Tag Archives: sonnet

Wake Up: sonetto rispetto

Posted on by
1

Wake up! The dawn is rapping at the shutters!
There is no time to lose, nor waste away;
you must begin to clear out all this clutter
that gives you an excuse to sleep all day.

Believe this: if the end is really coming,
you won’t hear marching feet or feel the drumming.
Defeat will slip in silent, like a thief.
Your struggle will be pointless and kept brief.

Remember that you asked for this convenience:
demanding automation of all things,
expecting everything be had for free.

Forgive the mindless drones; they know no lenience,
nor any song except the one they sing.
You know the words: we wrote them, you and me.

01 JUN 2017

Share This:

What Now?: Sicilian sonnet

Posted on by
Reply

What now? Is there sufficient cause for reaching
beyond the edge of darkness? Will we find
ourselves subjected to more endless preaching?
Are we fit students for any new teaching?

And what good any lesson merely bleaching
the past of any stains we’ve left behind,
or drowning out the crows and vultures screeching
on ancient battlefields we’ve tilled, or mined?

Out there, far past the edge of our remembrance,
is there a quiet place to stop and think,
not quite Valhalla or fabled Olympus

but just a stretch of nothing, where the dance
is still, and with just cool water there to drink,
we fade into a single, silent us?

31 MAY 2017

Share This:

One Cause Alone: envelope sonnet

Posted on by
Reply

One cause alone cannot sustain our reason.
Quite surely in one lifetime are enough
good reasons to press on; that is the stuff
of all our myths and legends, in their season.

Besides, one grows and passes out of childhood;
the dreams of youth must cede their place, as age
begins fresh chapters and with each new page
discovers strange and new forms of the good.

What good is life’s extension but for learning?
If nothing changes, why bother at all?
A candle’s wasted if only left burning
to chase away the shadows as they fall.
To change, evolve, is living’s constant yearning;
it cannot breathe if tethered in a stall.

31 MAY 2017

Share This:

Causes Worth Fighting: Petrarchan sonnet

Posted on by
Reply

We each must choose the causes worth our fighting
from a great myriad of pointless quests
designed to breed confusion in our breasts
and keep the fuse inside us from igniting.

The frivolous is made to seem exciting;
it titillates and leads our thoughts astray.
We lose momentum somewhere on the way,
and valor turns from acts to talk and writing.

And then, the courage fueling forward motion
begins to wane, reduced from flame to spark;
we stagnate, turned from blood and flesh to stone.
What starts as dedication and devotion
slips fast away from bright to cold and dark;
our coalition lost, we fade, alone.

31 MAY 2017

Share This:

Both Kinds of Good

Posted on by
Reply

It should be said (at least one time in jest)
that in the world exist two kinds of good
to separate what matters from the rest,
for use by some discerning soul who could

in keening the true nature of a thing
believe their observations to be fact,
and, damned be the naysay blabbering,
to light the world with simple, subtle tact.

To say the thing could scarce but make it so!
The world believes the magic of such words,
and will, despite what evidence may show,
imagine rocks transformed to cooing birds.

And what are these two parts of goodness named?
The pointing finger, and its share of blame.

14 MAR 2015

Share This:

Cannon Fodder

Posted on by
Reply

When all else fails (and at some point it will),
so all that’s left to us is simply talk,
the victors will be those with basic skills
for making idle words seem like a walk

through all the rhetoric and empty lies
that promise surplus but deliver less,
and when we take offense and act surprised
remind us of our own unmindfulness.

I wonder, when that fateful day arrives,
the morning we awaken at long last,
if our frail egos will in fact survive
with sense enough to learn some from the past.

I doubt it. It’s much easier to sleep.
Besides, that keeps the cannon fodder cheap.

02 DEC 2014

Share This:

The Wren (Drui-En)

Posted on by
Reply

The Wren (Drui-En)We barely see him there against the leaf,
a tiny nondescript and timid soul,
but suddenly quite to our disbelief,
he calls upon the magic he controls.

With cunning and a wealth of secret lore,
that shatter our illusions of the grand,
he hides there on the shadowed forest floor
to show to us the Goddess and her plan.

His subtle ways teach us that the whole truth
in gentle, humble ways is oft revealed,
and offers in his simple song the proof
that wisdom may be easily concealed.

The smallest bird but he who holds the throne,
the wren reveals the sacred heart alone.

from “Druid Animal Sonnets”
Copyright OCT 2001 John Litzenberg
“Druid Animal Oracle” by Philip and Stephanie Carr-Gomm
Wren painting by Bill Worthington

Share This: