Two Sonnets

I’ve been trying my hand at a bit of poetry because my heart has felt creaky. Here are a couple of sonnets:

Sunday Evening Healing

Walking by the urban roar, monoxide
fills my grey lungs and I exhale, exhale
till nothing spirit is left. I’m all hide
and sinew. A hollow cup, ungrailed.
How shall soul’s sail belly or birth hope
If I do not breathe in your fresh breezes?
This life you have given me must not grope
inward to black caves where all love freezes.
It must praise sun on leaves, laughing kids, joy,
sweet blackberry-scented October light,
the secret life that even makes a toy
of death and turns it to feasts of delight.
And now, full heart, the redwing blackbird’s song
strikes my ear like orange juice strikes my tongue!

Awaiting Transfiguration

In golden morning, stretching away west,
pacing with me, is the black void of light
that bears my shape: my ancient, haunted guest.
He is me: anti, feared, composed of night.
In bright noonday, I tread him underfoot.
But he does not depart. Rather he hides,
peeping out from behind barefaced virtue,
smug and smiling, full of abiding pride,
watching sun fall, hissing, “I will hurt you.”
I walk all day with him stitched to my soles.
No matter the angle Daystar strikes me,
my solid darkstar self discreates this hole
and I long again for that day when I,
candle-kindled, am flame that cannot die.