The Storm (Munch), Sonnet #268

An imp stamping in the attic,
The storm drives us and the neighbors
Into the street -- young widows, whores,
Lions -- hair spiked in the static.
The mansion is a locked fortress,
Lighthouse windows, chimneys cannon,
Twin sirens keening off and on.
The wind whips hard to undress us
As we trip on the paving stones
No one in the city owns.
When the trees swipe at the windows,
Rebuffed, torn black branches falling
Upwards, we hear babies bawling
As they fly by -- duck their wee blows.

Autumn Landscape at Dusk (Van Gogh), Sonnet #267

The trilling of the screech owl and the wind
In the leaves call to each other in words
Only the words themselves will comprehend.
I walk and answer with an empty mind,
Which slowly fills with the blinking of birds
And muted colors breezes twist and bend.
It's taken the sun's near infinite power
To tinge the air with diminishing light,
Like a mind telescoped to mere eyesight
Or eternity lasting just one hour.
I have found the owl in his empty knot --
Feathers indistinguishable from bark.
For a second nothing will thrive or rot
As the owl closes one eye to the dark.

Animals Extreme (Alice Guerin and Julia Guerin), Sonnet #266

Animals extreme are everywhere:
A laughing camel, sober wildebeest,
And four horses of the Apocaleast,
Dancing with a tang of Devil-may-care.
In my back yard the chipmunks chuck, chuck, chuck,
A sound like the jake braking of a truck.
The hummingbirds have taken to swilling
Berry wine. Our cats yowl like Bob Dylan.
The horses cavort until they are one,
A heady beast just dying to have fun.
The wildebeest needs to cheer up a bit.
It's not the end of the world, friend, not yet!
And you, my humpy friend, laugh all you want,
As you'd want me to, like Emmanuel Kant.

Note: Horses by Alice Bea Guerin and Laughing Camel
by Julia Rose Guerin. Click on the image to see a larger
version.

Vimalakirti, (Painter Unknown), Sonnet #265

Even a Buddha would think that the dark is light
And all is nothing and nothing is is bullshit.
Thunderous silence is any mind's steady state.
On every eyelash thrives a ravenous mite,
Vimalakirti would have said, had he the wit.
We cannot eat what those who came before us ate.
There's one answer to each question, which is silence.
What is red? Why is Cassiopeia that way?
What is the difference between past and future tense?
What did you say? What do you say? What will you say?
On a clear day, the horizon line on the lake
Is the turned-away cheek of a sleeping Baku,
Devourer of nightmares. He is me and you.
Hold your tongue, close your eyes, and stay awake.

The Man Of Confusion (Klee), Sonnet #264

There's a never in every idea.
The cleft globe glows like a paper lantern
With illuminations we can't unlearn.
Some lightnings will stop at the cornea,
Disappear when we unthinkingly blink.
Oh, that man of confusion! He can think!
Crunch his pumpkin seeds like a chickadee
And drive his beak into the locust tree,
Taking his rightful place among the thorns.
He thinks sadness is wise but never mourns
A death in case it might have been his own.
He cuts off his hand to preserve the bone.
There is an idea in every never,
He thinks. I am more than never clever.

Bald Eagle (Audubon), Sonnet #263

They glide more than most birds, wings straight
As a sea plane's, never drunkenly tipping
Like the turkey vulture or flapping desperately
Like the crow. So rarely seen, they're like fate
Surprising you with its ineluctable black wing,
Or a revelation revealed parenthetically,
Two down strokes that lift you on the air
Into the unknowable, naturally aware.
Fishing, they've been known to grasp prey
To big too lift, and, too hungry to let go,
They drown in thrashed-up, freezing spray,
Their head and tail feathers ice and snow.
I have seen his eye up close, though caged.
He looked at me illimitably enraged.

Last Hike (Shitao), Sonnet # 262

If there is anything, there's no last hike.
Standing above the clouds with my old friend,
We contemplate the imminent end
Of sunlight and the scolding of the shrike,
Guarding his bugs impaled in the bramble.
The mists roil, mass, thin, darken, briefly part,
Revealing mist. Up and back, we amble
Along the precipice. It's time to start
Back, though it's harder to relinquish time
Stepping down than to find it as you climb.
So, we find we have been frozen, like rock,
Our marbled eyes fixed on the blinding glare
Of saturated and sun-glazed air --
In there, the dripping of a water clock.