An Advent Sonnet (second draft)

Pale leaves cling fast to the wind-battered tree;
The autumn-craving flesh is deeply thrilled!
As dim as dreams, cloud-balked, the sun leaks through,
Spilling its feeble light upon the world.

The noise of cackling crows pierces the cold,
Presaging winter's nights of snow and ice:
November's stubborn flowers nipped and killed
By north-wind's stinging blast; skies gray as mice.

Some souls there are who watch for signs of grace,
Expecting love's fabled nativity
In a chilly and unfavorable place

Apparently unvisited by Him
Who makes all dying life rejoice anew:
Each human heart a cave in Bethlehem.

An Advent Sonnet (early draft)

(Dear Reader or Readers:  Be politely unsparing!  There's something not-quite-right about this poem, I suspect, but am standing too close to it to know precisely what it is.  It was, I should note, written just for practice' sake.)

Bleak leaves cling fast to the wind-battered tree;
This autumn weather thrills the sin-sick soul.
As dim as dreams, cloud-balked, the sun leaks through,
Spilling its feeble light upon the world.

The cackle of the crows pierces the cold
Presaging winter's stoic days (snow; ice;
November's stubborn flowers nipped and killed
By north-wind's stinging blast; skies gray as mice).

And yet some souls there are who watch for grace,
Expecting love's fabled nativity
In a chilly and unfavorable place

Apparently unvisited by Him
Who makes all dying life rejoice anew:
Each human heart a cave in Bethlehem.

Heather Greywolf answers my haiku

(i)


Perhaps it said "and ..."
Because it wanted to know
What would happen next!


(ii)


Leaves falling on me
Glad it is not the squirrels
They are heavier

Two quasi-haiku-type poems

(i)

Thrown on the bed,
why is my belt
an ampersand?


(ii)

Aw, sweet! --
straight outta Cummings,
"a leaf falls ..."

November

A ten-year-old attempt at a poem, recently re-worked and re-titled.

Draft of a sonnet

Cool air, the fragrance of dead leaves, the plume
From a live cigarette, the winds that blow
In late October, the glory and the gloom
Of seven thousand yesterdays ago --

The chronicle of transitory bliss,
The sudden gratifying memory
Of a passionate twenty-year-old kiss
From a girl who smoked and loved immoderately --

Now distant in geography and time,
But very near in thought, immediate
And intimate as trouble with the heart --

The brief joy cherished as a happy crime,
An injury both fierce and delicate
Healed not by length of days or surgeon's art.

After Reading Robert Lowell

Once more October, season of "hope and change":
my forty-second year.  These autumn leaves
are crisp bits of eye-fire, foliate explosions
of mortal color, whose loss one always grieves.

I gather books, huge stacks. Some say that's odd.
Scores of used volumes -- poetry, religion.

I wonder if all these dusty tomes estrange

my heavy soul from the ever-living God.

I am stockpiling sins -- lust, wrath, and pride:
inveterate private peccancies, the old
fall-bys that make one sink into dire disgrace.

O Distant One, have mercy on me, weak-willed
addict of leisure and rhyme and cyberspace,
who crave the peace of Thy kingdom. Come, abide.

*


first draft October 2010
latest version May 2011