memorial without memory - the sonnet

My Father is gone never to return,

yet he’s going down the road right now with us.

Often he shared from a page where he’d learned

how to have fun without making a fuss

These words right now are new to each of you

which is as close as i can get to Pop,

for that’s how it was with us - always new.

For him, the past was just another stop.

If i had to take a guess, he’d be honored now

to have a hand in such depth of feeling.

He worked for love, and it mattered not how,

going so far as to beg for it kneeling. 

His brave heart asked each to make their choices,

or each find a muse to give us voices.

jts 21 September 2011 stoneartist.com 

my Father's memory - the sonnet

As my father lay dying, I was asleep

until my brother woke me at his house.

I exclaimed to the phone, Pop made no peep;

gone I know, Pop thought of me not a louse. 

Some months from that date I will participate

in festivities to honor his death.

We made our “good-byes before it was too late.

What i learned from Pop weren’t in his last breath.

What i learned from Pop will be how i die,

for he so much loved life’s sweet mystery.

No one knows when and where our souls to fly . . 

that could be his cackle in yonder tree .  .

it won’t matter when or where once we’ve gone;

what counts is what we’ve stacked our love upon.

jts 20 September 2011 
http://stoneartist.com 

fake - the sonnet

i am writing an essay about fake,

this ersatz sonnet was as far as i'd got;

actually i had found another take;

what is not fake? this sonnet? bloody snot?

the death of a parent is very real; 

mowing weeds on a hot day is just that.

selling poison as useful is just spiel -

more sellout violence kept under the hat.

fair weather love, the bluster of hate . . .

the list just goes on and on - life will end,

with it hate, yet love goes on - g_d’s grand fate . .

or .. her final joke - balance does not bend.

what’s good will never be found encoded . .. ...

but by good done with dust of bones long dead. 

jts 22 march 2015 stoneartist.com 

lady on the mountain - the sonnet

there could be more, having so much mountain - 

though at the mount one becomes not lady, 

anymore than being at peace is human - 

neither condition is a malady. 

so why not either, more ladies or peace?

many can fake being at peace or regal,

but being mountainous, mountains cannot cease,

as her soul can but soar like an eagle.

and just how to find one, or better - both?

peace is a mountain; it is there or not, 

and when seeking ladies, leave those who loathe

and go somewhere when not found, peace is sought.

i’m old and betters have said, “ seek your root“

- perhaps - mountainside - a tree - lady fruit?

jts 23 april 2015 stoneartist.com