Dale Smith

• ]

 

from Another Sky

Holy objects multiply. A child’s tooth 
amethyst. Ancient sources to peer through—
a watch, blue sage, faded polaroid. 
I sweat a lot when I look for words
violent and tangible, what we call real. 
Looking at what can be seen to absorb what can’t.
My nerves are frayed obligations. My hand 
grips membrane wilderness. Like a flag 
on a beachhead in winter. Like frozen 
edges of river slicing muddy banks. 
I’ve had enough of easy celebration.  
Sky like a giant’s belly. Cruel tension
shoulders uneven and in muscular knots. 
My memories are tangled up in things.

Ted Berrigan

SONNET 1

His piercing pince-nez. Some dim frieze

Hands point to a dim frieze, in the dark night.

In the book of his music the corners have straightened:

Which owe their presence to our sleeping hands.

The ox-blood from the hands which play

For fire for warmth for hands for growth

Is there room in the room that you room in?

Upon his structured tomb:

Still they mean something. For the dance

And the architecture.

Weave among incidents

May be portentous to him

We are the sleeping fragments of his sky,

Wind giving presence to fragments.

Andrew Zawacki

OTHEREARTHLY SONNET

Sashes open, a blouse flutters white

Diffraction artifacts



Morning in the Place des Vosges—perlite

Sunlight baccarats the garden’s 10-blade diaphragm—, you

Tipple through the blanched arcades a

Banshee beauty

Parlor curler

Left plugged in too long



Starlet or harlot, faux Arletty

Harlow with your furloughed halo (chemin de verre is

Some thing wrong



Lens flare carries the outscape, an aura of the Aura



Blow on it with your breath



Then, aircraft

 

Andrew Zawacki

 

Dixie Pixie Sonnet

Solar panel, a Fresnel lens,
5 lb bag of M&Ms; & we could 3-D print a clone of you

Pell mell all hell & ill will will break loose
If you don’t wear your cheap synthetic, frilly fuchsia princess dress,
Faux glass high heel sequin slippers clacking on the tile

In your lifetime, the Arctic will have been

You’re a frog no you’re a frog

To conjugate in a future imperfect : will have been ongoing, once

Daughter you’re borderline pixilated, perhaps from the Swedish dialect pyske — 
“fairy,” ca. 1630 — or Cornwall Celtic for “pixie-led” : confused, bewildered,
unbalanced, astray ; or an actress as stop-motion marionette, in animated films,
altering her posture — like a flick book — frame by frame

Sound speed :
They are drilling it out of the ground to blacken the sun

Ted Berrigan

John Ashbery, Ted Berrigan, 1971. Gerard Malanga.

The Sonnets: XLI

banging around in a cigarette      she isn’t “in love”

my dream a drink with Ira Hayes we discuss the code of the west

my hands make love to my body when my arms are around you

you never tell me your name

and I am forced to write “belly” when I mean “love”

Au revoir, scene!

I waken, read, write long letters and

wander restlessly when leaves are blowing

my dream a crumpled horn

in advance of the broken arm

she murmurs of signs to her fingers

weeps in the morning to waken so shackled with love

Not me. I like to beat people up.

My dream a white tree

Joseph Ceravolo

Sonnet
    October 1984


In the middle of Autumn
early when the skies
show the dawn
still hovering in trees
and the geese, a series
of arrows break form
for another unknown bird
that catches our eyes,
I can’t return.
While overhead one storm
in the bird’s neck feathers carries
the dampness of the journey

soaked with our laughs and whispers
in the subterfuge of happiness

Denis Johnson

 

Sonnets Called "On the Sacredness"

Close by the jerkwater rancheros tonight, the round

gloom longs, a window in the gloom, an attitude in the window, a pleading

in the attitude, an unwitnessed

ravishment in the pleading. A man stands there in the window

thinking about how naked the water looks,

thinking the water looks like emptiness, it looks

like nothing. His heart

aches to think how many gamblers have broke down

 

on this highway? How many princesses of ice?

I know I'm suburban, I've got a shitty whiskey in my hand,

I work a job like eating a knife . . .

Everyone's sperm all over my life,

the sad waiting. Here's to the simple and endless

desperate person lifting this glass.

  

Vikram Seth

 

from Golden Gate

1.1. 
To make a start more swift and weighty, 
Hail Muse. Dear Reader, once upon 
A time, say, circa 1980, 
There lived a man. His name was John. 
Successful in his field though only 
Twenty-six, respected, lonely, 
One evening as he walked across 
Golden Gate Park, the ill-judged toss 
Of a red frisbee almost brained him. 
He thought, "Who'd gloat? Who would be glad? 
Would anybody? " As it pained him, 
He turned from this dispiriting theme 
To ruminations less extreme. 

1.2. 
He tuned his thoughts to electronic 
Circuitry. This soothed his mind. 
He left irregular (moronic) 
Sentimentality behind. 
He thought of or-gates and of and-gates, 
Of ROMs, of nor-gates, and of nand-gates, 
Of nanoseconds, megabytes, 
And bits and nibbles… but as flights 
Of silhouetted birds move cawing 
Across the pine-serrated sky, 
Dragged from his cove, not knowing why, 
He feels an urgent riptide drawing 
Him far out, where, caught in the kelp 
Of loneliness, he cries for help. 

Alice Notley

 

SONNET

The late Gracie Allen was a very lucid comedienne, 
Especially in the way that lucid means shining and bright. 
What her husband George Burns called her illogical logic 
Made a halo around our syntax and ourselves as we laughed. 

George Burns most often was her artful inconspicuous straight man. 
He could move people about stage, construct skits and scenes, write 
And gather jokes. They were married as long as ordinary magic 
Would allow, thirty-eight years, until Gracie Allen's death. 

In her fifties Gracie Allen developed a heart condition. 
She would call George Burns when her heart felt funny and fluttered 
He'd give her a pill and they'd hold each other till the palpitation 
Stopped—just a few minutes, many times and pills. As magic fills 
Then fulfilled must leave a space, one day Gracie Allen's 
heart fluttered 
And hurt and stopped. George Burns said unbelievingly to the doctor, 
'But I still have some of the pills.'

Alice Notley

Four Sonnets

1

I dreamed of a clipper ship
Gold on blue THE CHASEY ALICE
Until he’d seen which Captain You said
He’d seen nothing, I woke bold
Chased you to get caught in the hold
Back to sleep 2 nightmares
Solid ones down not to be told
Woke not wanting to be in life
Wasn’t, outside warmed
To my blood clean cold quickened
On the way to town for food and
Back for you, though I was still
A little sulky & grim
So you fucked me back in

 

2.

Pink & white, chiffon & chenille, & cherubs
They frame oval mirror cracked across
No reflection of me it’s rented newly
My books on & under a vanity
Bamboo’s here too, Southamptonese, chair
A library’s dark desk, austere
I rearrange change them which change me
I’ll often forget to see
Pink & white to be lost after 90 days
Town’s as foreign-looking & mine
No town fits—not my image of one, but sense
That a town might make sense.
Clean cold-weather town, historical interest
Winter emptied, slickly plain downtown

 

3.

Hour less close to feeling bad & restless
Spent bath food & drink while you’ve been sleeping
Now reading I hear you walking past my door shut
& back to bed, no words none needed, how can
I think of what’s not done when there’s an easy doing
Always now? Between us. As we’re doing each
If we reach there are words too, & walks & books to-
Gether, tether we pull tighter, after
It turned surprising into the prize for staying
At it, see there are some sometimes, prizes, that aren’t
Lost when found out, & it isn’t even like winning
Which is what gets to be being over fast, it’s like
Being, & spreading, & air we’re breathing

 

4.

How long you can do nothing depends on what
You’re doing; breathing from the bottom examining
Shocking pink knee socks recalling legs
Numb blue slacked from coldly walking into
Midst of the day; glad going out’s still not next
Pink wheat nap rustles tipped tired shoes
Swallow... air hum ear ocean
This light chair’s held together by a safety pin
& bamboo shoots, some work. I’ll just put on
A dunce caprice if I close my eyes ride
Air waves “Wonder what the dead people are doing
Tonight” me too
Now doused with hands splashing up nothing
Dunk in blow out float in sit down in it

Jean Toomer

 

                                                                                                                        Winold Reiss

Reapers

Black reapers with the sound of steel on stones

Are sharpening scythes. I see them place the hones   

In their hip-pockets as a thing that’s done,   

And start their silent swinging, one by one.   

Black horses drive a mower through the weeds,   

And there, a field rat, startled, squealing bleeds.   

His belly close to ground. I see the blade,   

Blood-stained, continue cutting weeds and shade

Alice Notley

 

SONNET

The late Gracie Allen was a very lucid comedienne, 
Especially in the way that lucid means shining and bright. 
What her husband George Burns called her illogical logic 
Made a halo around our syntax and ourselves as we laughed. 

George Burns most often was her artful inconspicuous straight man. 
He could move people about stage, construct skits and scenes, write 
And gather jokes. They were married as long as ordinary magic 
Would allow, thirty-eight years, until Gracie Allen's death. 

In her fifties Gracie Allen developed a heart condition. 
She would call George Burns when her heart felt funny and fluttered 
He'd give her a pill and they'd hold each other till the palpitation 
Stopped—just a few minutes, many times and pills. As magic fills 
Then fulfilled must leave a space, one day Gracie Allen's 
heart fluttered 
And hurt and stopped. George Burns said unbelievingly to the doctor, 
'But I still have some of the pills.'

Edna St. Vincent Millay

 

Dirge Without Music

 

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.
Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains, - but the rest is lost.
The answer quick and keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,-
They are gone. They have gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all roses in the world.
Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

 

“I think I should have loved you presently”

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I think I should have loved you presently,
And given in earnest words I flung in jest;
And lifted honest eyes for you to see,
And caught your hand against my cheek and breast;
And all my pretty follies flung aside
That won you to me, and beneath your gaze,
Naked of reticence and shorn of pride,
Spread like a chart my little wicked ways.
I, that had been to you, had you remained,
But one more waking from a recurrent dream,
Cherish no less the certain stakes I gained,
And walk your memory’s halls, austere, supreme,
A ghost in marble of a girl you knew
Who would have loved you in a day or two.

Bernadette Mayer

 

We Eat Out Together

My heart is a fancy place
Where giant reddish-purple cauliflowers
& white ones in French & English are outside
Waiting to welcome you to a boat
Over the low black river for a big dinner
There’s alot of choice among the foods
Even a tortured lamb served in pieces
En croute on a plate so hot as a rack
Of clouds blown over the cold filthy river
We are entitled to see anytime while we
Use the tablecovers to love each other
Publicly dishing out imitative luxuries
To show off poetry’s extreme generosity
Then home in the heart of a big limousine

Ted Berrigan

 

painting: George Schneeman.

Sonnet #2

Dear Margie, hello. It is 5:15 a.m

dear Berrigan. He died 
Back to books. I read 
It's 8:30 p.m. in New York and I've been running around 
             all day 
old come-all-ye's streel into the streets. Yes, it is now, 
How Much Longer Shall I Be Able To Inhabit the Divine 
and the day a bright gray turning green 
feminine marvelous and tough 
watching the sun come up over the Navy Yard 
to write scotch-tape body in a notebook 
had 17 and 1/2 milligrams 
Dear Margie, hello. It is 5:15 a.m. 
****ed til 7 now she's late to work and I'm 
18 so why are my hands shaking I should know better

Terrance Hayes

 

I lock you in an American sonnet that is part prison,
Part panic closet, a little room in a house set aflame.
I lock you in a form that is part music box, part meat
Grinder to separate the song of the bird from the bone.
I lock your persona in a dream-inducing sleeper hold
While your better selves watch from the bleachers.
I make you both gym & crow here. As the crow
You undergo a beautiful catharsis trapped one night
In the shadows of the gym. As the gym, the feel of crow-
Shit dropping to your floors is not unlike the stars
Falling from the pep rally posters on your walls.
I make you a box of darkness with a bird in its heart.
Voltas of acoustics, instinct & metaphor. It is not enough
To love you. It is not enough to want you destroyed.

Ron Padgett

102 Today 

                           i.m. James Schuyler

If Wystan Auden were alive today
he’d be a small tangle of black lines
on a rumpled white bedsheet,
his little eyes looking up at you.
What did you bring?
Some yellow daffodils and green stems.
Or did they bring you?
 
Auden once said,
“Where the hell is Bobby?”
and we looked around,
but there was no Bobby there.
Ah, Auden, no Bobby for you.
Just these daffodils in a clean white vase.

Elizabeth Bishop

 

Sonnet

I am in need of music that would flow
Over my fretful, feeling finger-tips,
Over my bitter-tainted, trembling lips,
With melody, deep, clear, and liquid-slow.
Oh, for the healing swaying, old and low,
Of some song sung to rest the tired dead,
A song to fall like water on my head,
And over quivering limbs, dream flushed to glow!

There is a magic made by melody:
A spell of rest, and quiet breath, and cool
Heart, that sinks through fading colors deep
To the subaqueous stillness of the sea,
And floats forever in a moon-green pool,
Held in the arms of rhythm and of sleep.

Vikram Seth

 

from Golden Gate

1.1. 
To make a start more swift and weighty, 
Hail Muse. Dear Reader, once upon 
A time, say, circa 1980, 
There lived a man. His name was John. 
Successful in his field though only 
Twenty-six, respected, lonely, 
One evening as he walked across 
Golden Gate Park, the ill-judged toss 
Of a red frisbee almost brained him. 
He thought, "Who'd gloat? Who would be glad? 
Would anybody? " As it pained him, 
He turned from this dispiriting theme 
To ruminations less extreme. 

1.2. 
He tuned his thoughts to electronic 
Circuitry. This soothed his mind. 
He left irregular (moronic) 
Sentimentality behind. 
He thought of or-gates and of and-gates, 
Of ROMs, of nor-gates, and of nand-gates, 
Of nanoseconds, megabytes, 
And bits and nibbles… but as flights 
Of silhouetted birds move cawing 
Across the pine-serrated sky, 
Dragged from his cove, not knowing why, 
He feels an urgent riptide drawing 
Him far out, where, caught in the kelp 
Of loneliness, he cries for help.