Battle of Actium (Laureys a Castro), Sonnet #430

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My Human Disguise.

The besotted hero allows his love’s presence

At war on sea against the advice of his men,

As though afraid he might never see her again,

Though Cleopatra demanded her attendance.

The engagement lost, her man rumored dead, she flew

From the smoke-obscured scene, not aware that she drew

Anthony after her, leaving his men to drown.

For love of her he lost his honor and his crown.

I believe in “honor,” though not a common word,

As it once was — a life that honors all others.

My definition, at least. Some think me absurd.

And love? It can’t be defined except by lovers.

I do not judge them, overcome by love (not lust).

I honor them whose love and honor’s all but dust.

Wind Storm on Lake Michigan 10/12/18, Sonnet #429

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My Human Disguise.









The waters are the solution of time,

(I’m not the only being to have said),

Forever stirred in its lake or sea bed

By wind or current; in its essence, prime,

Like 2, 3, 5, 7, or 11,

Or in some quantity, 97.

After all these many eons, “years,”

The solution is not nearly resolved—

Duration hasn’t thoroughly evolved

To nothing. Let us be content with tears.

Today, gale winds beat the waves to a moil

That tore the sand from the beach, turning

The water brown as the next wave’s recoil

Threw back the sand into the hour’s churning.

Fall of Rebel Angels, detail (Pieter Bruegel The Elder), Sonnet #428

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My Human Disguise.

Did each cease to be an angel

The moment he or she rebelled?

What creatures were they when they fell,

Who spewed and farted, bled and yelled?

A kind of dead, not devils yet,

Before the rest of time in Hell,

They must endure a monster’s spell

In payment of their Master’s debt.

So men today learn to betray

Themselves and all they ever knew

As truth. They haven’t lost their way,

They’ll say. “We’re just making things new.”

The air is full of monsters’ lies

Falling like newly wingless flies.

Pikes Peak (Albert Bierstadt), Sonnet #427

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My Human Disguise.

I lived on Custer, a white hood

Filling my living room window.

On a June afternoon I stood

On the summit in blooms of snow,

An hour later in sun below.

The peak was seldom where you were

And never where you were not sure

A great presence of white and pink,

As if by thinking, made you think.

The Utes called it “Tava” or sun,

As if there must be more than one,

Needing light close enough to touch,

To take away, but not too much,

Or soon the mountain would be gone.

The Actor (Picasso), Sonnet #426

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My Human Disguise.

As I am “else,” I am more than I am.

I really only speak thus to myself.

My voice is always sweetly orotund,

But what I’m here to say is all mere sham.

I’ve earned a moiety of fame and pelf

And not once have I given a refund.

My fingers flick about like ten small swords,

No sharper then the edges of my words.

My visage contortions are a mirror

(That’s where I learned them) of your hapless souls;

Mine is a mimesis of your terror

As you nose up squinting from your mole holes.

Ah, sirrah, let’s be friends. I’m just joking!

This playwright coughs words as though he’s choking.

Nearly Hit (Paul Klee), Sonnet #425

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My Human Disguise.

















My brain is a stairway to the arrow,

The one and ineluctable pointer

That flies true as any truth can and strikes

Like the rusted tine of an old harrow.

The arrow’s in an attic I enter

With telescope eyes seeking, like a shrike’s,

What I left here for later long ago.

The progress of the unfletched shaft is slow,

Has yet to pierce the humor of my eye.

Seen darkly, dust-mote-shaded, almost shy,

It moves, like Zeno, only half-way here,

Then half more, hardly trying to arrive.

It’s time I see I have nothing to fear.

It cannot pierce me while I’m still alive.

Marine Fauna (Pompeii Mosaic), Sonnet #424

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My Human Disguise.













When you look into their eye — shrimp or squid,

Octopus, lobster, bass, flounder or eel,

You’ll find no volition except blind id,

A shiny button or a spokeless wheel.

I wonder if the artist pleased the man

Who paid for this mosaic for his house.

The sea discreetly hides the inhuman

The mosaicist serves up like lobscouse.

His art form one of endless accretion,

And his subjects being quick and many,

Did he work from a diver’s memory,

Or pose his dead models till completion,

Not seeing the fauna’s slow corruption

Preserved by a volcano’s eruption?