Three Sonnets in Times of Crisis

Pogroms on the Streets of New York

Knives held by knaves in the night of hatred, blood

Making any travel through life treacherous, the candle burned

At either end, the Sword of Damocles

Already descended like a forceful guillotine

To separate the head, the body, the life between

And the one beyond: the desperate cry, the pleas

For understanding, the voice already turned

To strangled breath, the slip through fæcal mud:

The body already turned to wind and rain,

The spirit fled into the darkness once again,

And the rabbi will not rebel or denounce the dust

Scattered over scriptures burning, letters the crust

Of garbled explanations in the brain of those

Who excuse the crimes, in the ones who have not chose’

To fight or flee, but only grovel and pretend to trust,

The faithless faith, the unreasonable logic of pain.

***

New Fears: A Sonnet for 2020

Murder by machete, rescue by narwhal tusk,

Trucks used as weapons, shooters in a church,

Thus the modern world runs amok,

And feeble mankind falters into smoke-filled dusk:

The new year revolves, the decade slithers into the lurch.

Who tosses anarchist bombs at emperors any more,

Who fires shots into a prince’s coach and lurks

To be apprehended and reap the glory, roar

Of crowds in the yard of execution, shock

Of revolution heard around the world; yet smirks

The comfortable bourgeoisie against the spore

Of discontent and poverty, the keys that lock

Old hatreds in their purple prose, whilst we

In our despair confront the meaning of modernity?

***

Sea Breezes in Marble

There are palpitations in the sea and in marble,

Undulations and intersections, where we breathe

The sound of letters and observe the endless marvel

Of nature’s imagery encased in stone, sword in sheathe,

The word, the rhythm and the angels’ chant beneath

Our feet, as though the seabed were a score of music;

And yet the cry of silent helplessness is grief

And ecstasy starts forth in sparks, where risk

Becomes a basal undertow, and faint

Absurdities create vague symphonic

Dreams, formulaic, grotesque and quaint,

Until the vortex bursts, echoes click

In darkened caverns, where primal painters paint

And place their ochre prints: we date the wick

But not the inspiration—so clever we just ain’t!

***