sw00044usabys-15.jul.sonnets.13of25

13 of 25                                             

 1976 Today
                353 bicentennial year sonnets (183-197)

[ AM 9 Wednesday 2006-11-29 Note:  
Given that I often comment on my writings,
and given that I often revise what I have written,  
and given that sometimes I parody what I've written, 
I herein admit I have for some months been considering
using a Creative Commons License; but, until I can be
sure/ what I am writing is being read, why should I get 
such a license?  I know I am a maverick, but not a   
granite head.  I know an opinion I espouse today/  
I may on/ some tomorrow/ differently espouse.  I
understand that my intent to place online as much of   
what I in my soon-to-be 66 years have written 
(and continue to write) as I see is of value, even if   
others do not see it so, does suggest/ I wish/ to carry on   
an open conversation with/ others in the noosphere,  
a wish which a CCL would certainly make clear; 
however, I am not quite ready to make that move. 
Also, as I want to be sure you know the obvious: 
I find political correctness insidious.  So, if you  
want to call me turd, I grant you permission.  I do.    
My point here is:  Freedom of speech can only persist 
as freedom of speech when touting it is not undermined 
by subservience to/ opposing opinions.  I do not
advocate violence; but I do advocate tough love.
If you want a certain person, myself included, to grow in
knowledge and wisdom and whatever other goodly virtue, 
you must be willing to share, and not by saying: "Okay, 
we'll make it easier on you"; but rather by saying:
"Okay, you are able to do this.  Let's see how/ we 
together can enable you to do more."  Teachers must
always be willing to learn from whatever and whomever, 
but must at the same time be willing to lead forth, and not 
do so wimpily.  Have I been guilty of wimpy teaching?  Yes.  
I have been guilty of many reprehensible acts.  Pandering
is a vice.  Sometimes, this or that person considered me 
a genius.  I warrant you, I am no giant intellectually, or
any other way.  I am an INFP on the edge of becoming
an ENFP, for what that's worth.  Read what I write,
and if it makes you laugh, laugh.  Thank you.  Brian A. J. Salchert ]

-

July: Year-day 183

Today my doctor informed me the fluid
in my pleural space is solid, and long
been so, apparently.  Yet, what was wrong?
He'd like to see old X-rays.  There's a druid
quality in this wish, it seems, but I'm
as curious, too.  Positive responses
to TB skin tests don't just happen.  Nonces
that signal trouble mean something in time.

My various chest X-rays, it's true, were
negative, but I've been through periods
of respiratory hardship when I
didn't have X-rays taken, so a burr
of something other than TB the gods
could have stuck me with, though they won't say why.

-

July: Year-day 184

Poetic theories abound, as well as
styles: the animals, plants, and elements
of a part of a deepening realm.  Has
you not known?  Richard Kostelanetz, gents,
and I, have; and I am/ learning from him.
He'll guide you through beings and things that pop
your eyes and ears and sense of self.  You'll swim
walking, but walk on, and stop, stop, & stop.

So, Richard may not care for this old form
I've now for half a year worn and intend
to wear this coming half, declaring it's
the height of that reactionary storm
slashing at poetic beauty.  I'll wend
his way, though, too; for now, my sonnet fits.

-

July: Year-day 185

Not so sure about the efficacy 
of prayer as it's usually defined, I still
thank those who centered so much energy
on my weakened being, whose each strong will
was a health-giving pyramid these bones,
this flesh/ could rejuvenate in.  The ways
I move, love, may not harmonize with tones
they're used to; still, life bless their/ nights and days.

Slicing with teals up a laughing cool lake,
cocked toward each sound that trembles a/ slant room,
kissing rose petals then stomping a face,
my heart in my pocket for my head's sake,
my head underground to let my heart zoom,
my heart with my head/ to make whole this place.

-

July: Year-day 186

All the people out there cracking their fires,
I gotta crack mine too--clack! clack, clack. clack!
freedom for those who suffer the lack,
freedom for those in whom freedom inspires
repeated forays at the bricks and wires
of those inhuman laws/ penned to keep back
supposed inferiors: Female, Gay, Black,
Chicano, American Indian.  Pyres!

Pyres.  And a skin-and-bones child with a puffed
belly rests/ at the edge of a cay; airs,
waters, earths, roll with sins; judgments explode
in theeyes of/ decent sense; we are stuffed
wimps who need the thought Hubert Humphrey shares:
" . . . be stewards of the common trust.": care goaled.

-

July: Year-day 187

Population zero: that's where I'm at.
Can't say I'll stay there, though it seems I may,
in andout of thewoods of/ my odd day
on this frail planet of lust, love, and that
which furthers my inheritance and hers
if once, because we've decided to fuse--
whether out of care or the need to use--
the power within me within her stirs.

Oh, I know this may raise a horror in some,
foregoing communion so deep and good;
and yet it's our right to choose how to plumb
each other, and when--if we/ feel we should--
and where--neither of us seeing a bum
inside, or worse, because most/ couples would.

-

July: Year-day 188

And the tall ships glide up the bay, the river--
and I do not like you for what you are;
I like you for what you could be: a giver
of life in light, a planet-holding star.

And the drum and bugle corps perform.  Hear.
It's the bicentennial of our land.
And I do not curse you for what you fear,
but bless for how you extend your hand.

Sure you can fool yourself, fool me, with masks;
not answer fairly what a question asks;
look askance at the caring in my reach.

Sure you can pooh-pooh the difficult tasks
that burn dark holes in the dreams in a speech;
yet we harvest only as each serves each.

-

July: Year-day 189

Elizabeth the Second dines in state
this now starred evening in the Rose Garden,
the Queen of England come to celebrate
with a people George the Third would not pardon
the 200th birthday of their delight
Adamsed and Franklined and Jeffersoned and
by others begun who believed it right
to establish and govern their earned land.

Yet we ought not condemn old George straight out
who later with John exchanged pleasantries;
we ought not forget what we're now about
as great ones gather in the D. C. breeze.
Against our pollutions our blood cells shout:
"Survival's languages don't rhyme with ease."

-

July: Year-day 190
                         (opening quote from 
                   Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Compensation")

"Punishment is a fruit that unsuspected
ripens within the flower of the pleasure
which concealed it."  I, bumbling, learn the measure
of God's justice, the pains of grace rejected.
You, also, self-seeker, will learn, deflected
by "unbridled desires" from the true treasure,
the fruits of the false; see, taste, feel their/dead-sure
poisons until God's way is re-elected.

Samson slew with the jawbone of an ass
I forget how many men one keen night,
but didn't begin what he ended then.

A laddie sleeps with a fair willing lass,
and they oil and oil where she bulges tight,
and if sorrows come, they share them, amen.

-

July: Year-day 191

Ride on, troubadour, carrying to all
the songs your inspirations lead you to
of how quickly we humans rise and fall
as we love and hate, and are false and true;
for however lyrical your works are,
they yet will exhibit philosophies,
they yet will teach as they dance near and far
as we need them to/ who forget our knees.

In Kingstone Forest Angela and Todd
hide for their health's sake from their closest friends,
rediscovering themselves in the God
the Snowy Owls in snowy airs/ recommend/
forgetful their unnerved relatives send
each other to where/ worm with/ worm contends.

-

July: Year-day 192

Most of those starvation enslaves don't die
of starvation as such/ but some disease
such as measles or dysentery.  I--
ploppings of cow dung unsettle my ease.

Low on cash, I can still do more than dream
of a steak dinner.  Look at the position
of that American elm: how supreme!
I know like luck, though I scuttle contrition.

What is hunger?  Can't say I strictly know.
Oh, I have known dehydration, the hours
of waiting for the intravenous needle,
but hunger?  I have not seen my "fat" go,
have not felt my proteins burn up, with powers
inside me  lost I couldn't drill back, wheedle.

-

July: Year-day 193

It isn't easy to care about you,
finding it tough to care about myself,
forcing my sensitive body to do
things it maybe ought not: sleep on the shelf,
caution in the dump.  Walking away won't
pull an answer either out of some hole
in our lives we weren't onto; so, dear, don't
expect a jack of knowledge/ from my soul.

It's an amazingly gruff world for fools.
And the flag of wisdom's not nearly mine.
Suicide is suicide, whether done
quickly or nonchalantly.  No one drools
over idiocy who can decline
consistently from getting/ too much sun.

-

July: Year-day 194

Those politically exiled, by right,
can and ought to re-establish their place
among the nations of the world; no might
disallow the name they choose for their face,
nor the anthem or flag they sing and fly.
Oh let Taiwan be Taiwan, and the man
whose country snubs him fly what strikes his eye,
and singwhatpleases his ear!  Rip the ban.

This Earth's too small now for smallnesses tomake it
smaller.  Bodies, souls, open to the flow
of what's coming: the Trans/formation Age.

Bus, Bus Stop, twist and shout.  Attitude.  Shake it.
Kneel.  Increase your love.  Increase what you know.
Hate what's hateful.  Live--with sensitive rage.

-

July: Year-day 195

Dream state after dream state after dream state,
from before midnight until  beyond dawn,
and I can't remember all  that took place,
but I have never been dreamed-filled so long.
At times it seemed I was losing my mind.
I did lose my boots, my car, and my way,
but not the teeth I'd expected to.  Fine,
I'd just as soon keep them a few more days.

Some places I walked through, though, sure were strange,
buildings architecturally macabre,
people in dimensions I could not join.
It was summer outside: sharp, hot, no rain--
not even a sprinkle; but in the park,
also strange, crowds: suspiciously coy.

-

July: Year-day 196

And conventioneers tiptoe on the planks
of their platform as if they are afraid
of their own and each other's weight, dismayed
some that the planks don't crack, but keep in ranks.
And no one knows if he ought to give thanks,
being bothered, or start a new parade,
yanking planks which seem improperly laid/
replacing them.  Strengthen the river's banks.

Still, a platform's a platform, a small sign
that need not be followed as a decree;
and/ as politicians toast with their wine/
you can bet their minds will change what we see--
and it may be good, and it may be ein,
and the river kindly/ enter the sea.

-

July: Year-day 197

How often I stopped just short of that field
where the path quieted, or walked away
through a marsh or woods on a sunny day
where none else had gone, not sure/ when to yield,
not sure/ when to push on.  So I have felt
this summer, watching Jimmy Carter win
election after election.  All sin.
All freeze with doubt and, elsewhere, with doubt melt.

Cartermania, a voting disease,
I'd termed the rush/ to back the/ peanut man,
believing what/ he stood for/ could not please
sufficiently, could not properly span
the worlds of those lives whose freedoms my keys
demand, but now am willing to say: can.
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13 of 25


Brian A. J. Salchert