Irina Beatrix (photo by Michael Antman), Sonnet #261

Close your eyes and dream, dear Beatrix, dream.
The sundial at your wrist moves with the sun
And the stranger you meet each day, unseen
In the shadows, is yours, the only one:
He carries an ageless, cumbersome book,
In which he draws and draws your perfect face.
A face you've never recognized, he took
From you, idolizing the female race.
The scarlet dove drops a poppy into your lap --
You slip deeply into your alter consciousness.
A beautiful young woman closes her eyes too,
Centuries from now, and wakens you from your nap.
The death of your child is no longer meaningless.
Yes, you'll pass too -- into a woman who is you.


Note: The painting is Dante Gabriel Rossetti's Beata Beatrix.

Pileated Woodpecker (Alice Guerin), Sonnet #260

Complacencies of the dead tree,
Every inch of bark hiding ants.
In bare patches a filigree
Of rectangular holes. He rants
And drums, but always at a distance --
The hardest god damn bird to see.
I followed him once by a stream.
I could not get close until I
Stepped into the water, thigh high.
To him I ceased to seem to seem.
Above, he ripped a branch apart,
Hungry savagery, like art
From a chisel, mallet, and drill.
For hours, I watched him kill, eat, kill.

composition-z-viii (László Moholy-Nagy), Sonnet #259

The colors muted, sere, the shapes impinge
On form. Combinations evaporate
Dimension and perspectives derange
The eye. We can't exist in such a state.
I wish I had a ball that bounced higher
Than the point whence my fingers let it drop,
That not even gravity would dare stop.
We know the universe is a liar.
(Science is like the blind man who can take
Out his eye and polish it with a cloth.
He lays it down and someone puts a fake
In its place -- the eye of a cabbage moth.)
Nature abhors perfect circles or lines,
Leaving us to pervert its perfect signs.

Eagle (Kishi Ganku), Sonnet #258

The feathers only frame the human eye,
A master's eye, an enlightened being
Who sees the flea struggling in the sand,
Who has forgotten to forget the I,
Who sees the present in all that's fleeting,
Who wields a heavy and powerless wand.
I suspect enlightenment, when men "see,"
Is nothing much, a mere epiphany,
A moment of insight, most certainly,
But not quite a glimpse of eternity.
A piercing human eye, an eagle's soul?
The teachings of Jesus, Buddha, et al,
All come down to this. You're free. It's your call.
Do good, love all men, don't be an asshole.

Two Water Sonnets, Nos. 256 and 257

Seascape (Sargent), Sonnet #257

The former troop transport sails west,
Back to the Philippine Islands,
Now with a family of nine.
I clutch at the rail as each crest
Breaks and falls. I struggle to stand,
Looking at the horizon line.
I am six. The sea a billion.
Both of us younger than the sun.
Flying fish and porpoises leap,
As if to lead us past the deep.
The Deep, from which the waves, dark, wild,
And cold, grasping, thrust up, and flail
Like the hands of a drowning child --
And through them ships serenely sail.

The Cascade of Mingxianquan at Mt. Hutouyan (Shitao), Sonnet #256

Like arrows shattering when they strike stone,
The rivulets off Mt Hutouvan mist.
Shredded by the air, they cease to exist,
Voicing their fall in a moaned monotone.
Each trace has drifted over time, leaving
Long scars (now covered by lichen and moss),
The whole like portions of the human brain.
Now beyond the stone, the waters, weaving
In an updraft, are perpetual loss
Restored above by perpetual rain.
We stand enshrouded in moist air, blinking
And cold by a pool beneath the cascade,
Watching each other as we slowly fade,
Ideas worn thin by too much thinking.

Moebius Strip With Ants (Escher), Sonnet #255

Now is now, but then isn't then.
It was then, then it looms again,
Then. A conundrum, very Zen.
Ants follow only the given
Road, arriving where they begin,
Unaware of the moment when
What seemed a simple and open
Path becomes blind beyond reason.
The page is the time of all men,
Where the word released by the pen
Can grace the past with an amen,
Or trace loops of evil omen.
It's the same word, this very "then!" --
Old oxen and a lighting wren.

Wildfire Sunset, Sonnet #254

In Canada, wildfires have burned
For weeks, staining the sun with ash.
The drear boatman Charon has earned,
Demanding the obulus, cash
Payment for transport of the dead.
What can I buy with suns so red,
Molten gold poured into a mold
Of sky, minted without a date,
Because sun and I are too old
To have value at a fair rate?
The fires to the north are a hell
Of sorts, but I will not go there.
I've pocketed the sun, our share
Of the day, which none ever sell.