Sonnet Challenge #26

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.

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Sonnet Challenge #25

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.

Sonnet Challenge #24

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.

Sonnet Challenge #23

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.

Sonnet Challenge #22

Just in case you were wondering, there are actually a lot more sonnets being written than I post here, but I thought I’d put this one up as I was reading it to D yesterday and we had a good laugh.

 

Flip flops
Flip flops are such a comfy thing to wear,

the shoe with a relaxing attitude.

Slip on vacation hooves and then you’re there –

Flip from a boss into a cool dude.

Your toes feel freedom, something that’s so right.

No more stuffy socks inside the thong!

They’ll fit feet that are narrow, deep or wide,

and waterproof!  You really can’t go wrong.

If it’s too cold for flip flops, stay inside

and flip around the house until it warms,

then hit the beach and dip them in the tide

,the sand won’t chafe your heels, you won’t get corns.

And when you crave a lazy day that’s tops,

kick off the pumps and slip into flip flops.

Sonnet Challenge #21

It’s almost flip-flop weather here.  Well, it was, and then it got cold again, but it’s not quite back to being socks and shoes weather so I’m just letting the toes go cold and staying inside in the morning.

Flip flops
Flip flops are such a comfy thing to wear,

the shoe with a relaxing attitude.

Slip on vacation hooves and then you’re there –

Flip from a boss into a cool dude.

Your toes feel freedom, something that’s so right.

No more stuffy socks inside the thong!

They’ll fit feet that are narrow, deep or wide,

and waterproof!  You really can’t go wrong.

If it’s too cold for flip flops, stay inside

and flip around the house until it warms,

then hit the beach and dip them in the tide,

the sand won’t chafe your heels, you won’t get corns.

And when you crave a lazy day that’s tops,

kick off the pumps and slip into flip flops.

Sonnet Challenge #20

I thought that I would put this one out there today because of all the political huffing and puffing going on presently.  Whatever the rest of the world sees at the international level, I’ve seen (and almost been tangled up in) at the city and county level. <sigh>  One disclaimer – my other half thought in the last two lines that I was advocating such activity.  Seriously, I was just thinking more JFK.  It was a tragedy, but nevertheless didn’t reduce the entire country to rubble.

 

 

Political Machine

A government is such a vast machine
with so many departments interlaced,
it little matters who is on the team –
they are all parts so easily replaced.
It’s easier to just go with the grain
than try to stop this vast unyielding load.
A combine harvester works just the same
and everything before it will be mowed
back into dirt.  Recycled into earth,
ignored, delayed, transgressions found and fined
until the machine has taken all our worth
and then, with welfare, drags us on behind.
And if you blow the president’s head off –
the machine will still continue, with a cough.