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.