The Sonnets Part II

Here are Sonnets IV-VI which round out my mini-collection of Barrigan style sonnets. (Sonnets I-III are up from last week) Hope you enjoy. Next week going to get a bit weird with a CAConrad exercises.

IV

Dear Susie Asado-sweet tea-sweet sweet tea

Sweet Susie, This is that room. The one

with the yellow wallpaper and the Parriot,

“Allez vous-en! Allez vous-en! Sapristi!”

I am the boy breaking glass.

We ran to the sea with a bed sheet and a bucket—

Hot sand on toes, cold toes in sleeping bags

A bucket for dreams to drain. This is that room.

The note on the door: ‘I have eaten the plums,

But the present is clearly here to stay.’

I am the boy breaking glass. Whose

Broken window is a cry of art.

Forgive me they were delicious

so sweet and so cold.

V

I do not celebrate myself!

There is that in me- I do not know what it is-

but I know it is in me- This is that.

This is my 14^th grade hand scribbling:

When we danced last night I could

only hear the beat enough to know I was off.

Dear Margie, I am with you in the Lime Tree

where you’re madder then I am.

Your poetry makes me have particularly

emotional reactions on Tuesdays that rain.

Sweet sweet sweet sweet sweet tea.

No one knew where I was and now

I am no longer there— Only this and

nothing more.

VI

Where are we going,                                    ?

Listen to the crack of doom on the hydrogen jukebox.

This is the courage to say what I couldn’t

say in the 4^th grade. The only people for me

are the mad ones. Mad to live.

My hands scribbled the ending you read aloud:

“The last word he pronounced was -- your name.”

The Horror! The Horror! Forevermore.

Mad to talk, mad to be saved, “How to even begin to get it all down.”

Just hold on we’re going home.

Tomorrow I will start to be happy.

While the Weary Blues echo through my head

I sleep like a rock or a man that’s dead.

shantih            shantih            shantih