SONNETS 1 to 7

Sonnet 1

 

This day of frost and fire this Valentine

Beckons us to venture forth to meet the sun

And hurl smiles for all the world to shine,

Yet all the world is grey its course has run,

As Thor released his thunderbolt of mire

The earth moved too and crush’d dreams

And towns and villages and all expire

And peace is broken by its screams,

Life’s storms do not abate for us to shed

The load that we have made its toll

Like some vast cloud that rumbles dread,

Voltaire in his deep grave would roll,

To hear of such calamities curse god above

For we have ventured from the sacred path of love.

 

Sonnet 2

 

The briny stain of hardship lingers on

Pecked by the gilded peacocks of this land

Poor hands and visage often weathered long

Reflect a schism that denotes our stand,

The haves and have not’s parted by a card

Of circumstance, by chance of birth,

Out of this hoary wash of poverty and wrecks

Which lies within the cracks of all excesses,

Can ner’re be washed away, but lingers on,

In this our fortune and our failings try

Our claims at being civilized, this wrong

This wealth, not well divided is a lie

When I see truth in hardship sold

To those corrupted lined with tainted gold.

 

Sonnet 3

 

January sadness with no spring in her stride

Her thoughts don’t light the sky with joy

Warmth and sun from us poor souls do hide

She shivers in the cold comfort of winter’s icy ploy

The moon sulks for she is overworked in long night,

The sun, her head above the clouds will sleep,

When darkness owns the world come snowdrops white

Tiny heads so small, so delicate, so fine, they peep

Shyly they rise and in their thousands claim the land

And call for spring to come, and skylarks sing

And in this secret wood their thousands stand

Sweeping up to graves of racehorses who bring

Derby memories many moons ago, in peace now rest

Their hoofbeats, cheering grass of this great Derby fest.

 

Sonnet 4

 

A mighty star is facing death, explodes and dies,

Its fireworks fill the cosmic sky with colours unbelievable

From its death another star is born up in the skies,

Its elements of iron, sulphur, helium, are inconceivable

Make haste and join forming many other worlds

They spin and turn and whirl and as death became them,

So they re reborn, and one of these was hurled

Through space, and finds its satellites drawn, they come

And are like moons, and one is earth, and in waters,

Bubbles life, searches other life and in deep oceans

They grow to greenish threads knitting sons and daughters

And heavy metals sink and heat and form magma motions

Which give us basalt blown sky high and fanned

Strange in shapes this newly formed and sacred land.

 

Thanks to Henry Gee. A (Very) Short History Life on Earth.

 

Sonnet 5

 

There is a bond between earth and flowers to renew,

Each year a friendship a partnership of give and take,

It is ownership without license to enforce, but rue

The day if anything is false, it loves the delicate,

And strong, harboured by the sun and fed by rain

A bond, a trust, is made for all to watch that friendship last,

It is a place where hearts can sleep and inspiration came

To feed on, it cometh slowly from the past

It is not beauty or the need of any frills or fashion

It is a candle in the dark lighting its own foundation

It never walks away unless there is no passion,

For friendship is the heart of our creation

It is a cry for peace and love, the antidote to war,

It is a link of steel which binds us souls for evermore.

 

Sonnet 6

 

Of what is life but of itself afraid, which does parade,

A feast of finest memories, do they commend and stay?

When into the ball of life’s fire we’ve strayed,

For honing, supplng the mind and body for the fray

This is our finest hour, our greatest joy, our end

That we might live to fill those dreams of which we knew.

Would overcome our fears, our mind would bend;

Our hands worn with strain our faces rippled through,

Of life, the one in which we stepped when we were born.

Can we call fear, but a hardener of basic gold

A Thor who curves and rasps our edges, worn

Smooth so we can step from tin to copper and when old,

That is the final art, the power to magically renew

To die, but in a perfect form, into which we grew.

 

Sonnet 7.

 

And what of ornament, should we denude ourselves of flattery?

Is flattery an ornament of tongues, a generosity of words?

Should beauty live in a grey and formless sobriety?

Or does delight thrive in gilded halls with cherubim’s and birds

Adorning every corner of our lives with golden crowns

Is the line of beauty poor of colour and of form, no it wakes?

Our longing to belong to that which sings out joyous sounds,

Does not the ornament of music touch the soul, its richness makes

For which the senses long, a sacrament to pleasure, almost holy

Was not the birth of Venus, but a show of understanding light

And is not light that which overcomes the darkest melancholy

January’s dull cold is winter’s dark and all that is not bright

Lets celebrate the setting sun its ornament of night

And leave austerities gloom the Puritans birthright.