The Jury

We sit in numbered seats of the jury box

like culled cards from a deck of 52

whose value, though, is not evident

inside a courtroom in 2026,

A draw of 12 decide the worth of life

and where to fix the blame for its demise

was recklessness or malintent the cause

or did his doings lead to his own end?

The plaintiff and defendant read their hand

assessing do they hold the winning one

the while none could know were we the ace

the king or queen or even the joker be,

But then before the flesh is put to bone

of the case, someone folds; they send us home.

18 July 2026

Sonnet: The Precious Few

My wand'ring often leads to Sacre-Coeur

When Fortune opts to place me in Paris

As if my aim though feckless and mission-free

Should hit the heart of the powdered dome so sure,

The satin ribbon of the Seine's a lure

And starting point for many a sight-see

Where I could rendezvous with french Marie

And maybe linger, kissing, pendant des heures,

Then later, hearts besotted, footsteps make

The well-worn lovers' trek to the wedding cake

On up the concrete stairs that suck the air

We climb onto La Butte from which we stare:

The streets and buildings fold beneath our view

The people, too, that leaves us the precious few.

16 April 2023

Sonnet: Open Cracks The Eye

When open cracks the eye to cloudy gray

 Outside like heaven or inside of sleep

I turn and close an hour more to stay

For dewy dreams to grow and so to reap,

When next I wake the sky is blue and bright

A nudge to imitate the risen sun

To work and sweat until the fall of night

Admits the possibility of fun,

But if sky frames them both, the need to choose

Excites emotion: guilt, ambition, lust

Desire to win and worry not to lose

A cause for action and, if not, disgust.

The Barroom Sage says though, "It's best to wait

To let the gods or nature settle Fate."

23 May 2023

Sonnet: Question

To the woman of the beat-up Subaru
Now absent from its gull-stained parking spot
My hopes and fears must I project on you
Each time I ponder where you are --- and are not,

Long days and nights along Pacific ledge
Whose brew of wind, fog, heat and cold
Distend the many months endured and edge
You near, perhaps, a better place to hold,

Imaginations sometime fail to rise
Above our circumstance, so Legacy
Takes root below the level of our eyes
But could address the higher mystery 
Of who you are; why choose the things you do
And what could change said course and what ensue.

Christmas Day 2023

Sonnet: Pause

Has stopped the music, keeping each in place

And silences of recesses arise

Pastoral past proposing to our eyes

An easeful pause and human kind of pace

Where sun and shadow on the landscape trace

A subtle tempo as our lives revise

To figure what is now a worthy prize

And bear and bobcat challenge center space.

This quiet we uneasily embrace

And dire circumstances temporize

Anticipated outcomes theorize

The while savings dwindling apace,

But hear the hammer pound the nail --- proof

Of life and said serenity goes poof.

Sonnet: Reworked Reality

Coronavirus novel reigning liege

Obscures the memory of former ways

Amid forgetful fog that serves to ease

Dissociation in these present days,

Perspective shrinks to match the changed routine

Confined to area of a too small room

Dictated by some notion of quarantine

And tempered by ability to zoom.

Less burdened by the past we strain to see

Reworked reality as yet opaque

And suffer so of future anxiety

Like waiting on a said-to-come earthquake,

Each moment seizing every partial clue

We push to birth entire worlds anew.

Sonnet: Patience

And stay-at-home the patience game of siege

The predator without, within the prey

Foretelling hours, days and weeks to squeeze

The spirits used to active work and play,

So flip another card to hope it fit

The sequence auguring a quick release

Reshuffling decks that tell more weeks to sit

And crave your favorite pastime rid of disease.

Beware though hidden cards and sleights of hand

Whose easy wins inflate a false bravado

For unbent dangers in the welcome land

Lay slyer snares than common sense could know,

A reckoning draws nearer to the time

Of placing faith and freedom on the line.