Fishing for Souls (Adriaen Pietersz van de Venne), Sonnet #345

They came swimming in with the morning tide
After three days of storms unmoored our boats.
Somehow, they guided each hull back toward shore.
Like a school of fish two miles long and wide,
They moved as one, some submerged, some afloat,
Filling the bay with hope, a pleading corps.
We launched the boats and went fishing for souls.
Our bows bobbed clumsily through the dead shoals.
As we leaned to take their outstretched hands --
Beseeching yet so difficult to grip --
We found them quite impossible to ship,
Since each boat was already fully manned.
We saved a few but most soon went under.
A rainbow blessed the sea; then came thunder.

February Wind and Sunlight -- The Wind Harp (Charles Burchfield), Sonnet # 344

This year no snow but wind and rain
Met and ended February,
Rivers overflowing again
And again, and blinding fury.
I'd walk each time the storms ended
To show I was not offended.
The sun lit thin ice in the trees
That sang in the wind -- melodies,
High-pitched, rung like spinning tin rings;
Twigs were fret and tuner-less strings.
In March the crocus and snowdrop
Bloomed early and as quickly froze
In day on day of silent snows
That only kind April could stop.

Star Travel (Matta), Sonnet #343

The speed of light is molasses
Dripping from an overturned jar,
A slowness nothing surpasses.
Not quite the songbird stuck in lime,
We can fly, but we can't fly far,
Unless we do away with time.
I stand on a comet of stone,
The tri-star Alpha Centauri
Irradiating, blinding me.
I'm here because I am alone
In no known age or century,
(Yet no metaphysical zone),
Where all is either late or soon.
I leave to catch a passing moon.

On the seashore there are two visiting apples (Rene Magritte), Sonnet #342

Too late, the tree stump silences the ax
Under a root stepping down like a foot,
To render the blade motionless and moot.
Are the visiting apples ripe, you ask?
One wears a green, his bride a purple mask.
Are they real fruit or molded of old wax?
They totter on the sand inching nearer,
A mute duo smiling and curious,
Not quite what we see, perhaps spurious --
Nothing on the beach is any queerer.
Yes, a cupboard tree holds a waiting bell
And a new dollhouse with a bright red roof --
Articles no apple would buy or sell,
Only mourn, and doing so vanish -- poof!

Zone of Avoidance*, Sonnet #341

That is where the seventh dimension sleeps,
Tucked like a few mice in a cardboard tube.
The density of the galaxy seeps
What's beyond its mass, but no amplitude
Of star or nova can penetrate there
To reach my retina. Oh, but we care!
It's maddening, this secret extension
Of nothing we know and will never guess,
Like a rule the gods forgot to mention
That demands of us a No and a Yes.
A pretty phrase, the zone of avoidance,
As if we've chosen not to be bothered,
Decided that child will not be fathered,
When we'd rather ignore our ignorance.

*Note: The "zone of avoidance" is the area
of the sky that is obscured by the densest
portions of the Milky Way.

Divided Consciousness Nos. 1 and 2, Sonnets #339 and #340

Divided Consciousness No. 1, Sonnet #339

The stones think as though they are thought silence.
Ask the big guy and he'll mouth a nothing
He's sure will seem like astounding nonsense,
As if a pretty rock knew how to sing.
He assumes you will understand the sound,
At least that it was real, if not profound.
His minor lobe chatters like a mad bird,
Ideas made sentences like light made seen,
Each thought a secret of the grand absurd,
Pitched higher when it's noble or obscene.
They never speak or look at each other.
What an obfuscation that would create!
Each thought like second thought would obviate
The first, like Cain gunning down his brother.


Divided Consciousness No. 2, Sonnet #340

I, that insistent I, is all I am.
I have witnessed it from beyond idea,
When my senses didn't make any sense,
When I felt like stone, a virtual sham.
Drop me in the deepest chasm, a sea
Seven miles deep, when all is present tense
And the lights fracture color into eyes
And the tones of drumming drown in sighs.
It comes back on me, it all comes back,
Eternal replay of the last moment
Until there is no next second, all slack;
The next I of me will never be sent
Until I bang my head twice and collide
With myself and decide I haven't died.

Parade (Peter Blume), Sonnet #338

The invention of the assembly line,
The conveyor belt, the repetition
Of a single simple task by one man,
Produces all that is useful and fine.
Let me push the button of ignition
On armor as heavy as a tin can.
No bullet can penetrate my new skin,
Sleek and silver and exquisitely thin.
I'm so perfect now a parade of me
Runs past the smokestacks of the factory.
I'm joined by a smart, lock-loaded army;
As we march through every neighborhood,
Geese stepping, bright phalanx of right for good,
We stare down the decadent and smarmy.