Ivory-Billed Woodpecker (Audubon), Sonnet #422

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My Human Disguise.


















It was said you could catch but not keep one.

A farmer once tied a male to a chair,

Which soon was kindling and the rope undone,

And, instead of a door, nothing but air.

Just one could rip apart a ten inch branch

In minutes, and ravage an entire ranch

If it was built of bug-infested logs.

Its crazed cackle once filled forests and bogs,

But today it’s feared the Ivory-billed’s extinct.

I’ve watched its cousin, the Pileated,

Hammer a limb with its head into dust

And thought, does such an addled creature think,

“I too could one day be uncreated.

There must be Ivory-billed left. There must!”

A Woman Ghost Appears from a Well (Hokusai), Sonnet #421

My book of the first 200 of these sonnets is now available for purchase. Click here:
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1

I once spent nights in a hospital bed

In a building now long empty — thought 

To be haunted with a long-dead war’s dead.

Many have been encountered and some caught

On camera — hazy light, outstretched “arms.”

The locals can’t be hired to tear it down —

A gutted frame beyond the edge of town

Patrolled by one old guard no ghost alarms.

2

Every well needs some kind of dipper.

Hokusai’s snake woman is a sipper

Of the foggy remains of the dead dead,

That dim residue of flesh, bone and head

She draws from below and blows into air,

Spirits all us disbelievers will scare.

Note: The hospital described was at Clark
Airbase in the Philippines. My Dad, an Air
Force Colonel, was the hospital commander
from 1959 to 1961. The ghosts are said
to be Vietnam casualties. I spent several
nights there because of a hip ailment. Clark
was buried by the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo
in the 90's and abandoned. It has since been
turned into a commercial air hub. The hospital, 
completely gutted, remains.

Flambeau River (Sandy Ellarson), Sonnet #420

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My Human Disguise.


















A thousand years ago the river teemed

With more trout than any fisherman dreamed.

The Ojibwe could catch them with their hands —

Threw back those too small to feed four or five.

The rivers, fields, forests, lakes, and wetlands

Came from good dreaming to keep them alive.

They had little fear of spirit danger —

The wolf, mountain lion, bobcat, and bear.

Only men released the devil’s anger.

After a death the devil wasn’t there.

In waders, I can stand hip deep and cast

For hours and nothing will look at the bait.

One lucky night I’ll hook a fish at last.

The water rushing past me doesn’t wait. 

Man In a Smock (Gustave Caillebotte), Sonnet #419

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My Human Disguise.

















My walking every day takes time and will.

The day itself demands all that I live

As my blue smock vanishes in the sky.

The path along the shore is an idyll

At times, a dream tale, but also a sieve

That sifts my musings into cold or dry.

The good right leg trues up the bad left hip,

Almost hides my limp’s slightly painful dip.

I’ve lived sore for more than six decades.

I follow an old woman — a widow,

By her weeds — until curiosity fades.

(Nothing so illusive as what I know.)

I walk past her with a cursory bow.

I can’t take more than is given by now.

Capture of H.B.M. Frigate “Macedonian“ by U.S. Frigate “United Sates” (Thomas Chambers), Sonnet #418

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

Today there are 61 armed

Conflicts ongoing in our world

On four of seven continents.

I sit here writing poems unharmed.

It’s almost quaint, the flags unfurled

As wood ships traded armaments

Until a mast or two went down —

Then the surrender of the crown.

Now, instead of drowning in waves,

Men and babes vanish in mass graves.

I was a sharpshooter at ten,

But never had to go to war.

Should I fear I’m like other men?

I’ve no gun to fire from my door.

Summer (Giuseppe Arcimboldo), Sonnet #417

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My Human Disguise.
















I live the burden of burgeoning life,

Beginning with dropping petals and seeds,

Ending with fruit and grain cleaved by the knife.

I live the engendering of my wife,

Though she hides from me in her stitched weeds,

Ever running and climbing, though gravid,

And when I catch her, laughing and avid.

I live the flight of kestrel and songbird,

Balance murderous capture and escape,

And keep the wolf from reducing the herd.

Sometimes they must settle for mouse or grape.

I live the rain’s basting the sun’s burning

My life until the last day’s turning

Changes all I’ve grown to ripened yearning.

Carnival in a Village with Beggars Dancing (Marten van Cleve), Sonnet #416

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








The dancing beggars use an old commode —

It’s long since lost most of its smell of merde —

To collect the same alms the prince bestowed.

Often a child is pushed, crying and scared,

To drop a penny in the chamber pot.

Together the beggars shout, “Thanks a lot!”

The carnival is races, song and dance,

And, out of the bailiff’s sight, games of chance,

Where more than one father will crap away

A week’s pay, then demand on terms to play. 

On this day, the good women ignore vice;

The godly men forgive their brothers’ sins.

Joy is an excusable avarice.

Tomorrow, again, the war on faith begins.