Pallas and the Centaur (Botticelli), Sonnet #438

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My Human Disguise.

The centaur, about to loose an arrow,

As he often did, just to kill a thing,

Without a reason he would ever know,

Loved to hear the snapping of his bow string.

There was no party he wouldn’t disrupt,

No innocent love he didn’t corrupt.

We have men, part ass, just like him today

Who do even more harm with what they say.

The beast had his Pallas to grab his hair

And yank it hard to arrest his error.

Who’ll be our goddess of right and reason,

To fight, for us, the centaurs of treason —

Those not-even-half-men who live to steal

The meals and drink of the commonweal?

Howling Dog (Paul Klee), Sonnet #437

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My Human Disguise.









It’s a dog howling at a moose,

Said her daughter, or at the moon.

To her it was a mind set loose.

It will be time to go home soon,

She said, and took the child’s hand.

Let me stay for one more minute.

She simply did not understand.

There is nothing of art in it,

Just some color daubs and scribbling,

A little malicious ribbing

Meant to make me look like a fool.

Her daughter said, It’s beautiful!

If you think so dear, you’re the boss.

She felt the slightest sense of loss.

Trojan Horse (Pompeii Fresco), Sonnet #436

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







Why did the ancient deities foul things so much?

They’re like the bully who kicks a crippled child’s crutch,

Then helps him up only to knock him down again,

And so the war dragged on for not one year, but ten.

Because of gods, we can’t know what really happened.

Did an arrow in a heel really spur Troy’s end?

Could one adulteress’s Aphroditic beauty

Destroy a nation’s sense of honor and duty?

The wooden horse was a tribute to Athena,

That two headed she-serpent, that amphisbaena,

Whose fangs struck brave men down each day, score upon score,

Who loved neither enemy much, only the war.

Now no one interferes with man’s love of bloodshed.

We’re on our own. Athena, Aphrodite? Dead.

January (Grant Wood), Sonnet #435

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My Human Disguise.

The storm over, the rabbit’s tracks

Leave ghost faces in sifted snow.

The moon is neither old nor new,

Though enough to light the hayricks.

All white-capped, they lean, row on row,

Bowing at time’s ceremony 

In welcome of the end of now —

The beginning of memory —

Like old men who left October

To youths and welcomed December.

Oh,Tomorrow! Don’t come too soon!

The night has so much dark to live

Before it’s savaged by the sun,

That jealous spoiler high above. 

Boar Hound (Alice Bea Guerin), Sonnet #434

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My Human Disguise.

No one knows the golden boar hound's mother,

If she’s boar or hound, or mythic Other.

He was found scratching at our farmhouse door

And though quick to accept a wooden cage,

Was soon released, being more hound than boar,

Nothing to fear, with his eyes of great age.

His eight fleecy legs (some seemed more like arms)

Caused him to stumble and sometimes crawl,

A monster, yes, though not without his charms.

His tusks could draw images, like an awl,

Scrapping planks or smooth stone, which he would hide

(Though we could always find them when we tried)

About the farm — scenes from the past, our past.

The day he left we feared would be our last.

Chrysanthemum (Piet Mondrian), Sonnet #433

For Ruth

The flower has a purpose beyond beauty,

A regenerative function we don’t see.

Its power, in being, is touched, and gives,

And by this mutual exchange, it lives.

Its perfect kind grows on just to be seen.

Its petals glow, even at dusk, a sheen

That’s inner lit, only darkness can dim.

In sunlight it fills the eye to the brim.

My love, the chrysanthemum is you,

As columbines and tiger lilies are too.

Every summer our garden expands,

Pouring, into the cupping of our hands,

Perfumes, petals, color and energy,

Filling a single life with you and me.

Posted on our 41st wedding anniversary.

Rocky Mountain Goats (Albert Bierstadt), Sonnet #432

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

I climbed a 50 foot stage house ladder.

It went straight up, made of bolted steel bar.

Halfway up I couldn't have gone madder.

My hands turned to sweat as I saw how far

I would fall. I was certain I had dreamed

Last night of this moment, how I had seemed,

Like now, unable to move. My hands slipped.

I threw one arm over and hugged a rung

And for more than a lifetime there I hung.

Somehow I got down, my sanity gripped.

Thus, the fact of a goat’s sure-footed hooves

On the steepest mountainside seems unreal.

Is it all a matter of reach and feel?

Or is it only the goat’s mind that moves?