Sonnet Mania

Been working on a book of sonnets -- clever form. But anger and wine ripped the love right out of them recently so, here are two for your reading pleasure. The first plays off of Shelley's famous "Ozymandias", the second in a facsimile of ancient homeric odes...

Ozymandias 2007

Armed with the ammunition of story
I blaze forth, retell my past, and create
the heroic pattern of history
Where myth becomes truth, reality debate

I stand as democracy’s lone sentry
I dictate and decide who is with us
and who lies against freedom’s destiny
Or denies to history my purpose

I treat the future with abandon, for
My name is Ozymandias, arisen!
I determine all and then command when war
Is to be forgotten and rewritten.

Legacy? It is left to my judgment
I am but God’s vessel, his instrument


Elegy for Anna Nicole (Smith)

Listen to those words…how we hurt for her
How anguish pours from our heart into earth
Like blood, drying, fades until forgotten
We bury you and lament your passing

Your passing, you who were an icon of
Trailer park dreams, a million dollar story
We buried you with full honors, watching
CNN, Fox, the aged broadcasters

Broadcasters, who, praising your tragedy
Ignored five more soldiers’ funerals
And fathers and mothers, left in anguish
Heroic children, dying for a lie

Lie silent now, silent, you shameful pigs
Pray somehow you are forgiven by them