I was accepted as the ‘Artist of the Quarter’ at The Journal – an online literary magazine. I had applied as both a poet and an artist and was accepted in some sense, for both, because of the poetry in my painting. Here’s the link to the issue that contains my interview, though it is accessible from the front page also.
I haven’t posted any sonnets for a while. I also write non-sonnets! Here’s a fun one to make a Monday morning a bit lighter.
I’d rather be with someone.
I’d rather be with someone who’s a laugh a minute than a dollar a second.
I’d rather be with someone who’s good in bed than god at the bank.
I’d rather be with someone who’d prefer to watch the sun go down than the dollar rise.
I’d rather be with someone who tries to make me happy than who’d try to buy me happiness.
I’d rather be with someone who’s a good kisser than a good spender.
I’d rather be with someone who’d prefer to keep me warm at night than buy me a mansion in the sun.
I’d rather be with someone who’ll dance with me than bring me diamonds.
I’d rather be with someone who’s good company than who’d buy me a company.
I’d rather be with someone who’s got a good heart than a good portfolio.
I’d rather be with someone who’s my honey pie than my sugar daddy.
I’d rather be with someone who’s an equal than an equals.
I’d rather be with someone who’s well read than wealthy.
I’d rather be with someone who’s likable than loaded.
I’d rather be with someone who’s intelligent than in clover.
I’d rather be with someone who’ll say I need a face-lift because he wants to make me smile.
I’d rather be with someone who’ll take me to the ball game than buy the team.
I’d rather be with someone who’ll rent us a row boat than buy a yacht.
I’d rather be with someone who’s still values our relationship when we’re broke.
I’d rather be with someone who’s real than rich.
I don’t want to be with someone who’s valued in millions, I want to be with someone who’s priceless.
I realized that I had not posted this sonnet, despite the fact that it was inspired by the experience of a fellow blogger. Rhi had gone for a very important interview and had asked for some accommodations to help with the difficulties with environment unfamiliarity due to autism. They guessed at how they needed to overcome her difficulties and did not succeed too much. Perhaps as a consequence, neither did she at securing the job. I recommend you read her blog entry before you read the sonnet.
A day in your moccasins
We able-bodied try to understand
the difficulties of the body bent
into a chair, or missing foot or hand
by hobbling ourselves, with the intent
of walking in your shoes – or wheels – or world
of silence. We can don masks, hold a cane,
experience the perspective of hands curled
to uselessnes by age’s creeping pain.
This path we walked can help us build a bridge
across the chasms that hold back those not whole;
and yet one group we still leave on the edge
unable to feel how you’re untypical.
We can’t take steps inside a spectrum mind.
Only see footprints in the sand you left behind.
Sometimes I think poets go through all the circumstances themselves so they can write about things from a personal perspective.
Inside Prejudice
Outside of prejudice, a place that’s learned
like old wives’ tales, absorbed at parent’s knee
to recognize the ones that should be spurned,
no why, just that’s the way that it should be.
Inside of prejudice, that face is turned,
for reasons I can’t fathom, away from me,
til whispers, giggles stop when I get near
and conversation turns to other things.
I know I am the joke I cannot hear
and my imagination then takes wings
and rises on the heat of latent fear,
the wind that is despair, and all it brings.
Outside of prejudice can see no wrong.
Inside of prejudice I don’t belong.
So for a little light bedtime reading, it’s usually a science book or something similar. I recently bought a science reference book (it’s useful to have a periodic table handy when my mind wanders) and read about the accuracy of Cesium clocks and other (mis-)uses of radioactive materials……
Atomic Time
We count the rot of Cesium to mark time;
we are obsessed with measuring the past
as it come at us, from a future cast
quite randomly; yet we strive to align
the whirl of planets circling the stars
above us. Slicing time up like a pie
in pieces with precise equality
so we can note the passage of the hours.
We watch the atoms split, then split them more,
note and love the difference in decay,
and harness it to blow ourselves away,
then realize we cannot close that door.
We know that action made the world a mess
but that’s one thing we couldn’t second guess.
My friend and neighbor Bob and I usually get into some kind of philosophical discussion over dinner. He usually comes to dinner on Mondays but he’s snowbirding at the moment so I get a few months off from trying to cook the healthy stuff he needs to eat. A few weeks ago he was talking about visiting the graves of friends and relatives who have gone on to the next plane. He said “I know they’re not there, but it’s like the last place they were, and it helps me to focus on ‘visiting’ with them.” We both knew a sonnet was inevitable from that conversation.
Standing at your grave
Standing at your grave, you are not here.
Though bone or ash remains, your spirit’s flown;
and yet I came to visit one who’s dear
but taken flight. This, your departure lounge,
a hollow hall where I can stand and wave
and visit memories you left behind.
It’s mostly when I stand here at your grave
the things you were come easily to mind
for me. I know you wait ahead
with your side of the story that we are.
I’ll finish mine and see you when I’m dead,
where there’s no time and distances aren’t far
But now, beside your grave, I miss your face
and wish somehow you were here in this place.
Muddle Through
We don’t know how to get from A to B,
the roads are blocked, the way through is unclear
.The truck in front blocks signs we need to see
,we take wrong turns trying to get out of here
but muddle through, then find the metaphor
for life – journey without a decent map.
The scenic route that lacks a guided tour.
Don’t know if we’ll arrive without mishap
or even know when we’ve arrived at all.
Our end point might just feel like we’re waylaid
and each attempt at progress we will fall
until we realize this is where we aged.
There’s no set path for anything we do
For most things, we’ll just have to muddle through.
