9/6
Sonnets From Other Lives: Sean

I catch the #7--head downtown--
watch the drowsy city waking up.
My love is dozing under eiderdown.
I'm nursing coffee in a paper cup--
greedy for the lightness of this day.
What if the children queued at St. Jude's door
could hear what mornings like this have to say
about the promise every moment holds in store?
Old woman in a window looks across
the street and waits for life to pass her by.
Old Indian on the corner looking lost.
Commuters board.  No one meets my eye
.
I am burning with this memory:
The girl that I love gave herself to me.

9/5
Sonnets From Other Lives: Lissa

You know you didn't used to be like this--
the evasiveness--the fugitive eye contact.
You used to put some effort in a kiss.
Now it's like negotiating a contract.
So, Party of the First Part, tell me what
brings us to this tabled conversation?
Why do I sense we came to celebrate
the tragic end of your infatuation?
This wine is crap.  But you know I can see
why you'd pick this bistro for a break-up.
The quiet pretension does discourage scenes.
Shit. This night's a fucking waste of make-up.
I can't eat this. Everything is cold.
I was all in, but now you win.
I fold.

9/4
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 the wine I'd bought to drink
with you & Fred Astaire tonight.
then caved and left a message.  What's the use?
(I'm thinking Ginger doth protest too much.)
No doubt you're still rehearsing your excuse.
I'm asking myself why I'm always such
a cliche' --Rapunzel in her flat
waits endlessly to buzz Prince Dick  inside,
'til finally she's reduced to hoarding cats
like some Dickensian rejected bride.
The merlot is asking, Notice how it feels
like your  life is dancing backwards in high heels?

9/3

I will celebrate
your geranium smile
your sensible shoes
when I in my dead man's suit
meet your mouth with this
eternal kiss

the war is over
in Times Square
& the air
has gone electric
with ardent promises

everything  is happening
at the same time
forever
though it is only
when we are holding
one another
that that secret
is ever
revealed

9/2

St. Freakin Francis
Bless this
kneeling fawn, this
swooning putti, this
irascible gnome.
O sad-eyed concrete saint,
your paint-pitted piety
still moves.  Your
mournful gaze graces a
chemically perfect lawn
with infinite compassion.
O San Francisco pray
for this marooned Big Wheel,
this mylar pinwheel,
this calico sentinel.

The landscape abides.
The sprinkler ticks.
The azalea rests in
its cedar chip bed.

Pax vobiscum.

9/1
Being chary
of fulminate
voices, of incendiary
blasts from  the disputant
bloviators who harry
with dissonant
blasts of mercenary
conviction, I fear the covenant
with rationality has been buried--
rendered irrelevant
by these diversionary
meme blasts.  The incognizant
confuse reality with the imaginary.
Askant
we watch. Wary
lest noise finally completely supplant
truth.

8/31

Dawn finds the day distending
like an aneurysm.  Slender
threads unravel, rending
gravity--upending the ascender.
Whatever cards and stars would be portending
will befall before the fates can surrender
themselves. (Bending
like barflies before bartenders)
A sigh.  I rise, rendering
up whatever my intentions might engender.