These first two sonnets are the award winners. The first won a Chicago area contest for narrative poetry. The second one got what was equivalent to fifth place in the International Shakespearean Sonnet Competition. I heard the first place winner's entry. It was by some octogenarian woman from Las Vegas. I got creamed, fair and square. The rest of the verses here are just some of the ones that I like.

Two of these sonnets also appear in my musical, "My Dead Irish Mother."

TRUE STORY

I knew a man who cheated on his lover —
While she was pregnant with his child. But, wait,
There's more: He cheated on her while he still
Was married yet to someone else, who had
Already had the lovely privilege of
His deep affections; in return she raised
"That kid of yours" and paid his doctor's bill —
That is, the medical degree tuition that

Should come with marrying a woman less
Attractive than yourself. You think? And I
Was there the day he married her. I guess
We should have seen it coming in him by
The way he rose the morning after, dressed,
And went to shoot some baskets with the guys.

.

MY COOL GREEN PLACE

I'm looking for a cool, green place to lie
And sprawl upon the clover grasses there
Beneath a tree beneath a dappled sky
To feel the soft caress of summer air.
Serenity and comfort I will find,
Security though open as I lay,
A peace at heart, tranquility of mind,
Vitality as vibrant as the day.
My search goes on at each unlikely hour.
In places out-of-place I hope to see
No sun, no sky, no tree, no grass, no flower,
No place at all; for there is only she.
I know her though I've never seen her face,
For she will be my love, my cool, green place.

.

RUSSIAN MOON

The snow reflects a Russian moon as blue,
With blacker shadows tucked in deep beneath
The spires of evergreens; the woolled and downed
Babushkas out in pairs — so late! — flash out
Between the spindled tree trunks, leaving two
More tramplings on a wid'ning path — a wreath
Of frost, like glitter on a frame, around
Them — trudging, stooped and weary, ankles stout
In boots. So late. A lumb'ring midnight train
Slips through the projects and the dachas, soft
As moonlight rolling out across the plain;
The golden cupolas of Moscow lie
Behind. "They're blue," you say and point aloft;
You're warm against my back. And cold's the sky.

.

LAST I CRY

The yellow mask of death and cold feet, dry
Lips crusted with that God-knows-what, your chest
So barren that your husband feels your ribs
Right through your breasts: he's feeling for your heart —
It's not unnew to him — but now it's gone.
The mask of life removed has creased your cheek:
How did the undertaker get that out?
Why did he cover up the downy hair
That you'd grown back and were so proud of? This
Is how I see you. Small and fragile. Not
The sainted tyrant with three-quarters-of-
A-mile of cars with headlights on at noon.
I see your mask of death, your cold feet, dry
Lips, hair that's real for once; and last I cry.

.

AGE

The legs of time get stronger as they run —
Another day, another swifter stride —
The weight of years is plowed and pulled in tow
With mounting speed and mounting force as if
The load itself became the engine of
All time, consuming moments: pistons, fuel;
A flicker of the day, the blink of night:
Accelerating strokes, combusting some,
Constructing one perpetual machine,
Perpetuating life with life: Consume
Yourself to feed yourself, with every day
Defy yourself, collect this flooding stream,
The river of my consciousness, that grew
In swiftness so it now evaporates.

.

SIREN SONG

Ulysses: I am chained to timber, lashed
about my hands and feet; the world is mute
to all around me, but to me acute
in pitch. The pitch of men in oarlocks mashed
by eighty backs and eight-score hands, while sashed
the sails drape still, pulls weakly and dilute
as breathless skies, a baby to the brute
that rears in me that sheet and chain are smashed.
That song, the song that makes all men go mad,
condemns my comrades, deaf to what portends,
and damns me to obsession's wreck — but glad,
because the Siren sings my heart and sends
me into swoons amongst the found'ring. Had
I known, on shore, she'd sing, "Let's just be friends"!

.

HOME

This house is quiet, cold. The fires burn,
but back behind the walls. They cry and spit
their ashen tears. They sputter them like kids
whose saddness rivers down the cheekscapes, churns
the dynamos of feelings dammed. What turns
such potent force to cinderdust that hits
the air with might of shadows? Shadows. This
is not a house, without its fire heard.
Unspoken faith, unspoken love. Unspeak
to me the empty years. Take back the ash —
repeal the law of entropy — the heat
is what I want, and put it in my past.
I want my house with open walls, replete,
alive, aglow, with us. That's all I ask.