling energies inform the years
beyond all matter of where I'm alive.

In my Rune God my existence begun
could not be altered by desires or fears.
Through this very line, He knew I would rive.

-

August: Year-day 238

Aah, people hassles, hassles with oneself--
all the lost pennies!  (Who knows where they are?)
the good moments turned from.  No, I'm no elf,
I'm--yes I am.  But when my mischief scars,
it rightly scars me longer than you.
Oh New York City, where confusions cram,
why was I/ so lonely?  Dream-wiled Cal--?  Who?
They are not numbers to this elf I am.

Blessed with a mind I sometimes suspect--eye--
it's no mind at all, blanked as it is/ so
easily by/ emotions misconstrued,
missed.  All the lost: Mt. Tamalpais high,
Greenwich Village; night upon night to stow
remorse in, hangdog in the farces brewed.

-

August: Year-day 239

Asked what I know, I find I want to blurt
so much to the passing asker, I ask
that question not be asked, the dubious task
of asking/ best/ being mine to assert
though I am touted "maker" / "namer" / "bridge
builder" / "shaman".  If someone's to tell time,
slithering/hoofing/singing on a ridge,
you've heard it said: "Genius will out."  Well, . . .

Creatures of polarities caught up in 
change, ambiguous, constant mysteries,
we are dull as air, we are keen as stones;
so sure I cajole us each to drop in
on each of our/ answers and questions, seize
what's wise/ even if it/ shivers our bones.

-

August:Year-day 240

As much as I moan, the luck of the draw
has placed me in a favored land, and given
me years and experiences to awe
the Fates, though I'm suicidally driven.

Do I want to/ be successful?  Yes.  Yes.
Not for money and fame, but for the sake
of this I believe in and you who press:
to know, enjoy, & use what/ I here make.

Editors too often only have time
to be turned on; so a writer's obliged
to find their switches & flick them as quickly
as she / he can as if it were a crime
such as Jesse performed, spiked with orange
and heavy with power carried off slickly.

-

August: Year-day 241

Discotheques of discontent/ & delight,
the moods of my minds, my hearts.  O, great day,
so clear, cool and full of commotion, site
ambassador of autumn on the way.
Am I lonely?  You better believe it.
Do I stretch with excitement?  Catch my eyes.
When a leaf tumbles, I tumble with it;
when a leaf burns yellow, I heat likewise.

If now I'm caught in the wrong style of living
for who I am, I've only me to damn,
slithering through my randy fantasies,
realities wounded by partial givings.
Nothing but superior luck/ could slam
the gates, it seems, against what/ scatters ease.

-

August: Year-day 242

"The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away,
blessed be the name of the Lord."  So we:
spirited bodies, bodied spirits, day
after day here challenged, poignantly free,
yet charged to obey, we/ ought to be Jobs,
ought to be beings radiant with thanks
despite enticements, hardships, sad-eyed probes
that darken love, without which/ nothing ranks.

To be at peace, each sacred moment lived
to the full, savored, made human, transformed
so self-indulgence, self-pity/ lose strength--
but I, all night at work harried, rush , give,
relish a rare calm me; yet, roiling, torn,
spew my relief with my job discontents.

-

August: Year-day 243

It is now November twenty-fifth, Jamie,
I don't mind telling you.  Time is a pointless
contrivance, no matter it's a bit gamey
for me to be doing as I am.  Jointless,
unattached, the parts of a man might fly
who knows how far, claim a sea there, a mountain
here, send an eye to a just-forming sky,
a tongue to the soul of a crystal fountain.

Kneel beside the meadowlark's tufted nest
pictured here in this book of U.S. birds.
For fantasies we often/ have no words.
What now is worst/ tomorrow may be best.
Bow to the East?  Bless the funereal West?
Singular, alien, we move in herds.

-

August: Year-day 244

Heading east?  Yes.  Jerusalem?  Mecca?  No.
Not even Ankor Wat, no matter they'd
be better places than D.C.  My soul
wants notice, access.  So job queries pay!
Can't be a reaction without an action.
Gotta care sometime.  Gotta care, and do.
Gotta use the strength of the one-man faction
if I'm ever to lastingly break through.

Heading east for sure it's looking like now.
Laurel's responded affirmatively.
It only takes one: so long shots excite;
yet, pointing all my hopes toward one small bough
wouldn't, I know, be a smart use of sight;
so I haven't, exactly, but we shall see.
-

16 of 25


-
Brian A. J. Salchert