Category: sonnets

  • The Ring

    From my poetic imagination in 1988 or so… Introduction Just Fourteen Lines, but seven tens is allI get! How can I speak my mind in there?My heart of ever-singing joy is fullto 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,…

  • Sonnet XVI: Harrow

    Alone by Abraham he watching standsAnd turns to John the Cousin as they smileIsaiah grins at Moses laughing whileJudith and Esther wait in garland bands Now righteous pagans rise to hear the trialLao tzu has joined him and Gautama tooThe final stanzas of hells songs are throughAnd yawning gapes the maw of death most vile…

  • Sonnet: Purgatio

    +JMJ+ I burn! To know the pangs of love. These flames,That singe & bake, that sear & broil my soulAre but the birth contractions: payment, toll.For each of Love’s rejections living maims. See these are not the chains from Marley’s holeHow dark & clanging hopeless Without EndBut rather here my soul’s most comely FriendIn living…

  • Sonnet XV Good Friday. 3PM.

    The darken’d Sun turns sharply to the WestThe crying women now a muffl’d soundThe crowds still gaping silent stand aroundThe Roman circus ceases to molest The body nearly now by life unboundUnseen the Angels horror gathering nowPenultimate redemption’s dying bowIn spittle blood and urine stains the ground Divinely plan’d this death he will endowWith life…

  • Sonnet XIV Via Dolorosa

    He’s walking, Jesus walking. Bloody stainupon the ground. He’s falling, Jesus falls.& up. He’s walking, falling. Soldier callsSt Simon out of Crowds to help attain Golgotha’s lofty height. Once more he stallsBut rising rushes on the Masses’ needTo fill and bakers dough to bend and kneadfo serve beneath the cross that crushes all. We’re walking…

  • Sonnet XIII Barabbas

    Barabbas, Father’s Son, your story’s endunknown your Genesis unsaid. You markat Jesus side the choice twixt life and starkand nameless death. Are even you a friend? You saw how Life Himself for you the DarkDescending brav’d, the raving mob endur’dthe pillory the cross the spear assur’dthat you could freely fly from Pilate’s clark and yet…

  • Sonnet XII Lashing and Mocking

    Crack Forty times & more the lashes stingThe flesh of God which breaded now we eatis turned at pillory to bloody meatas Roman biceps leaded whips make sing Cut loose exhausted falle he at their feetawaiting his awakening a gamethe Romans play, arranging him the sameas Caesar Mock’d upon a bloody seat In purple robes…

  • Sonnet XI Pilate

    To Pilate sent to Herod then and backA hot political potato pass’dUnwantedly between them til at lastThe cock crow raises dawn which secrets lack To Pilate sent the final die to castHere Jesus stands awaiting human callalignment with the will divine as allThings will for those that won’t won’t last To Pilate sent the Mater’s…

  • Sonnet X – Friday Before Dawn

    Come Brethren here in darkness let us meetTransparency and light we can’t abideThe people’s sleeping dreams our secrets hidethis man will stand before our anger’s heat Aside my friends here comes he now aside!And say, Reb Jesus, what will you today?Did not your words blaspheming bend and swayto shake our people off the Torah’s hide?…

  • Sonnet IX – Peter

    Now Peter, liar, rock, Apostle, friendHere come I carefully to you: for pot& kettle are both black. May we be notby prayer that far each from the other’s end. The Priceless One betray’d by campfire hot:Your Galilean drawl just cant. Yet Ilike you without a legal threat will tryTo hide by options crafty, Christ forgot.…

  • Sonnet VIII – The Garden

    In lunar brilliancy they walking showmid leafy branches’ budding scented bloom& grasses warmed in vernal sun now groomGethsemane, in paschal light aglow. We waiting here, he forward goes for roomTo falling, praying, moaning, sighing, bledTo sobbing, straining, weeping, sweating, redTill far away is heard the tramp of doom Apostles wake upon their grassy bedTo find…

  • Sonnet VII Eucharist

    He wash’d their feet & now would make them free:a mundane miracle will here combine.The God-Man bids that man on God will dine& unity in daily liturgy These common building blocks of bread & wineour Saviour takes into his holy hands& those, around him sat, his love commandsin mystic rites to make all men divine.…

  • Sonnet VI Washing

    At Table, Christ: Mandatum Novum doto us that we in love should brothers holdas He embodies love for us. Thus boldin love the nations, seeing, might him know. Example: washing feet in servant’s mold!To each apostle come in turn: St Peterefuses God now kneeling at his feet.“An not I wash you then be gone” is told.…

  • Holy Week Sonnets: Interlude

    The actors all are here in place, our playis set! The curtain ready rises now:Apostles, Traitor, Priests, & King all bow.Let us kneel down to watch the passion fray. Here Pharisees assembled make a vow.Here Judas strides with kiss through garden’s night.Here Pilate waits for judging by his light.Here Christ the Lamb of God all…

  • Sonnet V Judas

    Now Judas thief & liar, devil, friendHere come I carefully to you: for pot& kettle are both black & we are notThat far I think each from the other’s end.The Priceless One you sold for not a lot:the price of one escapéd slave. Yet Ijust any petty lust or care will buywith love I owe…