Category Archives: sonnet

2024, Days, Ohio River Valley Literature, Poetry Month, river life, sonnet, the no-scape

Day 46 and 47, 2024

Day 46 (51st birthday sonnet)

for a day, the machine becomes a man
repaired repurposed for the moment
at rest. some old floppy disc memory
plays back a slower program: RUN
by facsimilating relaxation
there is no knowledge of the wharf
all rhythm follows the common time
patter of the dogs. yes the weather’s warm

but there is no majesty in it just a program
booted up. my eyes blue like old computer screens
take in the unscripted code generated
identifying the silence of moments
between sunrise and the arrival
of the system update in your smile.

Day 47

wharf wannabe triatheles
return with warm weather:

rumors of the season
already rolling: my imagination

turns to visions of fire
to the smell of diesel of oil

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2024, Days, Ohio River Valley Literature, poetry, river life, sonnet, the no-scape, winter, Working Class Literature

Day 33, 2024

rivers stacked upon rivers
this world these worlds
flood sometimes we
float or sink sometimes

they leave their beds
spread out over the wharf
spread out drown cities
sometimes dried out

like expired raisins
concrete deserts swallowed
rivers stacked upon rivers
push sometimes unforgiving currents

then go back to bed to bed
leave a world rewrit in mud
the old world a foundation
a collective dream… sometimes

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2024, Ohio River Valley Literature, poetry, sonnet, the no-scape

only in dreams


here finding myself awake: swing
these legs out of bed (something
resembling purpose, ya) open the blinds
and let in the cold January sun.
be here in a proper moment find
life in a fresh cup of coffee, the scent

of supper simmering in a slow crock pot
fill the space with light, with air and
these smells — proof of life needing
living an urge rising from bone deep
something all sinew and blood rushing

rivers on the verge of flooding
pushing mud and broken bits onward
to a basin an ocean known only in dreams.

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