What I Assume

An English sonnet wherein any resemblances to people living or dead is purely coincidental. Inspired, of course, by Richard Lovelace’s Song (To Lucasta, Going to the Wars).

Going Out

Yes, dear, I'm going out, though it's past ten--
But don't wait up; relax your aching head,
stay: watch TV, or chatter to a friend,
sleep and warm our sanctimonious bed.

Where? Though any answer can't suffice
or satisfy this pure, protective question
let's say the store to fetch a bag of ice
a prop to freeze my fiery intention.

An affair? What could that offer me?
Besides furtive eyes and red smiling lips,
besides impulsive sex, and mystery--
these toys can't touch our anchored, wedded ships.

Don't say a word; parting is sweet sorrow!
I'll return by twelve, or, at worst, tomorrow.

And Chris Lott thought the villanelle was hard; the ghazal, done according to the rules, is hellish! I was doing alright until stanza 3, but I soldiered on; I even referenced my name in the last sher. In the morning my fascination with this form will probably renew, but right now I’m just pleased to hit publish and be done with it.

Each Night, Till I Drop Off

Shear ambition and invention! Show all her clothes drop off!
Let my logic and my conscience, perched like drunken crows drop off.

So like coalescing bonds we cling and cull our love.
We pull our hips, our bellies press until our lusty throes drop off.

For her I've planted tulips, weeded bushes, battled aphids.
But she's let stags eat at the bulbs as petals of her rose drop off.

My passion grows; each day I yearn to have her more and more.
Yet more and more each time I do I hear her clamored Os drop off.

Summer love, once a volcano, burned our curious fingers.
Now it's lava's icy glass. I'll walk its path till toes drop off.

Now I breathe out opium, and absinthe slips me sleep.
I dream I'm dancing roof to roof as cuckolds and their woes drop off.

I dreamed that pirates claimed her ship, and made her watch the plank.
I memorized her wailing tones as all the men she knows drop off.

Alone I've passed these many years, but drugs have stoned my heart.
Those memories pass out with me, as dogs inclined to doze drop off.

I’d worked out several additional stanzas, but I couldn’t let them make the cut. Here are a couple of them, for my own record:

We had a circus full of joy, with I, the lion tamer.
Now I've let slip the acrobat while tightrope act bozos drop off.

My secretary shoots at me the eye that failed on you.
I pretend it's you instead as skirt and blouse and hose drop off.

The first was too silly; the second a bit to bawdy (but not incriminating, just so you know).

Waiting at the Platform

Waiting at the platform I watched
you foreign
reading billboard and posters pasted up
just for you,
till, squealing not slowing, the train rushed in,
blasted a wrapper and tugged at your skirt.

Then I saw your ghost
laughing with the one you love, your summer dress shone,
brilliant in the blinding sun
its fibers draped on the needling grassy field.
With chins on each other's shoulders
you made a Janus facing North and South:
Both looking forward, and both behind;
one in the now and one somewhere else;
minds wandering equidistance.

Your curling smiled shrank and I guessed
through your dress you felt a nettle stinging
smooth and unsullied flesh
your joy skin failing while the summer wind cooled to
a sudden cold gust.
One face shivered
the other petrified
in the gray sky's light that summer dress
clung to you like a shroud.

With the rain slobbering off the roof
I tracked through trails of mud and trash
to pass across the platform.
Though you were going East
and my train headed West
like a lab rat aroused
I ignore all sense and stimuli
for you are in my sight.

But between us the work-a-day crowd
broke
and then there was that passing tang,
three benches, a newspaper stand,
a fat drop of water in the face.

By their delay a season passed,
something in me germinated,
strangled my steering, tangled it's tendrils
around my will.
Married to the furrow of the earth I plowed
I go only where the stuttering train
the blundering train
the plummeting train can take me.

Infatuate

Warm statue
with chimeric curves laid in wintry sheets
a rocky mountain range, elbows, ribs,
and spine; a breast, a peek of flesh,
a pillow
asleep with secret sentience

East of this Sicily I slowly pass the night
letting the sail luff
I see
the castles of your body, cliff to cliff
a spell exhales in each breathing
seducing as you slumber

I trim, tack towards you
I shy away
a car's light passes the window, shows
a Scylla
my eyes wander from the water to shore
my dark strait; your bright coast

stranded thus the waves slap
obsessively at my hull, I am ensorcelled
nothing doing
drift toward dawn

Found this short poem attached to the end of an unfinished draft of a short story from who knows how long ago. Not sure if it was meant to be part of the story, or perhaps a poem inspired by the girl that also inspired a character in the short story…

Pan? or Pandora?

The glances you return to me
Strike the locks of my confession.
Guilt! They whisper, and thus guilty
I break that old box open

Wherein I'll be shown black, but coy,
With few delights to spare;
So hate me not for hoarding joy
Distilled from our broken stare.