Tag Archives: sonnet

Good Morning

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I check the time and see that it is now.
Outside as far as I can see is here.
What I can choose to do comes down to how
I evaluate and act upon this dear

and precious present — what a perfect word.
Here-and-now is all we have in the absurd
cat’s cradle we construct from might-have-beens
that curdle while we conjure larger skeins

of wished-for lies that we fantasise are wool
that, if we weave it well, will give us full
control and meaning for the lives we lead —
or, better, follow — out of some daft need

to imagine our existences are more
than moments to experience and adore.

Exit Left

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We listened but we didn’t do a thing.
Oh, Samantha marched, and Luther read a list,
and I chaired meetings. Glenda did I Ching.
And none of us believed apologists

for industries who claimed their little bits
of damage to our home lands weren’t so bad.
But Do? But Fight? A third of us signed chits
demanding less pollution. We were glad

we’d been so active, while we’d stayed polite.
We stayed on in the cities. We consumed.
The storm clouds thickened; we turned up the light
and read our anthems while the rockets zoomed

and birth control was honoured in the breech.
Jehovah gave his day job up to teach.

What about Space Then?

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‘It was Time,’ they said at the front desk. They were right.
Time had come down, turned in the room key, and gone out.
‘What about Space then?’ they said at the front desk. Second sight
would have helped them understand what was about
to happen, or had happened, as the thin red line
between conflicting realities unravelled.

In the mirror-filled hotel restaurant, Death took a shine
to his own reflection marvelling how he’d travelled
from a There to a Here in a fraction of a Now.
Waitresses turned grey. The head waiter waived
the wait-to-be-seated rule and gave a bow
to Death. ‘They all do,’ Death thought, ‘as if it saved

them answering when I call.’ He ordered toast
and wondered which – Time or Space? – missed him the most.

Shout Out

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When the whispers that were once anthems all die out,
now that the madness at the fringe is institutionalized,
will we drown in private penance? Will we shout?
Our freedom was not something devils prized
from our dead hands. No, we gave it away.
We still have a chance, a lesser chance, to win
our freedom back, our honour back, today
and every bleak tomorrow. Seeing sin

for what it is – a bully and a coward –
is the first step to redemption, to the goal
of living in a world we want. Keep marching forward.

Madness feeds on madness and we’ll be leaving
our better selves behind us in the cold
unless we organise and stop mute grieving.