Sonnet
I'd write a simple poem, not overlong
Its details inexplicit, atmospheric,
Its pain inaudible, subsumed by lyric,
Its rhyming effortless, its meter strong.
It wouldn't lose itself in right or wrong,
The merely obvious or esoteric,
Would appear neither too calm, nor hysteric,
But pure, ethereal -- such perfect song
That I could leave its bitter core behind
For good this time. Failure and injury
Just another piece of outlived story
With a beginning, middle and an end.
Let's try it then. Let singing start.
Why listen to an incoherent heart?
Lean Sonnet
Rain this time of year
means snow
on the mountains
which means,
when the clouds lift, so
immaculate a white
I'm newly privy
to the secrets of the pure
of heart — my glimpse of grace:
only such sweet, unheavy
burdens, that a simple spell
of heat or light could dissipate —
or the wherewithal
to spare the near white space
Villanelle from a Sentence in a Poet's Brief
Biography
In ‘42 he was conscripted to work on trains.
An odd thing to mention in a poet's biography.
In ‘42? In Czechoslovakia? Trains?
I'm trying to figure out what this entry means,
If he sees himself as victimized or guilty.
In ‘42 he was conscripted to work on trains.
Dutch workers refused to run their trains;
They found out that work makes you free.
In ‘42, in Czechoslovakia, trains
Weren't that busy. They didn't start the deportations
In earnest until 1943.
In ‘42 he was conscripted to work on trains
But the next line says after the war, which means
That he was still at it in ‘43,
‘44, ‘45 . . . . In Czechoslovakia, trains
(What did he do? Run switches? Check the lines?)
Were as instrumental, let's face it, as Zyklon B.
In ‘42 he was conscripted to work on trains.
In ‘42. In Czechoslovakia. Trains.