Two Political S onnets

The Failed Revolution

We gathered in pyjamas to watch the crowds march by

in hundreds and in thousands, fists raised in defiance,

red banners unfurled, voices chanting, like the cry

of injured centuries, in the trance

of revolutions,  France and Russia. Then the shots

down the streets and boulevards, and the fall

of wounded comrades, the blood that blots

out reason and compassion, and the tall

guardians of king and kaiser raise their swords

and threaten us, the witnesses to history

awoken from our passive slumber, herds

of mindless creatures, stirred to action, we

succumb to panic and intimidation, again

reduced to beasts by the imitation of real men.

The Cruellest Month of All

That month has passed us by again, the one

We always dread. Not April with its winds

But August, the season when my family dies,

Stretched out in the hot and desiccating sun.

Diseases seem most rampant then, and slips

Of the scalpel, or heart attacks, and once

The man who slipped a noose around his neck

Because he would not stand the loneliness.

September brings us hope of an Indian Summer,

Even as October begins her sad decline.

And all rest, towards final rest, the wreck

Of structures in our inmost being. The line

Grows flatter, and we in time hear the muffled drummer.

Thus we hope to relax to meet the one

Who tries to frighten us, so what we cannot bless

We confront without anxiety or stress.