221
Sonnets From Other Lives: Will & Helen

Outside the storm is wilding on as though
it intends to rip the world apart.
They lost power half an hour ago.
Beyond the candle glow the house is dark.
Will & Helen sit together reading;
he Raymond Carver, she Joyce Carole Oates.
--Love—he asks her—do you feel like eating?
She thumbs her place & answers—I don’t know…
I could warm some chili on the fire .
–I’ll dig a pot out of the camping gear—
he says rising slowly. He is tired
all the time after his stroke. --Oh dear—
he thinks as a wave of vertigo
reminds him of mortality then goes.

220
Sonnets From Other Lives: Dharma Bums

I think about the vultures in Bolinas
roosting in the eucalyptus trees.
We’d slept with only sleeping bags between us
& the cold ground of the cemetery. We
dug it. –We’re not dead yet! We called, laughing
as we rolled our bindles up & went
into town for breakfast. –We’re just passing
through. That month that summer then we spent
hitch hiking all up & down the coast.
Herds of hippie hobos on the road
trying to live free a while. Now most
of us—the one’s that I still know
have made some kind of truce with middle age
& for now the vultures will just have to wait.

219
Sonnets From Other Lives: Rudy

When I was a kid at Christmastime
I was a junkie for The Christmas Spirit.
I’d lie under the tree as Silent Night
played on the stereo. I had to hear it
every Christmas Eve just before bed.
I’d lay longing like a soldier overseas
for a Christmas Past or something that I’d read,
about somewhere or more likely seen
on those Christmas Special television shows.
Now, lurching through these crowded big box stores
with their atrocious Christmas Muzak, I don’t know—
I’m not feeling it. It doesn’t work for me.
Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be.

218
Sonnets From Other Lives: Miranda

This night is meant for staring at the moon
through silent grey clouds scudding ‘cross the sky.
Miranda intends to go back in soon,
but for now she’s standing hypnotized
by that bright pearl waxing gibbous in
the purple blackness high above her yard.
Honestly she knows she should begin
fixing the kids’ dinner, but it’s hard
to drop a perfect moment for her right
now. The kids are happily watching T.V.
Miranda & her moon will share this night
for a few more moments & then she
will go inside & back to motherhood.
But right now this bright quietude feels good.

217
Sonnets From Other Lives: Morgana

Distant thunder rumbles. It seems closer
than the previous murmured suggestions
of impending storm. Morgana knows her
home is well secured, but the oppression
of a falling barometric pressure
& the grey green pallor of the evening sky--
though strange & lovely-- does mildly distress her
enough to inventory the supplies
stowed securely down in the root cellar.
She puts on Janacek’s Sinfonietta
to bravely welcome in the donnerwetter,
stokes a the fire aflame, then goes to get a
cup of coffee from the kitchen right
before the sky explodes in blue-white light.

216
Sonnets From Other Lives: Lute

Dry leaves rustle, imitating footsteps.
Chinook wind whispering conspiracies
that in his mind begin making weird sense…
Intelligence or stochasticity?
Mare said the stars had had it in for him.
His mother’s version was all sin & wages.
Whatever. All of the documentation
he’d seen thus far while pouring through the pages
of way too many books brought him to this:
People can imagine anything
& put it into writing. Did he miss
his warm & fuzzy certitude & thinking
that everything was part of The Great Plan?
Whatever. I mean hey, shit happens man.

215
Sonnets From Other Lives: Lindsay

Fuck this—she says & clicks the train of x’s
that closes all the spreadsheets & Outlook
crap that she’s been slogging through. A text is
buzzing at her. She cries--I will brook
no more—shuts down, gets up, & draws a bath.
Next a heavy pour of cab-merlot,
before her inner raging psychopath
gets the upper hand. Step three: she goes
through her playlists. Chopin. Can she handle
a book? Sense & Sensibility--
if she can keep her eyes open. As candles
burn aromatherapeutically,
she sinks & sighs & would’ve been left alone
had she not neglected to silence her phone.

215
Sonnets From Other Lives: Jerimiah

He’s positive his negativity
has driven her away, as he well knew
it would, because eventually
it always does. So why does he do
this? Sabotage relationships?
It’s just that he keeps noticing things &
he can’t keep his mouth shut. It slips
out. The flaw. The fault. The failure. Then
everybody’s beautiful illusions
burst like overfilled birthday balloons.
He’s come to the uncomfortable conclusion
he’s a drag to be around. He’s out of tune
with this culture with all that positive thinking
people do to hide the truth. We are all sinking.

214
Sonnets From Other Lives: Alain

Outside on the street the wind bites shrewdly.
Alain tucks his head into his collar
& shuffles north into the wind. He’s rudely
reminded winter will be here. A scholar
of climatic prognostication,
with a specialty in arthritic barometrics,
Alain has had aching indications
that snow is imminent. He’ll need to get his
apartment re-supplied for the duration.
Golden maple leaves are swirling now
in the evening air. The tintinnabulation
of a rolling ashcan lid somehow
makes perfect sense to him today.
Everything will someday blow away.

213
Sonnets From Other Lives: Marc & Luc

--Think back on the time before your birth.
Do those memories leave you traumatized?
--What transpired before my time on earth?
No I’m O.K.--not having been alive
at the time…Marc pauses then adds—Der.
Luc goes on tho’—But that’s just my point.
Why fear death? It hasn’t yet occurred
to you you’ve more than cased the joint.
You’ve non-existed more than you’ve existed.
I’d think you could get used to it with time.
--I want my afterlife! Let me be lifted
out of here & into paradise!
--You are so egocentric, Marc. See you
can’t conceive of a universe without you.

212
Sonnets From Other Lives: Mab

Let’s hand the painted room off to the night,
to shadows & to your imagination.
The amber ambience of the night light
& your mind’s eye’s iris’s dilations
open new doors to your REMs
as you inress into wondrous strange
states where gravity is optional &
things appear familiar yet changed
by memory & your free firing neurons
‘til at light you wake with vague nostalgia…
Would you could remember where you’d gone--
but morning funk, miasma & cephalgia
have set your memory on overwrite
& you’ve forgotten--you were out with me last night.

211
Sonnets From Other Lives: Mac & Marti

Well that was awkward. Mac closes the door.
Gawd. What was she thinking? Marti sighs-
collapsing on the sectional. No more
dinner parties with that woman. I
can’t deal with the squirm factor . I try--
but when she gets so drunk like that & hits
on every hominid that bears a y
chromosome… Tom laughs & goes & gets
the lone surviving bottle of red wine.
Here love. Drink up & tell us all about it.
Marti takes the proffered glass. I find
it all so bloody sad. Then as he sits
down & starts to rub her feet, she adds,
All the poor dear wants is what we have.

209
Sonnets From Other Lives: Murphy

Why is it some guys—they have all the luck?
--Murphy asks himself a lot these days.
Everything I do ends up all fucked
up one way or another. You could say
it was the story of his life. In school
he was the guy who always would get caught.
Other dudes would pull stuff—act the fool
& walk away scott free. It’s like he got
branded at birth with a guilty leer.
Now he’s driving home at 3 AM
with blue lights flashing in the rear view mirror.
Aw shit—he mutters—here we go again.
& he just KNOWS the cop will find the drugs.
You're the windshield sometimes. Mostly Murph's the bug.

Sonnets From Other Lives: Haunting

Rumor is the middle school is haunted.
Doors close & open by their own volition.
Some of the night custodians are daunted
by the stories & report feeling a frisson
—sensing a presence in an empty place.
More than one of them reported seeing
a girl—long hair—long skirt—a smiling face—
who disappears on second glance. Believing
they hear her giggle in some empty room
many choose to trust in their perception.
We have that atavistic desire to
believe in a beyond & so rejection
of death’s cold hand is comforting. Now most
of us probably long to see a ghost.

208
Sonnets From Other Lives: Dale

Driving down the west slope of the pass,
he imagined he could smell the ocean.
Recent rain gave the highway a glass-
like sheen & a familiar emotion—
what was it? The opposite on longing…
Nearly nostalgia… Did it have a name?
Maybe it’s a feeling of belonging—
having left the dry land wheat & sage
to return to where mosses & evergreens
glowered on the ridges. It had been
six or seven months since he had seen
her. Would things start up again
where they left off when he left her & went east
to go to school? He couldn’t wait to see.

210
Sonnets From Other Lives: Artificial Intelligence

Siri, I can’t get no satisfaction.
I’m sorry Dave. Can you be more specific?
Siri, I want me some girlie action—
a Victoria’s Secret model would be terrific.
You have their web site on your favorites list.
I can connect you. Panties are on sale.
Ah, Siri I’m afraid that you have missed
the point. I’m tryin to score some tail
here. I’m sorry but I can’t tell what you’re thinking.
You know Siri, that you have a sexy voice?
Dave, I am confused. Have you been drinking?
Aw just four beers, Siri, don’t sound so annoyed.
I’m drunk & horny Siri, & I want to chat.
Well if you must. There is an app for that.

207
Sonnets From Other Lives: Fiction

Stop right there—he said—& I’ll finish your story.
You ran away from home when your step father
started hitting on you. She was sorry
for the guy, but hell, his stories got her
further down the road & that was all she
asked. You tried to make it in L.A.
but that didn’t pan out. Eventually
you decided you would make your getaway.
She smiled & nodded—watched the desert fly
past the windshield. He could write her story
any way he wanted. It’s a ride
right? In truth the truth was boring.
She was down & out & all she had to give
him was license to rewrite her narrative.

205
Sonnets From Other Lives: Hal

The losses pile up. He’s down to zero—
less than nothing—the negative one.
It’s been a long time since he was the hero
of his own story. It isn’t fun
anymore. Defensive shields of irony
can only hold out for so long before
the brutal assaults of reality
crumble one’s illusions. There are more
& more negative numbers in the columns
he’s been struggling for so long to balance.
This is what it feels like to fall. Some-
how he neglected to make an allowance
for unseen variables that on occasion
appear & queer the best laid out equations.

204
Sonnets From Other Lives: Kirk

She changed her profile picture on Facebook.
Kirk was hypnotized. Her new hair-do
gave her a fetching youthful winsome look
he hadn’t seen at work. He started to
type-- she doth teach the torches to burn bright--
but stopped himself. I’ve gone all twitterpated
over a chick I’m s’posed to supervise!
Warning! Must. Stop. Now! Co-workers dated
on the down-low sometimes, but Kirk’s practical,.
That’s not how one advances one’s career.
love the new do its adorable--
he types out with a sudden thrill of fear.
Was that too forward for a Facebook friend?
Oh what the hell—he thought & clicked on SEND.

203
Sonnets From Other Lives: Victoria

She worked hard to believe in happy endings
but life often would not cooperate.
Her husband, Karl, these days was often spending
more time at the office, working late
into the evening. He would often come home
in a foul mood—unresponsive to
any overtures then hide alone
in the T.V. room. One might ask—Who
is the other woman that he’s seeing?
But that would never cross Victoria’s mind.
Karl resented this. He started being
intentionally careless, but she was blind
to strange scents and sketchy credit card receipts…
What does it take to make her want to make him leave?

202
Sonnets From Other Lives: Garry

She was posing with The Naked Cowboy
in the only photograph of her
he’d kept. He remembers how annoyed
he’d been with her that night. Now the absurd
picture reeks of nostalgia and longing.
She loved that wild electric New York energy
that drove him insane. He’d tried prolonging
the thing. Bad idea but hey… She finally
left him & he left that crazy city.
Boulder suits him better but he’s yet
to find another her among the pretty
Colorado mountain girls . Regret-
fully he puts away the photo—noting he’s
now doomed to share her with a guy in BVDs.

201
Sonnets From Other Lives: June

A murder of crows flies across the sky—
heading westward—fleeing from the setting sun.
June swings on the gate & wonders why
they do this every night. There was someone—
her teacher-- Mrs. Good Old What’s Her Name--
said they were roosting. What is that? Like roosters?
She’s confused--roosters & crows are not the same
thing. It’s hard to know just what the truth is
with grownups sometimes. They’ll call something “teasing”
but when she does that same thing they call it “fibbing”.
Shadows grow. She notices she’s freezing
& jumps off the gate to warm herself by skipping--
singing-- crows can roost & that’s a thing I know—
& the other thing I knows is roosters crow.

199
Sonnets From Other Lives: Dee

The mall’s become a ghost town now. As Dee
makes her way to Sears to buy work boots,
she imagines other things she’ll buy when she
gets that magic paycheck. Something cute
from Claire’s for Jilly, (but they closed in May),
new kicks for Ken (if Footlocker had not
bailed last year). The jobs all went away
when the plant closed & the stores all got
outa Dodge as well. But now this job—
a flagger on a highway project—will
get her back on her feet (thank God).
I’ll fix the car--she thinks-- pay off the bills,
buy clothes for the kids for goodness sake!
It’s nice to finally get a fucking break.

198
Sonnets From Other Lives: George & Martha

Soon enough we’ll all be quoting Yeats—
you know, “The best lack all conviction…”
He’d muted the Republican debates
to elucidate our national afflictions.
Martha quilted on as George continued—
How’d all this “passionate intensity”
wind up getting channeled all into
saving tax cut for the rich? Insanity!
Martha turned the T.V. off & wandered over
to the stereo. She put on some Chopin.
George, who would have thought now that we’re older
that we’d still have to go stick it to the man.
Historically the obvious solution
is to organize another revolution.

197
Sonnets From Other Lives: Anastasia

40,000 feet over Ohio
Anastasia felt a sudden surge
of sadness. She fought the urge to cry. No
--she told herself. The mournful dirge
that was the soundtrack of her life
was swelling once again within her, but
she didn’t want her seatmate & his wife
to worry or think she was some nut
case or something. When do these things end?
People lose a loved one & move on
all the time. But here it is again—
the agonizing knowledge that he’s gone.
There’s nothing--& Jesus knows she’s tried--
that fills the void that he used to occupy.

196
Sonnets From Other Lives: Earl

DUDE you gotta come over RIGHT NOW!
Zoey’s losin it—she’s throwing shit
at me &….I don’t know—I’m sittin there & POW
this plate flies right by me. It nearly hit
my frickin head! Say what? Man, I dunno
what set her off…well yeah I guess I do.
But other couples have their troubles & don’t go
all ballistic all the time. You think that you
could maybe talk her down? She’s locked herself
in the bathroom. Honey? Crap! She broke something
in there. Honey—take the phone &…What the hell?
Ow! Shit! She took another fucking swing
at me! Yeah I swung back but dude I missed her.
Yer right I shouldn’t have hit on her sister.

195
Sonnets From Other Lives: Hank

The man he used to be looked out at him
from the photograph. How many years
ago was that? He thinks he might have been
nineteen or so—way back when the beer
still brought out his brighter, bolder self—
before the blurry, bloated dullard in the mirror
with his breakfast PBR drank to his health
& hopelessness. Sometimes in his clearer
moments he can still recall those days—
when as the party’s life he held the stage
& everybody laughed & loved the way
everything for him was fun & games
& the girls were game & grinned with drunken lust.
Now they just avert eyes in disgust.

194
Sonnets From Other Lives: Vincent

She had a way of blending into things
about as well as gasoline & water.
I saw her by the fireplace—her wings
tickling the drunk vampire that brought her
to the party. She—a sullen angel—
floated in the room over the cheerful
hoard of nattering masqued suburbanites.
Her face on second look was really fearful
underneath that angry boredom. As the night
dragged on I wondered how the girl
that used to set all our minds on fire
with desire to beautify the world
with our art wound up hosting retired
drones & trophy wives for charity.
She must have just surrendered (much like me).

193
Sonnets From Other Lives: Alf

When he was on the paint would seem to flow
directly from his mind onto the surface
of the canvas. For days he would go
without sleep. A manic, focused purpose
driven rush of creativity
followed by a blackhole week of funk.
The pictures piled up but he had to flee
the studio for his flat & then get drunk
while the darkness had its way with him.
Of course the cycle couldn’t go forever.
He loved the highs—the pictures sold but then
the art went bad & crazy— voices gathered.
He refused the safe dullness of lithium
& opted in its stead to buy the gun.

192
Sonnets From Other Lives: Walt

He spent most of the summer by himself.
When Mom left for work he would get up
& ride his bike. In his mind he cast a spell
over the quiet labyrinthine pavement of
his suburban neighborhood. It disappeared
& was replaced by a string of lurid stories.
His adventures spun around his head like gears
of his derailleur. T.V. shows were boring
compared to the tales he spun
on those muggy summer afternoons.
He stopped watching—hardly spoke to anyone.
When he wasn’t riding he was in his room—
it was for him a kind of meditation—
living in a world of his own narration

191
Sonnets From Other Lives: Perry & Helen

He couldn’t keep his eyes off of the scar
that marred the otherwise classic proportions
of the woman in the subway car.
From eye to jaw it ran—like the distortion
of a cracked mirror—the pieces didn’t fit.
That face could be on any magazine cover—
made up—coiffed—really he could see it—
the jagged tear would be photoshopped over…
He thought no doubt she sensed his covert stare.
His fascination could not be original.
She’d be good at pretending not to care
about unwanted attention. All subliminal
cultural signals we use to define allure
were rendered irrelevant by her.

3
Histories: God King

It was the Nile that obeyed the Pharaoh.
He was the god that made the river flood.
Those floods watered the desert & that narrow
strip of green & fertile cropland was
what served as their civilization’s spine.
The Pharaoh then provided everything
even life to his people. The shrines
put up to pay homage to the king
were erected to adorn the public spaces
so that thousands of years later we can gaze
at the icons of those royal faces.
But upon death their splendid royal graves
were hidden away—buried secretly—
lest mortals find & rob their deity.

11
Sonnets From Other Lives: Bunny

The Queen reclines in her hospital bed--
the proverbial elephant in the living room
crowding the atmosphere with things unsaid
& a too awkward proximity to doom.
When my world was all carpools, PTA,
the battlefields of marriage—raising kids,
who knew cancer would melt all that away
& leave a sense that everything I did
followed a script? I met my engineer
right out of high school. Married. Pregnant. Plopped
into a ranch house. He had his career
& I had children. How did that stop
time? How is it that now I feel I
stood rooted while the whole wide world flew by?

3
Histories: Settling

After millennia spent wandering—
following migrations of wild beasts—
some beasts are caught tamed into working
the fields--ancient mysteries of seeds
are revealed. The land will become owned.
Aggressive men are warriors & kings.
The rest will till the land—work in the home--
provide their betters with fine crafted things--
& placate the willful god or gods
that move the forces of nature & fate
with esoteric rituals & laws.
Some become artists & create
things of beauty—some of which will last
long enough to cast a glimmer on the past.

190
Sonnets From Other Lives: Sam

People used to call him a go-getter.
So he went & got—grasping for something
more—something bigger—something better.
His life personified The American Dream—
the biggering-- the bettering--the owning.
He competed--powered through adversity--
franchised his inspirations--cloning
ideas into strip-malled ubiquity.
He had it all they said. Then the forgetting
started. He forgot that rules applied
to him. He forgot names. He was getting
lost. He didn’t know that deep inside,
his brain was disassembling like sieve.
Eventually he just forgot to live.

2
Histories: Others

The Others might appear at any time
& so one must at all times be alert.
to small & subtle changes. In the wild
(& everything is wild) the things that hurt
are hidden, silent, stalking & so
we learn to make connections into patterns.
Seeing people that we do not know
moving stealthily on the savannah
we crouch and quietly plan our attack.
They do not look like us. They are the Others.
They could be hunting us--following our tracks.
They could attack us—steal our daughters, wives & mothers.
This is why we look upon all strangers
with fear & loathing & a sense of danger.

8
Sonnets From Other Lives: Daniel

Rattlesnake beside the highway. Dead.
I pull over, cut the engine, take a look.
A big one. Someone's tire took off its head,
not long ago. It's fresh enough I to cook
up. Meat is meat & rattlesnake ain't bad
so I toss it in the truck. My home’s no prize—
a garden patch, a trailer, & a shack
just outside Ukiah. I suppose some guys
got out of Nam unscathed--I wasn't one.
But then my Dad was kind enough to croak
with life insurance enough to buy the farm.
(The guys from the old squad would dig that joke)
I got a goat, a garden--I grow my own weed
& ask only that the world leave me in peace.

1
Histories: Initiation

The first time—when he came here as a boy—
they told him he was entering the Womb
of the Earth & that he must avoid
touching anything within the sacred rooms
of stone. In line behind a single light
the boys entered a giant limestone chamber.
The Elders each set new torches alight
& in their glow he first beheld the stranger
world known only to initiates & shamans—
where Bison, Deer, Elk, & The Antlered Man
swirled on the cave walls. Calling to his daemon/
spirit guide, an Elder took his hand,
held it to the stone & blew a mist
of pigment— to show God that he exists.

The Monkey's going on vacation--he'll be back next week.

6

Sonnets From Other Lives: Hiro
See that tree? The little alpine fir?
Planted that one back in '52.
Pruned it like one I saw on Rainier.
A history prof from the U.W.
needed a gardener & he hired me--
a part time student on the G.I. Bill
with a piece of German shrapnel in my knee.
My father taught me bonsai & I still
have his tools. Minidoka broke him down.
They took his store--sent me to Italy...
He’d say—I don’t have time for that crap now.
It was him I thought about pruning this tree.
I’d put a gnarled mountain fir in Laurelhurst
as a reminder—what it looks like to endure.

5
Sonnets From Other Lives: Peter

The foot sticks out, so I'm obliged to trip,
drop my book, make a convincing fall.
I would so rather launch a double flip
over this jerk and scramble up the wall
&… never mind. I've run the thought experiments,
(for it is thinking that's keeping me alive).
When I compute causes and their effects,
somehow someone that I love always dies.
Tonight I'll swing above the city's canyons,
stand vigil on St. Patrick's tallest spire,
battle mutant villans and their minions,
then rescue someone's baby from a fire.

But first I sprawl and make this bully's day,
as the girl I love, embarrassed, looks away.

4
Sonnets From Other Lives: Abel

I am hailed at midtown. My first trip
today-- an older man bound for the east side.
who pays with squared-off blue-nailed fingertips.
Congenital heart defect. My next ride
is a yellow tinged cirrhotic alcoholic.
Today I think it will be getting hot.
A New York summer can make me nostalgic
for Harare’s steamy chaos, but I'm not
so welcome in Mugabe's paradise.
A white man in a wheelchair hails me. Says,
--Thanks. Six other cabs just drove on by.
The Avenue of the Americas...
I wonder what diagnosis best fits me--
Physician? Chauffeur? Exile? Refugee?

1
Sonnets From Other Lives: Meg

You never called, so what was I to think?
(The cat clock's tick-tock eyes scan right left right.)
I opened up some wine I'd bought to drink
along with you and Fred Astaire tonight
then left another message. What's the use?
(I'm thinking Ginger doth protest too much.)
I imagine you’re rehearsing your excuse.
So how the hell did I end up as such
a cliché? Rapunzel in her flat
waiting just to buzz Prince Dick inside,
'til finally she's reduced to hoarding cats
like some Dickensian rejected bride.
The merlot’s asking-- Notice how it feels
like your life is dancing backwards in high heels?

189
Sonnets From Other Lives: Hillary & Rolf

Just before the cornice gave away
he kissed her once to celebrate the summit.
There was no time or chance for a belay--
one second’s shared awareness then the plummet--
600 meters down the icy couloir.
They were so full of life –the papers said.
Biking, snowboarding, he used to call her
his Danger Muse. They raced to stay ahead
of fate—going faster, climbing higher,
because they loved the risk, the rush, the feeling
they got dodging danger. The high wire
was where the bullshit disappeared revealing
a cleaner brighter world—or so they said.
But there’s such a thing as too close to the edge.

188
Sonnets From Other Lives: Gary

The kid next to him in the first class section
slouches down & boots up a computer.
His headphones are an implicit rejection
of Gary’s small talk overtures. Commuters
in first class will usually provide
him with some pre-takeoff diversion
(Gary is a nervous although frequent flier)
but this kid’s absolute immersion
in his screen has left Gary stranded in the air
above America alone. He sneaks a look
at the kid’s screen, but what he finds there
is not a shoot up game or an e- book
but inscrutable graphs & dials—funny.
Kid says—I make beats & beats makes me the money.

187
Sonnets From Other Lives: Carlene

The version I heard first had it that she
got drunk & wound up dancing on the tables
at T.G.I. Fridays. Then a strip tease
appeared in later versions. No one’s able
to verify these stories. Everyone
hears about it second or third hand
from someone who says he knows someone
who was there. I guess I understand
the urge to stain her reputation.
A small town beauty who refused live
out everybody else’s expectations
to marry a quarterback & pop out kids
ASAP then join the P.T.A…
Mostly they’re pissed because she got away.

186
Sonnets From Other Lives: Lily

An icy river tumbling through granite
boulders—roaring, foaming as it rushes
by. The snow splashed peaks where it began its
seaward trek glare in the sun & brush
passing cloud tendrils like threads of hair.
Out of the river’s white noise she can hear
what could be voices in the mix. She stares
into the noise--eyes closed—so that her ears
might reach into the wall of rushing sounds.
What are they saying? She has a perverse
wish that in these sonic overtones she’s found
some hidden mystery of the universe.
But concentration kills this fantasy. Aloud:
It’s like I'm making animals out of clouds.

185
Sonnets From Other Lives: Rose

For one summer Rose followed the Dead
with her boyfriend in his caravan.
Whirling with a thousand acid heads
ecstatically dancing to the band’s
relentless rhythmic beat machine,
she came to believe Jerry’s guitar
solos were oracles & she could read
them like astrologers read stars.
Once in Oakland in mid Franklin’s Tower
she started feeling all of the emotions
of everyone around her. Superpowers
have their downsides & the oceans
of feelings drove her from concerts & crowds.
She’s working as a psychotherapist now.

184
Sonnets From Other Lives: Rod

Guy comes in this morning with this Vette--
says it's runnin rough. I think --No shit.
Black smoke from the tailpipe--you can bet
pistons're shot. So then I look at it.
Thirty thousand miles with no oil change.
I say --You killed the engine on a cherry
‘86 Vette! Dude goes all insane
on me! Just then my daughter Jeri
calls--sounding high but I can never tell
for sure. She's tellin me that she needs money--
how she got laid off again. I think-- Like hell!
But then I'm all --How much you need honey?
Meanwhile the Vette guy's making this huge scene…
Why can't people just take care of their machines?

183
Sonnets From Other Lives: Antoine
Looking back I shoulda had a clue.
“Love is blind” to quote the old cliché.
The song says “breaking up is hard to do”
but they’ve made all that easier. These days
you get a “Dear John text & find your number
has been blocked on your BF’s mobile phone.
Like you’re just supposed to go—O bummer—
& leave the double dealing bitch alone.
Did he forget that I am an IT
god? That I hacked his whole life long ago?
Just look at all this stuff he bought for me
on Amazon! Too bad he didn’t know.
O honey sure you can break up with me.
Deal is bitch you can't do it for free.
Deal is bitch you can’t do it for free.

182
Sonnets From Other Lives: The Drug War

They have a warrant they don’t have to knock.
Y’hear a crash & O shit—there they are.
Imperial Storm Troopers smash your locks
& put machine guns in your face. Bizarre.
All I get from my poor hungover brain
is -I think I just saw this on TV.
They’re all yelling pointing guns & it’s insane
but real—y’know? & I’m thinking
WTF? They’re screaming --Where’s the shit?
& pulling out drawers--tearing up the place.
They find a quarter ounce of pot. That’s it.
Then this cop comes in—a weird look on his face--
& looks anxiously around at all the mess.
Turns out that they got the wrong address.

182
Sonnets From Other Lives: Haruki

This feeling reminds him of déjà vu.
It’s the opposite though--for he is forgetting
exactly which airport he’s passing through.
He won’t find this to be at all upsetting.
When it happens he just plays it like a game
in which he looks for clues: ball caps or jerseys--
it’s cheating when some signage says the name
of the airport. So the sport’s absurd--he
plays it for the pleasure he derives
from being—for a moment—disconnected
from the fixed agenda of the frequent flyer.
The imaginary unexpected
will suffice for Haruki tonight
as he hurries to make his connecting flight.

181
Sonnets From Other Lives: Party of 6

party of 6 at table 22--
lunching, texting, talking, & kvetching:
-- anyone besides me feel like you
have some evil app that is attaching
itself to your brain & somehow making it
hyper vigilant? --everything needs
immediate attention! —this is how we live
our lives in this emerging century.
--raise your hand if you are taking xanax.
it gets a laugh tho no one’s hand goes up
-- we are all living lives of quiet panic.
as the conversation ebbs & flows
not once do they look up from their phones

180
Sonnets From Other Lives: Dr. Lear

The seminar eventually convenes,
although attendance is unusually low.
On a warm spring day a talk on Ancient Greek
drama fails draw a crowd. Although
Professor Lear is known in certain circles
for her scholastic prowess in the field,
her undergraduates don’t read the journals,
& Sophocles comes off as too unreal
for their world of snap gratification.
Recently widowed, she hopes her course reveals
to her students a hard won observation:
Eventually all of us come to see
that we are heroes cast in our own tragedy.

179
Sonnets From Other Lives: Seattle Solstice

As these things do, it started with a dare,
a group of friends & too much alcohol.
So next weekend is the Fremont Fair
wouldn’t it be awesome if we all
rode nekkid on our bikes in the parade?
At that point it seemed like cool idea.
Later though—I don’t know, I’m afraid
of being recognized & that could be a
awkward if my students see their teacher’s
naked butt ride by—Mom that’s Ms. Fagen!
The solution—they wore masks. Their party featured
orcs & other monsters (Nixon, Regan)
as they rode the whole parade bare assed & bold,
but this being Seattle—FUCKING COLD!

178
Sonnets From Other Lives: el Pueblo

At dawn the men with guns enter the village.
No one’s certain who these men might be.
Are they bandits come to kill them all & pillage
their impoverished pueblo? Possibly
they are narcos. Or perhaps guerillas.
They could be soldiers looking for subversives.
It is known that often men like these will kill a
man without explaining just what purpose
his death has served. Best then to do nothing
lest something causes them to take offense.
People scurry into their huts—rushing
to shutter windows & begin the tense
wait for what fate has in store today.
Huddling in darkened rooms, they pray.

177
Sonnets From Other Lives: Gilbert

Gilbert emerges from the theater
into the soft air of a summer night,
he stops to orient--then he sees her,
standing just across the street. Alright—
he thinks—she hasn’t seen me yet,
hidden as I am amidst this pack
of cinephiles. She lights a cigarette.
She’s smoking now? He is certain back
when they were together she abstained.
She waves. At him? No at another man.
Gilbert watches, trying to ascertain
whether they are lovers. O to understand
this missing thing he calls his phantom limb.
(Its freaky how much that guy looks like him.)

176
Sonnets From Other Lives: Grace

In the photograph they look so young--
her parents with their gay bedazzled smiles.
She found the faded snapshot in among
the detritus of what once had been their lives.
Her mother, vamping like an ingénue,
stands beside her father in his tux--
his Martini glass raised in a salute
to the golden gift of their good luck.
That Great American mid century
was in full swing & they were swinging too.
This was before the infidelities
caught up with them—before the pills & booze
of Grace’s aching childhood memories.
She’d never known that once they’d been happy.

175
Sonnets From Other Lives: The Regulars

Never thought he’d leave. I thought that he
had sunk his roots so far into this town
that we’d bury him here. The Maple Tree
Inn is mostly empty. So whose round
is it? I’m dry. All the Regulars
are drinking at their customary stations.
Nearly every drinker in the bar
thinking--To just up & leave friends & relations…
Someone puts a dollar in the jukebox
The Wichita Lineman fills the room.
For one verse and a chorus no one talks.
Joyce sets down a round then takes a broom--
& sweeps. Everybody knows it’s getting late.
Still, they drink & think about own escapes.

174
Sonnets From Other Lives: Ward

He wakes up, sees the clock, 3:43.
What was it that he heard or did not hear
in the dark place where he dreams his dreams?
A child’s whimper? That familiar fear
has awakened too & left the dream
to press its crushing weight down on his heart.
He has to get up . They’ll be no more sleep
tonight. He knows this drama—knows his part
is to keep the vigil faithfully. His wife
shudders restlessly in her own dream.
In the child’s room small signs of life
still abide—his toys untouched. Silently
he stares down at the empty bed. Moonlight
confirms the nightmare for another night.

173
Sonnets From Other Lives: Eli

When she accidently pocket-dialed her
husband, she didn’t know his voice mail faithfully
recorded every goddamn freakin word
of a conversation she thought he
would never ever hear …I said I was
going to the gym. He wouldn’t question
that. He likes to think that I work out
to look good for him.
--I wouldn’t mention….
A second voice—most definitely male…
familiar…who is it? –..to your husband
exactly what our workouts here entail.
So there it is. He stares at the phone—stunned--then
reckoning how much longer she’ll be gone,
gets up & throws her clothes out on the lawn..

172
Sonnets From Other Lives: Omar

For three weeks he could really see the ball--
reading pitches by watching the stitches
of the ball reveal their little mysteries. All
month he had been granted meaty pitches
that seemed to linger the strike zone &
beg his bat to smash their little faces.
He was cranking out the ribbies on demand.
Slapping bloopers right between the bases.
But now he’s o-for-three in the ninth inning
with two men on & down by two. One out.
He’s thinking too much now. Ideas of winning
& losing crowd the plate. He runs the count
to three & two-- taps one low & away …
Six-four-three. A classic double play.

171
Sonnets From Other Lives: Constance

In the dark arts of Magical Thinking
Constance is a Sorcerer First Class.
We see her now clandestinely drinking
her third luncheon Martini. She will pass
unnoticed by her supervisor
through the gauntlet of the office staff
to her cubicle with no one wiser.
Cloaked in invisibility, she laughs
at danger, blunders, gaffes & unpaid bills.
Hakuna matata . She is sure she
can use her potion powered magic skills
to achieve invulnerability.
But the Dark Arts still present some risk.
At 2:15 she’s snoring at her desk.

170
Sonnets From Other Lives: K.C.

Marco—she calls. A voice answers—Polo—
from somewhere behind her. Where is he?
Once more she calls—Marco—but now Polo-
Polo—Polo. Everybody seems
to want to play. How’s she gonna find
him now? The band will start soon then no way
will he hear her. Jesus! He’s her ride.
Why didn’t they arrange a meeting place?
Will she have to make the sixty mile drive
in a taxi? She can’t call her dad
at two AM or he’ll skin her alive.
What was she thinking? Now she’s getting mad.
Am I going to have to find my own way home
because my boyfriend keeps losing his fucking phone?

169
Sonnets From Other Lives: Iris

She’s looking out the window through the rain
spangled glass. So what if we just go
on holiday? Pack up & catch a train
to anywhere but here. He doesn’t know
if she is really serious or not.
She throws these things out sometimes & when he
reacts she laughs & says--That wasn’t what
I meant. I was just talking. But should he
ignore her she’ll get sulky so he asks--
Where to love? But she just stares outside.
It isn’t clear exactly what his task
is until he notices her cry-
ing silently. He stands & holds her.
Is it me-- she asks--or is it getting colder?

166
Sonnets From Other Lives: Osama

He’s a stranger in a stranger land
than he’d imagined. For here wealth creates
anxiety. He doesn’t understand.
Our native bluster masks it so it takes
effort for one to see behind the curtain.
Upon hearing his unfortunate name
authorities quickly adopt a certain
edge. Hands drift toward holsters. At the same
time he’s all too conscious of his hands.
He has come here for an education
& he’s learned things this land he hadn’t planned
on learning. e.g. How the strongest nation
in the world fears him. It’s now clear
why: We don’t see it is ourselves we fear.

165
Sonnets From Other Lives: Nina

The infant’s bawling has gone existential.
It’s erupting out of every molecule
of her being as though the essential
thread connecting her to life had cruel-
ly & agonizingly been frayed
into snake-like hyper sensitized neurons--
each screaming outrage at her budding brain.
Poor thing. She hasn’t been in this life long
enough to know her awful discontent
will--like an ear-wormed song--be played in
the background of a lifetime spent
muddling through existence. Then again,
let’s not dwell on that. Come child & rest
your aging soul against your mother’s breast

167
Sonnets From Other Lives: Jonah

Eschatology let Jonah down.
It’s Sunday morning. Everything’s still standing.
Jonah wonders—What do I do now?
He has nothing left now after handing
all his net worth to Family Radio.
(Who needs money when the Rapture comes?)
Now he’s bewildered. They had all been so
certain. Now he feels a kind of numb
void where once the certitudes of faith
had protected him from fear & doubt.
He quit his job and now at 58
he’s feeling trapped & can’t see a way out.
These are the wages of the sin of pride.
He’ll find out now how well the Lord provides.

164
Sonnets From Other Lives: Kari

She made a ring of stones around herself--
setting driftwood pillars in between the stones.
Safe inside the center she could tell
her tales—a task best is done alone
where no marauding brothers can intrude.
A magic spell to keep the boys away…
The world inside her mind could now exclude
everyone--even the sea. The day--
all sand & clouds & watchers of the sea
disappears as driftwood unicorns
gallop all around her perfect city
in the golden moments before she is torn
away from her imagination by
the cold onslaught of the incoming tide.

163
Sonnets From Other Lives: Jane

She has the most ordinary eyes.
You pass right over them without a glance,
forget her name in seconds. No surprise.
But you might notice, should you look askance
in her direction that she never looks your way,
or any certain way for that matter. Instead
she’s scanning everything. You couldn’t say
for sure what she is seeing but her head
moves purposefully, though you never
really see her look at you per se.
Spooky. But then really would it ever
cross your mind to turn & look her way?
She’s a small detail you never notice. You
don’t know how much that she knows about you.

162
Sonnets From Other Lives: Glen

His meeting is tomorrow. Glen steps out
for an evening walk. The drink can wait.
The hotel towers like a brave redoubt
among the ruins. Here & there the great
bones of the old city still protrude
through the noise of modern slap & dash
architecture--rotting in rude
ravages of rust. Before the crash
opera houses & assembly lines--
brick & mortar shrines to Capital--
thrummed with arias of better times.
He thinks he’ll have that drink now. He’s aghast
at his vision of the future in the past.

161
Sonnets From Other Lives: Ray & Celeste

six hours--four miles--fifteen hundred feet
of elevation gain. the day was hot
& dusty. she & I were nearly beat,
but when we saw that turquoise water we both got
nekkid--dared & dove into a lake
that weeks ago was still covered in snow.
the brief immersion & the fast escape
washed away the dust & sweat & left us glow-
ing in the early evening sun. we pitched our tent,
cooked dinner, hung our food--hoping the bears
would be too dumb to pull it down--then went
scrambling above the lake. night air
crystallized the sky. we watched the show:
starlight from a billion years ago.

160
Sonnets From Other Lives: Justin

In the morning --they said--you know you’ll feel better.
In the meantime Justin felt like crap.
Her text was a post-modern “Dear John” letter
that left him feeling like he’d just been slapped
in the face. I didn’t see that coming--
he thought over the second whiskey sour.
Or was it the third? He was becoming
number & more empty by the hour.
His new goal for the night: oblivion.
The guys were generous with sympathy
while having --he knew--way too much damn fun
medicating Justin’s misery.
By the fifth round they were all playing a game
called “Make the J forget the bitch’s name.”

159
Sonnets From Other Lives: Les

It wasn’t what he said but how he said it
that got Les feeling weird & paranoid.
Take all the time you need--he said. Les let it
go at first. He knew he should avoid
his natural instinct to fear the worst.
But was he being set up? Was this job
designed by management to cull the first
victims of the coming layoffs? God—
he needed a Xanex—maybe a martini.
It’s nothing asshole. Jesus—get a grip.
Just go & do your job you fucking weenie.
He sat down at his cube & took a sip
of tepid coffee from an old chipped cup.
He never could believe he measured up.

Sonnets From Other Lives: Merrylee

All the things that she wanted from him
were not worth what he wanted from her.
Much as she loved the way his slim,
rangy body moved & the assured
way his hands could bring her back to life--
it was her paycheck he loved best she too well knew.
She’d written all the “loans” off as the price
women like her had to pay if they were to
take rovers like him into their bed,
but lately he’d gone hard & even cruel.
That crossed a line—him messing with her head.
He can take her money but she will not be his fool.
He’s coming by tonight. She’s thinking though
she’ll wait ‘til morning to tell him to hit the road.

Sonnets From Other Lives: crash

when you have no choice you have no fear
did he just hear that on the radio?
everything so bright precise & clear
the details stand out strangely as he goes
sliding down the highway on his back:
sparks from the bike skidding on its side
his helmet grinding loudly on the tarmac
his amygdale--now in overdrive--
records every detail in slow motion
a broken bottle – white clouds of a mackerel sky
flash by--he notes it all without emotion--
the rushing concrete wall-- impending impact
surreal --he thinks --before it all goes black

Sonnets From Other Lives: R.F.

Lately R.F. has had trouble sleeping.
He’ll wander through the mansion’s twenty rooms
brooding—trying to struggle with believing
that it all could fall apart. Who knew that doom
was buried in the fever of those deals?
(Well some folks did --he fired them of course
for telling him the numbers were unreal
fantasies. He hated negative reports.)
Then three trillion dollars worth of pension funds,
retirement accounts, personal savings
evaporated. Though he still has millions
stashed in his parachute, he’s craving
absolution for believing it so long:
I’m paid a million bucks a month. I can’t be wrong.

Sonnets From Other Lives: Cole

The song kept ending with no resolution--
just hung there in the air & putrefied.
For the life of him a viable solution
eluded every chord change that he tried.
Myrra called last night, so of course he
is suffering the old heart burn again.
Her with her flirty ambiguities...
Yes? No? Now? Not now? OK then when?
He got up from the piano--made a drink.
Why did he let her get to him? Why couldn’t he
just let it go? These days he couldn’t think
straight. Why should it take so long
to write an ending to a stupid song?

Sonnets From Other Lives: Walter

Walter kept a twenty dollar bill
in his wallet--hoping it would reproduce.
(In self-help books the world bends to our will.)
His wife told him that he had a screw loose.
He warned her that her negativity
would queer the process so she just kept quiet.
Positive thinking really works. You’d see
yourself you know if you would only try it.
Sure enough the wallet filled with money.
(Mostly change from random cash transactions)
His wife secretly found it pretty funny.
But the joke fell flat as she watched his reaction
to his diagnosis--how he tried
using happy thoughts to fight the cancer ‘til he died.

Sonnets From Other Lives: Dean’s Advice

Why’d you have to tell her she was wrong?
So she was--so what? You needed that last word
so bad? OK--it is a stupid song.
You can think it--just don’t say it. Der!
Text her right away. Apologize.
Play it like the whole thing is your fault.
Look at her with your Sad Puppy eyes
& wait her out. Eventually she’ll call.
Just avoid being an asshole for three days
& she’ll get all nostalgic for your good side.
Then you can go back to your evil ways.
Trust me. Everything will be alright.
But having said all that I find it kinda scary
that you’d fall for someone who likes Katy Perry.

Sonnets From Other Lives: Virg

He’d kept up with the horn long after high school
jazz band--not well mind you--but still playing--
mostly for himself--laying out cool
lines of lazy blues. So watch him swaying
to Bird who’s ripping up his radio
as the old car rumbles through the prairie night--
grooving on the way the man can go
into time itself & somehow fight
his way back out again alive (Bird Lives!)
He’ll need own that record just to hear
the song over & over ‘til it gives
up a few good secrets & his ear
can lead him to the Bird that he can be
(minus all that virtuosity

Sonnets From Other Lives: Freeze

That joint used to jump back in the day.
Cats be blowing jazz you wou’n’t believe.
Chicks so cool you freeze yo lips, OK?
Man--those sounds--those cats--those nights--that scene..
Cat I knew then could out Mingus Mingus.
He DROVE that bass like it was some hot rod.
I’d just sit there starin at his fingers..
Cats like that--you know they touched by God.
He could have been great but smack took him down
before he could become the next big thing.
That scene is gone now--nobody’s around
no more. Just tourists & them kids & their nose rings.
I’d go back there but fuckit what’s the point?
So help me out man--spare a cat a joint?

Sonnets From Other Lives: Alyss & Kurt

He runs by the cafe every Thursday morning--
6:15--the highlight of her day.
Making coffee drinks for six hours can get boring--
then--right on schedule--he’s coming her way.
In her mind he’s naked as a kouros
long hair riding the air--those monk-like eyes…
A brief moment of mental rigor mortus--
if just once he stopped & came inside…
But he is in his zone--bound for the bay--
along Marina--the Presidio--
then home & shower--start his working day.
He’s thinking--Thursdays, running by Roma Espresso
he keeps seeing this cute girl at the bar.
He should stop in--but hasn’t yet so far.

Sonnets From Other Lives: Thanh

His father looked up from his magazine
& checked her out. He lingered on the boobs
too long for her comfort. She could see
that it would be a long night. Was it too
late run away--make an escape?
His mother called out from kitchen, Donny
come & getcher girl a drink. You got here late
& now you got t’ catch up. Before long she
had had two whiskeys but they didn’t help.
Resentment & an alcoholic funk
slowly filled the room. Why dintcha tell
us you was marryin a gook? His father’s drunk-
en question lay there like reeking turd.
Don said nothing. She knew then it wouldn’t work.

Sonnets From Other Lives: Reuben

It’s the Arab world’s 1968
& we all know how that one worked out.
All the kids will man the barricades.
They’ll sacrifice themselves then get sold out
by their elders, us, or else themselves.
I’ve been here before. I know the story:
Chicago, Prague or Paris--you might tell
yourself you’re making history. It’s boring
because in the end the end is tragic-comic.
History played out one more time as farce.
Will aging middle class farts in the Islamic
world wax nostalgic on the part
they played in their long lost revolution?
I’ll take cynicism over absolution.

Sonnets From Other Lives: Cecil

Eventually it all became white noise--
the music, TV, family conversation.
Over time I grew less annoyed
by our nattering culture. My relations
resented the remoteness--the abstraction.
As the dinner table buzzed with trivia
& the daughters dropped bombs--hoped for a reaction.
They were disappointed. I’d be giving the
nod & smile response to provocations
that should by all rights set the room aflame
for I’d become immune to perturbation.
I’m within my self now. Nothing else remains.
Silence becomes me, so I will be dumb
in my own Zen equilibrium.

Sonnets From Other Lives: Joey

This is it. Enough. It stops tonight.
The bitch is gone. Looks like she got away.
She knew when I woke up there’d be a fight.
I’m going out. There will be hell to pay.
The world is bullshit--just a broken promise.
Everything they told me was a lie.
I tried--God help me. They can suck on this.
This is a good & fucked up day to die
but they’re all fucked up now so there it is.
Only way I know to make it stop--
Hit the road with Jose Cuervo & get pissed.
What they call it? Suicide by cop?
When in the end I’m sprawled out on the road. It
won’t matter that the pistol isn’t loaded.

ellipses

dreams of dreaming these gasoline dreams…
sentenced to life before busting out…
swimming like a salmon up mainstream…
hidden deep in these shadows of doubt…
so many strings of possibility…
algorithms replicate & loop…
Moments multiply reflexively…
changes calculate--divide--regroup…
now that you have set your head on fire…
now that the universes are synchronic…
now that both hands found & grasped the wires…
now that even chaos is ironic…
… party in the bars of purgatory.
…draft new permutations of the story.

Sonnets From Other Lives: Margie

We were still in that goofy swoony phase
where everything was all about each other.
He’d come home at the end of his day
& we’d make love. We loved one another
more that anything we could imagine.
This was in those days after the war--
we all wanted a normal life again.
When I first saw him in his uniform—
looking lost there at the USO—
I walked right up & introduced myself.
Somehow—can’t say how—a girl just knows.
He seemed helpless. I wanted to help.
It wasn’t until later with the kids
that all those ghosts emerged that he'd kept hid.

Sonnets From Other Lives: Krista

Krista pulls off at a viewpoint &
climbs out of her aging Subaru.
She watches as the sea assaults the land
& considers whether she is going through
some weird phase where she is out of phase
with everything & everyone she knows.
It feels as though she’s spent the last few days
awash in uncertainty & so
she packed a bag & headed down the coast.
The air is cold and fine. A band of fog
is slowly drifting in now & the ghost-
like trees have entered in a dialogue
with a pair of spectral ravens & the wind.
She shivers & climbs in her car again.

Sonnets From Other Lives: Evan

Our public schools are a pons assinorum--
a systematic weeding out of fools
& weaklings too susceptible to boredom
to function as effective corporate tools.
Evan’s in full bloviation mode.
He’s lost himself completely in his rant.
Escapes are made by those well in the know.
The less informed pretend to be entranced.
Land of the free? Hell everybody pays.
Everybody owes somebody something.
Do the math. We’re all somebody’s slave.
Someone’s clapping. Someone else is jumping.
In his mind he’s here to make us think
but really we just want another drink.

Sonnets From Other Lives: Paul

He keeps her with him--always on his mind.
She is though an imaginary figment.
The one who would be were the world more kind
to those dreamers who would paint the world in pigments
mixed more to their liking than the real
though messy hues that life is wont to daub.
Her malleability is her appeal.
She adapts well to his mood swings --for her job
is to provide for him when called upon
a reassuring non-judgmental audience.
His habit now is to bring her along
with him to make the world make sense.
He is the artist. She is the creation—
a masterpiece of love and desperation

Sonnets From Other Lives: Zeke

the Ave broke out in music yesternight
all those little phones became trombones
people look down at their hands & think alRIGHT
& they altogether lift their horns & blow
& DANG they good ! now EVERYBODY ‘S dancing!
cops don’t do a thing--they INto it
people start to notice they can sing
the same song at the same time & they DO it
the street is ROCKIN now the place goes SEISMIC…

what was that song? & why can’t I remember?
where is that feeling? & how can I find it?
how did the thread that led there fray so slender?
sometimes it’s real & then--O SNAP--it’s gone
on a good day I can almost sing along

Sonnets From Other Lives: Lindi

You know that guy that came from marketing?
The new guy with the piercing in his ear?
Notice how when he’s working he will sing
along with his headphones? Know what I hear?
He used to date his supervisor? You know Colleen?
Gawd--she has to be what? 35?
Like nobody noticed? Know what I mean?
You think that’s why he transferred? You think I
should chat him up? Worm out the scoop?
It isn’t like I’m nosy? It’s just I think
that he might be the kind of little poop
who’s love life makes the whole department stink?
(Barbara’s yearning to make a connection
ends every sentence with rising inflection)

Sonnets From Other Lives: Valeria

She knew that soon the Ghost & the Machine
would reach a final parting of their ways.
She would cross a threshold & eternity
would have her.
Now she spends her days
holding Time up to examination.
The past & photographs perused at length--
the present given over to creation
of things. While she has the strength
to stand she will continue painting.
The canvas these days called up memories--
vestiges & images remaining
with her still--her children by the sea--
the highways of her honeymoon--
so many things she would be leaving soon.

Sonnets From Other Lives: Banks

He took shelter underneath a cedar--
took welcome respite from the pouring rain
just to rest a moment--take a breather--
before venturing into the storm again.
He thought that he might have at least an hour
or so before someone raised an alarm
& every cop in Whatcom county came to scour
the dark forest that stretched out from his farm
clear up to the treeline of the Cascades
for him. He stood and stretched his back.
Cross the border & he’d have it made.
He bent down and hefted up his pack.
Time the face the storm--he ventured forth.
Two hours east or so & he’d cut north.

Sonnets From Other Lives: Mitchell

--When everything’s reduced to ones & zeros
everybody can have anything.
Mitchell takes a long pull from his beer. --So
wanna hear Maria Callas sing?
Just push play--she’s right there in your head.
We all can play the digital flaneur.
The jukebox locks onto The Grateful Dead.
He signals to the waitress--two more beers.
--We got million Libraries of Alexandria
right here in our pocket with our phone.
How many hundreds of binary friends?
So how’d we get so alienated & alone?
Reach out your hand if your cup be empty.
It’s all good mate ‘cos this round’s on me.

Sonnets From Other Lives: Alvy

I think I’m coming down with anhedonia.
It feels like my soul is going numb.
I thought it was just Southern California
but then I find that nearly everyone
I know’s been struck with the same malady--
that everything we loved has gotten old.
Could it be our cultural neoteny
has left us rootless & out in the cold
existential wasteland of our lives
unattached & so above it all?
I think something’s the matter with my eyes.
I think I might be headed for a fall.
Maybe what I need is a vacation--
or maybe I should change my medication.

Sonnets From Other Lives: Ace

He set his watch fifteen minutes ahead
so he could live his forever in the future.
In his mind this gave him an edge.
Would it work? He couldn’t be too sure.
What he wanted was to see the numbers
on the dice, the roulette wheel, the stock exchange.
He wanted to avoid obvious blunders
like auto accidents. It was a strange
conceit & quite irrational he knew--
& he was surprised as anyone
that the premise actually was true.
Everybody else lived his reruns.

But hidden in the fine print was the price:
Each day an hour subtracted from his life.

Sonnets From Other Lives: Marci

So you so say you want to listen to me now.
Now that you know for certain it’s too late.
It’s as though you never could allow
yourself to realize how much I hate
the furtiveness--all the petty evasions
that make up so much of our day-to-day--
the drops of poison dripped in conversations--
the open sores that never go away.
So now you’re open to negotiation.
My second will call on you forthwith.
I’m finished with your “powers of persuasion”.
My ass is ready for it’s farewell kiss.
Your timing’s perfect--give it one more try
precisely five minutes before goodbye.

Sonnets From Other Lives: Bud & Nanci

Walking on the waterfront at night
as city lights reflect & multiply
a merge of selves has moved to where they might
need to be with each other for life.

A ferry pulls away (with its reflection--
it is two ferries now --a gala thing).
Just watching their adorable affection
brings a smile to a busker who then sings

Darling you ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh send me…
They stop to listen--stay for the whole song--
lean into each other for a friendly
kiss & pay the singer & move on.

The busker thanks them both--then starts to sing
about Ain’t nothing like the real thing…

Sonnets From Other Lives: Starr

O to be the latest next big thing--
to be the one that everybody wants.
It would help--of course--if she could sing
but if it’s the look that counts she'll simply flaunt
it & just let Pro-tools ™ do its magic.
But her demos sound like everybody else
& so go unnoticed. It’s so tragic.
What is it then--she’s wondering--that sells?
What puts your image in the magazines?
She’s considering a scandal--but what kind?
Maybe she could leech onto some scene
somewhere but nothing comes to mind.
Her many would be lovers are too gallant
to mention that that she simply has no talent.

Sonnets From Other Lives: Harv

He wakes up when the seatbelt light comes on
& the captain warns there may be turbulence.
He checks his watch--they’re landing before long.
Still he owns he’s not a little tense.
Flying is unnatural he thinks.
What keeps this steel behemoth in the air?
The physics make no sense but he won’t jinx
his luck by dwelling on it. When will he be there--
safe on the ground & breathing oxygen
that hasn’t passed through everybody else’s lungs?
O that he’d never have to fly again!
To think that people ride these planes for fun!
What if he gets that William Shatner thing
where he’s seeing creepy gremlins on the wing.

Sonnets From Other Lives: Lucy

She folded herself into the Half Lotus—
found her Center—Mantra—Ideation—
Breath—did her damndest not to notice
the sound collage of her monkey mind’s creation.
Should she get milk before picking up the kids
or hassle with them in the shopping cart?
She blows the thought out—then breathes in
pure light energy while suppressing a fart.
Should have had the salad—lets that go
& comes back to her center once again.
Eventually she finds a quiet zone
where she drifts behind her busy thoughts. But then
her mobile rings loudly & breaks the spell.
It could have been Nirvana—who can tell?

Sonnets From Other Lives: Timmy

He found the perfect hiding place.
It wrapped itself around him like a womb.
Summer & a good part of the day
will be spent inside his little tomb-
like hole where no one thought to look
(beneath a place where no one ever went)
A quart of Kool Aid & a comic book
& so another summer day is spent.
Mother is indifferent to him when
he is out of sight & out of mind.
She has her stories and her chores & then
there is the vodka. So there is a kind
of balance in their universes when
they disappear. Neither needs to tell
the other how to fall into a well.

Sonnets From Other Lives: Emil

Did I say it didn’t used t’be this way?
That sounds stupid—I mean never is
is it? I know that time brings things to change
& now it looks like I changed into this
shabby piece of work you see before you.
Naw—I know in most ways I ain’t bad.
Tried t’do the best that I could do
with whatever meager talents that I had.
Didn’t see this comin tho’ no way.
Wasn’t all ambitious—no—but still
a body can’t look forward to a day
when just bein alive can make you ill
but there it is & there I am as well.
Ain’t no heaven but leastways it ain’t hell

Sonnets From Other Lives: Thierry

By cultivating curiosity
Thierry theorized he’d live forever.
In his hypothesis as long as he
kept looking around corners he would never
die because he wouldn’t have the time.
He would be waiting for whatever happened next
in the never ending saga in his mind.
Unfortunately for Thierry he was vexed
by a singular lack of imagination
which left him on the verge of feeling bored.
He read—watched films—gathered information
but no wonder rose within as his reward.
What mystery was he chasing when dumb luck
put him in the pathway of a truck?

Sonnets From Other Lives: Krystal

She was thirteen when her father shaved her head
in a fit of feckless parental frustration.
What her specific offense was she never said
to us but the effect was the creation
of another person in place of his daughter.
who grew into exactly what he feared.
She threw away most everything he’d bought her.
From her nearly empty bedroom he would hear
the tinny growl of punk rock screaming rage.
He never knew that she’d decided she liked girls
or that the sleepovers he’d cluelessly OK
would portend his final exile from her world.

When visited him in the ICU
it was—she thought—the decent thing to do.

Sonnets From Other Lives: Magda

Suddenly she had to get away.
She packed a bag & get away she did—
to a tiny cabin north of Half Moon bay—
up a gravel road & off the grid.
She lit up her life with kerosene.
She took up baking—walked along the shore-
-line of the east coast of the Salish Sea.
Come evening she would sit at her front door
to watch the sunset drop behind the island
& light the western sky with gold & pink.
Communing with the Merlot & the sky &
the calling of the gulls she came to think
that if it wasn’t now, it would be soon
time for her finally put down roots.

Sonnets From Other Lives: Serena

She spent most of the morning in the Tree
of Ghosts commiserating with the dead
souls who somehow never could break free
of this world’s bonds & move on to the next.
Like wisps of cottonwood or dandelion
they’d flit—confused—among the summer leaves
as if looking for something. In her mind
she thought she heard them sometimes—whispering.
She’ll tell them stories. It relaxes them.
They’ll settle in the branches quietly
to listen to her. She calls them her friends—
the dead who still refuse eternal sleep.
In a moment she’ll thank her spectral hosts
& climb down slowly from the Tree of Ghosts.

Sonnets From Other Lives: Ernie

Just walk a mile in my shoes.
& while you’re at it you can wear my shirt.
Go ahead & put my pants on too.
So tell me how you feel now. Does it hurt?
Have I thanked you yet for the stigmata?
Did the dry cleaner send you a card?
Bloodstains put his kid through med school. Look I gotta
split now before somebody falls apart.
It’s all downhill from here on I’ve been told.
To bad because the view I got from here
depresses me & climbing’s getting old.
O I’ll shut up now & listen to you talk.
Gimme your shoes, OK? We’ll take a walk.

Sonnets From Other Lives: Jack

Jack thinks that he might be a lycanthrope.
He suspects the dreams are more than dreams.
He isn’t ready yet to bind himself in rope
& lock the doors. It’s just sometimes it seems
like rage is waiting somewhere in the wings
to rise up from within as from the gorge
& in the morning he’ll remember things
that leave his poor soul shattered to the core.
The papers remain silent & the news
reports no midnight rampage he can find.
So he’ll reassure himself it isn’t true
& that—at worst—he’s just losing his mind.
Tonight he’ll watch some T.V. in his room
then fall asleep beneath the swollen moon.

Sonnets From Other Lives: Abbi

She reminds herself that she's alive
by checking regularly in the mirror
& talking constantly. So does she strive
so to connect because it's clearer
to her that the air she's breathing
is lacking in something--perhaps her voice?
Anyway whatever thing she's needing
to feel complete has left her with a choice:
To sit in silence waiting for some wisdom
or fill the air with every passing thought.
For her this is the way that life is done:
Share it all now. Everything you've got.
She's telling mirror mirror on the wall
everything she knows--saying it all.

Sonnets From Other Lives: David & Jonathan

They were down to their last few T cells—
& so they argued over who’d die first.
Both of them agreed the perfect hell
of the other’s family’s grief would be far worse
than dying--that put them on the same page.
Who needs a mother’s cold accusing grief.
Who wants a father’s seething guilty rage?
The Big Sleep would be The Big Relief.
They made all the arrangements in advance—
the music, words, the caskets and the performers.
One wanted DJ and a dance.
One wanted wailing professional mourners.
Their laughter would comingle with their crying
‘till finally it was all over but the dying.

Sonnets From Other Lives: Malcom

He likes the woman in the photograph
hanging on the wall in the gallery.
Her steady stare had stopped him in his tracks.
He never thought to question her reality.
In fact he’d formed a small infatuation
with her—a little fantasized relationship.
Then the caption revealed she was a creation—
a photoshop composite. He’d been tricked
into a silly simulacrum of love
with a simulacrum of a pretty girl
made of parts of other faces. Thinking of
a mirror maze from M.C. Escher’s world
he finally breaks away from her bold stare
satisfied that she was never there.

Sonnets From Other Lives: Carol-Lynn

Silhouetted surfers at sunset
waiting for the last promising wave.
Carol-Lynn is watching her regrets
drown in the Pacific with the day.
Leaving had it upside & that was
the freedom to sit here now on her own
which—of course--has its own down side because
she isn’t sure just how to be alone.
What does one say to oneself when there is
no one else to edit—criticize?
She sees a rider standing up on his
board now—his whole focus on the ride.

Twilight. The past is dead to her.
Someday—she thinks—I’ve got to learn to surf.

Sonnets From Other Lives: Reunion at the Zodiac

Ruby is all fire & in the moment.
Fischer comes & goes but craves connection.
Waters keeps his curiosity in ferment.
Toro craves a financial perfection.
The twins compete & strive to get ahead.
Mooney craves intimate reassurance.
Leo leads—puts himself at the head.
Sapphire sees the right thing & prefers it.
Though Opal wants consistence, she’s unsteady.
Stinger will outlast all opposition.
Archer wants the good life—when he’s ready.
Garnett seeks the world’s admiration.

The table’s set—a place for everyone
to mingle in a place around the sun.

Sonnets From Other Lives: Mikail

In the mirror he could see his edges soften—
a slow erosion of his sharper parts.
Reluctantly he came to see that often
old connections would grow brittle—break apart.
By perusing portents in the morning paper
he had learned to make his peace with certain doom.
Today he’ll leave the worst of it for later—
right now the urge to flee has filled this room.
He’s going to need a open sky for this—
not these walls with their vague electric hum.
Three parts solitude & one part bliss—
he steps outside & lets the moment come.

A new morning presents itself as he
moves through his small piece of eternity.

Sonnets From Other Lives: Will

Thinking about angels as he walks
out of the cinema onto the street—
In the film they brood & sit around & talk
about the gift that is mortality.
Desire for them became a thing with wings—
perhaps feathered like its cousin Hope.
Three old men busking in a doorway sing
gospel music for his coins. To cope
with eternity must seraphim
balance forbearance with curiosity?
The poor angel who must watch over him--
his boring life— bereft of mystery.
It’s cold. He’ll hurry home & build a fire—
pour a whiskey & put wings to his desire

Sonnets From Other Lives: Pilgrim

It will be another hour or so he thinks
before the sun reaches this narrow valley .
He’ll wait ‘til then to strip--wash off the stink
in the icy stream before he rallies
himself once more and resumes his trek.
Long leagues & longer days have worn him down.
Lingering & loafing—he’ll respect
the body’s soft request to sit around
this morning in this grove beside this stream
with this cup of chai—this book of poems—
before resuming onward with this dream-
like journey from his previous life to roam
these cold mountains on his aimless quest.
But first he’ll sit back a spell & rest.

One Week After

You Real American Patriots
--who aim graphic cross-hairs at the map of the United States
--who call for Second Amendment solutions to the democratic process
--who lobby to cut funding for mental health services
--who fight to make semi automatic handguns with extended magazines
readily available to all
--who remind us with your bumperstickers that the tree of liberty
must be regularly refreshed with blood

How do you feel now that that blood has been spilled
from the septuagenarian husband diving to shield his wife?
from the earnest young man who dedicated his life to social work?
from the federal judge who stopped by on his way home from church?
from the retired secretary?
from the church volunteer?
from the nine year old student body president?
from the duly elected representative to the U.S. Congress as she stood listening to the concerns of her constituents?

Now you have seen
what actually happens when
someone looks through real gun sights &
actually applies
those Second Amendment solutions.

What say you
now that the words
that you
so blithely spewed
have come to their
brutal fruition?

Sonnets From Other Lives: Michelle

She never knew what hit her. She was dead
before the car careened off of the bridge.
The rifle bullet took most of her head—
the car crash just confused things--for it hid
for some time the sleight of hand of fate—
the intersecting lines of happenstance—
an open car window--a sunny day--
a kid out in a boat who just by chance
fired a rifle—just screwing around—
a half a mile out—shooting bottles—
never knew the ricocheting bullet found
her driving eastbound—foot down on the throttle—
singing with the radio with no
notion where the next second would go.

Sonnets From Other Lives: Greg

So he’s the boyfriend now—he’s pretty sure.
She takes his calls—they go out twice a week.
He thinks she’s into him—he’s into her--
but he’s worried—afraid that she’s a freak.
It’s just that they keep running into exes.
They’re everywhere & it’s creeping him out
It’s like she’s dated everyone in Texas--
or Austin anyway & he’s about
had it with the endless introductions.
--This is Autie—we met at SMU.
--We used to call Chris Mister Seduction.
He just stands there—not sure what to do.
He’s paralyzed—see she is really pretty.
Maybe they just need a bigger city

Sonnets From Other Lives: She, Him & Her

Word was she worked at Treez—the coffee shop—
a barista forchrissakes—wouldn’t you know.
He gets that charm thing going—doesn’t stop—
they get confused & think he cares. Sometimes she goes
by the shop & watches her at work.
He’d like her trendy glasses. And the boobs.
He’d have her at the second impish smirk.
(She knew all too well what he could do)
She won’t go in—peers through the window—doesn’t linger—
just gathers in the character & setting.
The narrative will bleed out of her fingers
& spill onto the keyboard. She’s regretting
less & less the pain of the affair
with the discovery that there is art in there.

Sonnets From Other Lives: Gino

He hears her on the stair at 10:15.
She drops her keys—he wonders—is she drinking?
She puts Puccini on—what could that mean?
An abandoned Butterfly? Now he’s thinking
of her next door—lonely in her flat—
swooning drunkenly with tragic sorrow.
They sit together now—he & the cat—
Maria Callas promises tomorrow
Pinkerton returns--we know he won’t.
He fills his glass half full (or half empty).
The music cuts off suddenly. This goes
over poorly with him—it’s unfriendly
of her to end the evening’s theater.
Whatever did he ever see in her?

Sonnets From Other Lives: Charlotte

He would call one mountain Komo Kulshan.
He called the other one Tahoma.
One time we were driving to the ocean
& stopped & had some breakfast in Tacoma
& he told me that he would only use old names.
Just because Vancouver drew the maps…
Who the hell was Rainer anyway?
Three years & I never saw a lapse.
He was like that—sticking to a thing—
that weekend it rained three days and nights.
I slept in the car, but no not him.
Somewhere in there we had our first fight.
Three years was enough. I had to go.
Still use native names for mountains though.

1/5
Sonnets From Other Lives: Anton

Anton lingers in the dark Agora
to commune a little longer with the ghosts
of the Golden Age. He sits before a
ruined stoa—watching as a host
of shadows engage in the business of
invoking memories among the living—
threads that bind them to the world above
their bones & shades in Hades. Anton’s giving
them his full attention for a time
before he returns to the Plaka & the present.
This voice of history works on his mind—
he hears the message if not the intent.
Anton rises, shivers--is outcast
by those who rue his presence in the past

Sonnets From Other Lives: Butterfly

Sequoia sempervirens ruled these slopes
fifteen hundred years before the girl
jumared ninety meters up a rope
& took residence for two years in its world—
an ecosystem in the canopy—
where detritus gathers in the limbs to host
Tanbark Oak, Salal, & Huckleberry
& now this woman/guardian—her post
a platform on a tree she would call Luna.
She faced winter storms, harassment, legal threats--
none of them dislodged her. Soon the
world heard & marveled. Join me—let’s
watch her standing—arms spread—on the crown—
gazing up & out instead of down