The Ring

From my poetic imagination in 1988 or so…

Introduction

Just Fourteen Lines, but seven tens is all
I get! How can I speak my mind in there?
My heart of ever-singing joy is full
to overflowing. Why confine it thus?

Doth put within a garden mountains tall?
Within a sieve how can we hold the air?
and if I tried, you’d think my mind were dull.
But once I’ll try it if you say I must.

Give me the words and they with me will fall
to place; and shape my thoughts freeborn to fair
conforming. What meaning can you pull
from words constrain’d in walls by Dante truss’d?

I make my mark as hundred others do
and on these walls declare my love for you.

The First Sonnet

When for a thousand thousand years we’ve set
and watched the lives we lived go by, we will,
I think, see fit to laugh at them. Naive
as we are now I doubt we’d even try.

Step back and look at them. What all we get
for all we do; how we survive the kill
of arrows thrown by gods we won’t believe
who now above – without our faith – do fly.

An still we blunder blindly in their debt
for all the golden drinks we swill
sometimes to raise our hearts or them deceive
to hide them from the pains that make us cry.

And to the gods who give the pains we dare
can I give thanks for all the joys we share?

The Second Sonnet

Can I give thanks for all the joys we share
when I don’t know if they have come to you?
Have they within your heart created home
as they’ve within my soul become endeared?

I wonder if within your heart you care
about these things as deep within I do.
Dost relish snowy streets through which we roam
or do you feel indif’rent? This I’ve feared.

Do I waste my time or do I dare
to think that You, as I, enjoy us two?
Have we, together walking, this far come
to have from our dear futures such things cleared?

You must not toss these things aside. I pray
that you may feel the same as I some day.

The Third Sonnet

That you may feel the same as I some day;
I wouldn’t wish that on my furth’est friends.
Confusion, pain and indigestion, this
is all I feel whenever I see you.

I wonder always what I’ll have to say
that late you’ll stay, not bringing nights to ends.
I wish I’d be so brave, that I could kiss
your soul. But e’en to ask I can not do.

When I’m with you I want to run away
and thusly free me from this pain which sends
me crying. But to see you gives me bliss.
‘Twixt pain and joy I’ve lost all life but you.

God, free me from this wretched earthly frame;
Oh free me from great Eros’ evil game.

The Fourth Sonnet

Oh free me from great Eros’ evil game,
that I no longer seek the arrows gold
nor languish in the overflowing tears
from joy and sorrow, both the gifts of love.

Within th’eternal round of “what’s your name?”
I’m trapped as all are who are not so bold
that they can triumph o’re enduc’d fears
by reaching for the prize which leads above.

And yet, when by the rules I am made lame
(and to commercial culture have been sold)
by this from nothing freed I think tho’ts clear
and what I seek is not what they call Love.

By rules (and friends) I’ll never judge what’s shared
Between us there can grow a love ne’er dared.

The Fifth Sonnet

Between us there can grow a love ne’er dared
by angels nor by men; who with their rules
destroy all that in logic won’t abide
and cause to flee all not to them made clear.

In joinéd hearts, our own communion shared
two lives made one and never used by fools.
United thus, within ourselves we hide
remov’d from them. Thus we can face their fear.

And looking back how each for th’other cared
we’ll laugh at those who turned their loves to tools.
Thus we will leave this life: going side
by side, supernal choirs, or else to here.

But newer birth or rest from strife,
I with you will go from life to life.

The Sixth Sonnet

I with you will go from life to life
until all lives have come to ends and we
ourselves are left to mind the multiverse.
With myriad forms as Gods we’ll play alone.

It was our love that made us such: a knife
that cut us off from all and made us free.
And thus remov’d, lost, still gave us mirth:
Symphonic joy with only our two tones.

Alone, just us, with no sapienic strife
as Gods, we’ll cause – with songs – all worlds to be.
Then in our tune we’ll sing anew the earth:
For we, Divine as lovers need a home.

Thus even then, our love will not uplet
When for a thousand thousand years we’ve set.