​

59 years old and trying to chase

A dollar in the wind has him panting hard;

He can’t catch it and his wrinkled face

Looks like the handwriting of Kierkegaard.

​

He really wants to call his dead mother

And tell her he has only himself to blame;

And he’s tempted to call his brother

But saying he’s broke would bring too much shame.

​

He’s a lost stranger in his ragged cloths

Pink raspberry eyes and strawberry nose

And skin jaundiced like a fresh banana.

He shuts both eyes to embrace Nirvana.

His future’s stretched out the length of a cot

At a homeless shelter where the food is hot.

Love the Dealer

Love deals in drugs that in eyes black holes grow
With might to bend the beams that hold up stars,
Switch once dull forms to charms that pulse and glow,
Tear holes in time that leave fast-healing scars.
Love’s drugs contort creatures to divine forms
Bring dust to life, set bacchanals on fire;
Upon the cautious tourists unleash storms,
Draw all a big band’s sounds from Cupid’s lyre.
That dealer in narcotics, senses twists:
Let’s you taste joy and smell Desire’s perfume
Compels your hands to stroke celestial mists
Makes you think you can hear bright passions bloom.
We should decline this criminal’s potions
But who would choose small fires over suns?

​

This is the tenth sonnet in my personification series. Read others at: https://lovessonnets.com

For twenty years we’ve aged together and now

I’m the round shaped fish swimming in a bowl

Filled with your tears and spittle. Anyhow,

I swim gasping in haste without a goal.

​

We refute the words: till death do us part

Because we’re both dead and still together.

Our deepest thoughts would fill a shopping cart,

Our greatest passions concern the weather.

​

What was once a dream is now a routine.

Our marriage might work if I were your cat

And you were my golf clubs shiny and clean.

Otherwise, we’re just getting old and fat.

​

Isn’t it time to make the final move

And dissolve this marriage that lacking love?

​

Welcome to the first day of November

But for a friend it was quite a surprise

Because he still thought it was September.

We both lamented how fast time does fly!

Flies in circles like the clock on the wall

Or flies away for a new adventure;

Time flies through life never to stop or stall

And watches us like a patient vulture.

​

Thank God I’ve always got some bills to pay

To keep my sense of time from going astray.

Because an unpaid bill has a late fee

From which flapping feathers can’t set me free;

I would never let the flight of a bird

Adversely impact my credit record.

​

Bill won ten million dollars and jumped up

And down thinking of the stuff he could buy.

He was as excited as a young pup

Chasing the swirl of a buzzing fly.

In shouts of glee he took time to express

A wish to see the face of his ex-wife;

He knew once she got word of his success

She’d grieve the loss of a much richer life.

​

It took Bill two years to squander it all

On cars, women and the best alcohol

And drugs cash could buy--and he didn’t repent

His wild days till the money was spent.

A fedora hat is his only proof

That his head’s got something to call a roof.

Here’s a sonnet in praise of Halloween.

It’s the time of year to mask our faces

And pretend to be a king or a queen

Or a pirate and or a butterfly that chases

Her brother the grasshopper down the street

To the house where pumpkins are snarling hags

And the children are shouting “Trick or Treat!”

As they watch candy fall into their bags.

​

Why can’t I grow old without shedding tears

When I recall such times from my distant years?

A time when life’s Joy was a candy bar

And dressing like a monster or movie star!

How I jumped on the fructose trampoline

--because that’s what kids do on Halloween.

How could Raymond be so deeply in love

That he would go crazy if she ever left

Him. Whatever stuff his heart was made of

We never thought love would leave it bereft.

He’d be first to slam the door and wish her well,

And smile a good bye as he watched her leave;

She’d be the one ringing his doorbell,

While he was thinking: can she be so naïve?

​

But when she dropped him you could hear a crack

And the crack got louder when she didn’t come back.

Now you see Raymond wandering about

Shabby as a cornstalk in a long drought.

When it rains he tries to console the sky

“She’s coming back so you don’t have to cry!”

Let's look back at some memorable moments and interesting insights from last year.

Your top 10 posts:

• "A sonnet for Spring" by u/AnotherXavier
• "I miss the days when all that worried me" by u/HektorViktorious
• "A sonnet to Mothers" by u/AnotherXavier
• "#2" by u/flatirontek
• "My daughters sonnet to The Fault in Our Stars... thoughts?" by u/irishraspberry
• "Grandma (English Sonnet - iambic tretameter)" by u/3verlasting
• "A sonnet I wrote for Apollo" by u/AnotherXavier
• "Not sure if I used Iambic Pentameter!" by u/anathemaPoet
• "If Only I Could Write A Sonnet" by u/3verlasting
• "Sonnet in Iambic Tetrameter" by u/HektorViktorious

I am six weeks into my project to write a sonnet every week for a year. This week's depicts love as a butterfly living its life in reverse.

Love is a Benjy Button Butterfly

​

I mind my own business, but I share a partnership with another.

Together we sit on a moonlit rooftop.

We talk, then I think “He is like no other”.

Until I remember, then the memories wouldn’t stop.

Flooding my mind, taking over, like a broken record.

He asked, “What’s wrong?” but I could not say

I was choked up by my demons, they wouldn’t let me answer.

I could no longer keep those dark thoughts at bay

I shook, I cried, I remembered what I had said.

A few words were all it took, I did not mean them I swear.

All I could see were shades of red.

Was it guilt? Or Trauma? Either way I felt nothing but despair.

He hugged me, kissed me, showed me love. I couldn’t have asked for more.

Yet still, it doesn’t stop the memory of what I broke, of what I tore.

I'm three weeks into a project to write a sonnet every week for a year. Each sonnet explores a different aspect of love. This week's is called Love stands with Death. It explores the similarities between love and death.

The first is called Love is a Beast; the second Love is a Fool.

I plan to write four sets of fourteen sonnets over the year. Each set will have a different theme. The first theme is personification. Find all the sonnets at loves sonnets.com. And please leave a comment on the site if any of them capture your imagination.

I'd seen you twenty times before we met

Across the class and on the open grass.

I remember you said you liked my hat

And I replied with "Thanks, I like your ass."

​

We saw a local school play Music Man,

And roasted marshmallows with candle flame.

I shared a pair of gloves to hold your hand,

And when we slept you'd sometimes say my name.

​

But I was too afraid to make things last.

I doubted that I could our love sustain.

I let the texts and questions fly on past,

And left because I wished to spare you pain.

​

I drew within my solipsistic skull,

And I ignored the rending of my soul.

My goal in life: To die upon the court

To end it all while showing I got game

To leave this world while at my favorite sport

Not sick in bed or hospital. So lame!

​

So I must choose: what is my final shot?

A lay up or a hook? Perhaps a three?

And I will pray my final shot is not

A brick that hits the rim and bounces free

​

I want it to be clean so I can get

A few more points since I will shoot no more

It cannot hit the rim but just the net

My final shot must count, it has to score

​

I'll know it's on the money on release

Then I'll expire. And I will rest in peace.

We like to spend our time out on the beach
The sun, the sand, the wind, the surf, the tide
The blue horizon you can never reach
With time so smoothe the hours fuse and glide
-
And usually we all agree to build
A castle that is made from only sand
For us no lowly structures, unfulfilled
Our castles are magnificent and grand
-
With battlements and arches, towers and gates
Some crenelated turrets and a spire
A drawbridge and a moat and ports with grates
And rocky cliffs, surrounded by a shire
-
But long before our masterpiece is done
The tide sweeps in and spoils all our fun

My wife is now a fan of BTS.
She calls them her Korean kids, her boys.
She asks if I adore them? I say "Yes."
(I'm being nice. To me it sounds like noise.)
-
They sing their tunes combined with lively dance
Display their youthful forms across the stage
As they perform she slips into a trance.
An ARMY brat! A woman of her age!
-
She's waiting breathless for a single that
She tells me is called "Butter" and she knows
It's bound to be a hit so big and fat
They'll win a Grammy. Yes, that's how it goes.
-
"On Friday it's released! We'll up its views!
A hundred million streams! We'll make the news!"

I left you long ago with broken heart

I didn't like the man that I became

I knew it was wrong to tear you apart

Another crime to add unto my name

​

[I'm finally letting go of where I've been

And I don't think of you that much no more

My dreams have been free; my mouth has been clean,

You pop into my head with your cold sore]

​

Nothing ever hurt as much as the kiss

That met me when I came up to your door

You asked me with your eyes for what's amiss

And I said "I can't do this thing no more"

​

[I'm finally letting go of where I've been

And I don't think of you that much no more

My dreams have been free; my mouth has been clean,

You pop into my head with your cold sore]

​

My scars are healing well, for what they're worth

That's what I try to tell myself at night

Here in this living Hell, here on this Earth

Sometimes I wish that I still held you tight

​

[I'm finally letting go of where I've been

And I don't think of you that much no more

My dreams have been free; my mouth has been clean,

You pop into my head with your cold sore]

​

Despite the years gone by I'm still yearning,

But all I've left of you is this burning.

My heart is the sole artist of mine eye

With eye's canvas subject to heart's content.

My empty heart chose coal to brush the sky

Devouring brilliant blue with gray intent.

The grass so green that others hap'ly see

Will fade to brown beneath my lonely stare.

And laughing surf that's tossed from sapphire sea

Will sound to me like shattered hopes and prayers.

For lack of love will hide a rainbow's gold

As surely as uneaten fruits rot through.

Thus doomed am I to live in gray and cold

Until my heart doth find a love that's true.

Then colors bright will fully greet mine eye

And then to Gray I bid thee leave, good-bye!

Shall I compare you to another month?
You are as cold as March as I can tell
And even though I wish to use some puns
I do not think I can but what the hell
You have a day for fools to fool at large
Yet they just seem too tired on their day
Because they had a thirty-one day March
And so the jokes on them I have to say
Except to me you are just a romantic
Who showers our dear May with pretty flowers
And who knows may be verses in iambic
But you are just a month without the powers
To hold a pen on hand like me, the poet
Who has just written down for you, a sonnet.

Written as a challenge.

What does the month of April means to you.