The Central Star (Mike Taylor), Sonnet #171

At the heart of the Milky Way the Central Star
Increases in mass as every black hole channels
The detritus of space into its empty core.
Replacing our sun, it would extend to Rigel.
As other stars burn away, grow cold, and dwindle,
The Central Star perpetually rekindles.
It has enveloped a trillion planets and suns,
And burns so intensely it glows with neither light
Or color, but with a visible intention,
The ultimate assertion of natural right.
We swing on a spiral away from its hunger,
Though, in its way, it makes the galaxy younger.
Someday black holes will all dry up: the Central Star
Will be the Milky Way, invisible from afar.

The Minogame (Edo Period Scroll)

Minogame live in ponds for ten thousand years,
Grow long, hairy tails, actually seaweed they wear
Like a straw raincoat to deceive the eyes of men.
To find one is believed a propitious omen.
They stand on nothing, and nothing hold up.
They just swim, on and on, in eternity's cup.
Minds are all turtles who long ago lost their shells,
Scratching for moisture in the deepest driest wells.

Holy Blood (Alice Guerin), Sonnet #170

The raven plucked Man's pupil and holds it steady
So Limbo is still visible through its black lens.
Blind and po-faced angels live in holes, ready
To fly away the moment eternity ends.
Here is Purgatory too: vines and flowers
Extend from a woman's neck, but her legs wander
Away beneath a shower of black holy blood.
A chemo spirit struts, though she's lost her powers
To console or restore the faith others squander,
Lost all but her rage to escape the coming flood.
Little live hands reach through the clouds yearning to touch
What they can't comprehend, like the Klein-bottle-brained
Devil with the tied shoestring eyes, who knows too much.
He is no god, this clown, though he has often reigned.

The Jikininki (Heian Period Scroll), Sonnet #169

The hungry ghosts of Japan eat rotting man's flesh
In penance for a life of greed and selfishness.
At night, all skeletal limbs and bloated bellies,
They see only what the rat or the maggot sees.
In sunlight, each takes on its once human disguise
And wanders its former haunts under clouds of flies.

They say the Jikininki don't want what they eat,
That demon guardians won't permit them to starve.
Some try, but their torturers dismember and beat
And shriek at them: "Now eat what our flaming swords carve!"

These sad, sympathetic souls can only be freed
By prayers of a human free of vice or greed.
Thus the ranks of the Jikininki grow; they feed
On what we leave behind, until we share their need.

The Kraken Tree, Sonnet #168

My daughters called it the Kraken Tree
And said it had dived from deep space
To make a new home of rich earth
Being fed up with the bottom of the sea.
Its tentacles, both thick and frail as lace,
Were thrust aloft by its mantle's girth.
They claimed it snapped at voles and moles
With its beak and had plenty to see
Peering into burrowing animals' holes.
In summer the beast is covered in leaves
And becomes a home to nesting birds.
I ask if either daughter still believes
In the Kraken. "Dad! It's not just words!"

So, I find the Kraken Tree on my daily walk.
Sometimes the naked trees around it look like shrieks;
In frigid cold the rubbing of the branches creaks.
A rookery at dusk, here a hundred crows squawk.
The tree stands next to a frozen river that floods.
When it recedes it leaves shelf ice around the trunk.
It's March and the tentacles begin to grow buds.
Suckers sprout just above where the squid's eyes are sunk
Into grassy, leaf-scattered dirt, blinking and blind.
The swaying of its appendages stirs the breeze,
Playfully: the sea creature has some game in mind.
He'd have me believe he's just one of many trees.
I walk on, unconvinced, for I have touched his skin,
His living bark, and sensed the consciousness within.

Convex and Concave (Escher), Sonnet #167

Geckos stick out forked tongues at each other
In their race to the top of rounded stairs,
Where they'll disappear because nothing's there.
Men climb ladders to trumpeters. Mother
Seeks to fill her empty basket with air.
Banners state the geometry of the day.
The man near the dry fountain sleeps his life away;
Because he can't understand a thing, he can't care.
Each window, pillar, arch, and capital,
Each wall, riser and tread, each finial,
Was hauled into place by now-frozen block
And tackle, which the builder left behind
(Should he someday return). Here there's no clock,
Few shadows, no lights, only double bind
Architecture, mind alleys of the blind.

Portrait Of Friederike Maria Beer (Klimt), Sonnet #166

Aphrodite got into my automobile.
She lit a cigarette and said, "Take me away
From this nonsense . . . or maybe I should take the wheel."
We were surrounded by creatures from a Noh play,
A thousand goblins, samurais, ghosts, and warlords.
We sped off from those beseeching, sex-addled hordes.
Alone with her, I saw a matron, past her prime,
In a Persian coat with a tattered gray collar.
"I know what you're thinking," she said, "that I'm
Old and tired, a spent vessel, not worth a dollar."
She was still as beautiful as eternity.
I looked in the mirror: "You mean a lot to them."
"That rabble?" she replied, "they aren't even men!
The gods conjure them up to taunt and torture me."
She touched my cheek. I turned to her. The car was empty.