Ghosts in the Tree (Franz Sedlacek), Sonnet #465

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My Human Disguise.

The old crows fly with a graceless hurry

As if dodging barrages of thrown stone,

Retreat to their darkening rookery,

Arriving limp and sated, one by one.

I’ve seen them, uncountable, roosting

In a dead wood in the flooded wetlands,

The rubbing of their wings a dry cooing.

They hunch like bald men without legs or hands,

Some alone, some in groups of two or three.

They don’t seem to need or want each other,

Though most are uncle, father, or brother.

A ghostliness of camaraderie

Lingers, everything cold and indirect,

Extends the way the bare branches connect.

The Punishment of Luxury (Giovanni Segantini), Sonnet #439

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My Human Disguise.

Inured to wind or rain, the women rest

On a bed of air, draped in silken sheets,

Sated on honeyed wine and creamy sweets,

Their flaxen tresses framing each bared breast.

Though their eyes are closed, we can’t be sure

They’re sleeping, if they are dreamt or dreaming.

They throw dim shadows from a star beaming

Dimly distant and reluctantly pure.

It’s late winter and the snow starts to thin.

Even the mountains’ snowcap is shrinking.

We can’t know what the women are thinking.

Perhaps they hope that spring vanquishes sin.

Dear ones, where are the men? They sin as well.

Is your punishment their heaven or hell?

Pallas and the Centaur (Botticelli), Sonnet #438

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My Human Disguise.

The centaur, about to loose an arrow,

As he often did, just to kill a thing,

Without a reason he would ever know,

Loved to hear the snapping of his bow string.

There was no party he wouldn’t disrupt,

No innocent love he didn’t corrupt.

We have men, part ass, just like him today

Who do even more harm with what they say.

The beast had his Pallas to grab his hair

And yank it hard to arrest his error.

Who’ll be our goddess of right and reason,

To fight, for us, the centaurs of treason —

Those not-even-half-men who live to steal

The meals and drink of the commonweal?

Boar Hound (Alice Bea Guerin), Sonnet #434

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My Human Disguise.

No one knows the golden boar hound's mother,

If she’s boar or hound, or mythic Other.

He was found scratching at our farmhouse door

And though quick to accept a wooden cage,

Was soon released, being more hound than boar,

Nothing to fear, with his eyes of great age.

His eight fleecy legs (some seemed more like arms)

Caused him to stumble and sometimes crawl,

A monster, yes, though not without his charms.

His tusks could draw images, like an awl,

Scrapping planks or smooth stone, which he would hide

(Though we could always find them when we tried)

About the farm — scenes from the past, our past.

The day he left we feared would be our last.

Chrysanthemum (Piet Mondrian), Sonnet #433

For Ruth

The flower has a purpose beyond beauty,

A regenerative function we don’t see.

Its power, in being, is touched, and gives,

And by this mutual exchange, it lives.

Its perfect kind grows on just to be seen.

Its petals glow, even at dusk, a sheen

That’s inner lit, only darkness can dim.

In sunlight it fills the eye to the brim.

My love, the chrysanthemum is you,

As columbines and tiger lilies are too.

Every summer our garden expands,

Pouring, into the cupping of our hands,

Perfumes, petals, color and energy,

Filling a single life with you and me.

Posted on our 41st wedding anniversary.

Autumn (Giuseppe Arcimboldo), Sonnet #431

My book of the first 200 of these sonnets is now available for purchase. Click here:
My Human Disguise.

Almost past its prime, my fruit falls, bruises,

Before the harvest has even begun.

Pears and peaches are picked up in the end —

Even though they rot, they’ve other uses.

The burning bush, ignited by the sun —

The apple trees, whose burdened branches bend

Almost to the grass — are both flaming red.

They’ll soon be stripped of life — barren, not dead.

My grapes tumble into the wine presses,

Where pulp turns to juice from urgent stresses.

The Argiope spider in his web still

Hungers, before hard frost, for a last kill.

My summer mate gone, I am gourd and leaf,

Nothing more. Winter will bring cold relief.