Canal by the Moonlight (Koho Shoda), Sonnet #575

 

We walk along the canal at moonrise.

I ask you, “Is the moon stupid or wise?”

“Ask the moon,” you tell me. The moon replies,

“Ask a lightbulb or the sun. My light lies.”

We wonder how bright it is on Saturn

When here each summer the forests burn.

For now, the evening is cool and dry,

The canal, silent, still, reflects the sky,

The nighthawks don’t know how to whir or fly,

And nowhere is there written the word “why.”

It’s said time is what happens when nothing

Else does, but I think all’s a spinning ring,

Invisible sound, a silent seeing,

A tiny moon dangling on nervous string.

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My Human Disguise.

The Town (August Strindberg), Sonnet #574

 

We anthropomorphize

The abstract — lips and eyes,

Masks and numberless crowds,

From fleeting thunderclouds.

When did we come to find

The null of abstraction,

The absence of the signed,

So full of attraction?

The painter knew the pain

Of love and betrayal.

This painting is insane,

His obsessions’ dark veil.

The distant golden town

Is a meaningless noun.

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My Human Disguise.

Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1 (James Whistler), Sonnet #573

 

There’s expectation in her face

Even though she’s dressed in mourning,

But for a bonnet of white lace

And white cuffs and a wedding ring

Half-hidden by a kerchief gripped

So tightly it might have ripped.

Her straight chair sits on a gray rug,

Shoes on a padded wooden rest.

Silver threaded curtains hug

Gray walls as if they hid a guest

Once welcomed and now departed.

I wonder how her son started —

Arranging the grays and blacks square

Or with his mother’s haunting stare.

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My Human Disguise.

Rose Bushes Under The Trees (Gustav Klimt), Sonnet #572

 

For Ruth

We are two rose bushes

Growing beneath the elms.

We bloom at the same time,

Daubed by two paint brushes,

Yet outside human realms,

Even the gasps of rhyme.

We stand slightly apart,

Touching, turning petals —

Untouchable to art.

The odd leaf falls, settles,

Not a thing we miss,

The swooning of a kiss.

The elms embrace, hover

Above — sweet shade, my love.

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My Human Disguise.

Deer in the Forest (Franz Marc), Sonnet #571

The woods that spring were misty and the birds

Rarely came near, though we walked many miles.

We saw few wildflowers, many mushrooms —

More than ever, nature seemed absurd.

Foxes trotted with us, bereft of wiles.

Leafless red maples were upside down brooms.

We found hundreds of deer in the forest,

Dozing, dreaming, at rest in makeshift nests.

None awoke as we passed. We petted them.

They sighed as if grateful for our kind touch,

Though, as we thought of it, it wasn’t much,

Akin to repeating, “Amen. Amen.”

The day was not, in a common word, “Nice.”

We were, like every day, in Paradise. 

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My Human Disguise.

Inventions (Michael Antman), Sonnet #570

 

We live where light and rust

Mount in measured layers

Like lovers without lust,

Or gods without prayers.

Who invented the bridge,

That fluvial sacrilege,

Or endless skyscrapers

Assailed by old newspapers?

They can’t blot out the sky

Or dry up the rivers —

Just twist the eye awry

Till the brainstem quivers.

Throw light on slabs of glass

And vertigoes will pass.

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My Human Disguise.

The Kiss (Francisco Hayez), Sonnet #569

 

A critic said what poets write about

Is rubbish, it’s how they write that matters — 

And that no one can write well about love.

The nonsense of a literary tout,

Who delights in poetry he shatters

With a crippling whip in a satin glove.

I don’t remember our first kiss, the kite

She’d made was loose and sailing out of sight.

It was probably then, on our first date,

When the only thing to do was to wait

For the kite’s return, like a falcon called —

Embracing, we felt tongues and lips scald.

The moisture and heat since then are the same,

Without diminution, beyond a name.

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

My Human Disguise.