Sonnets

Note: These sonnets were inspired greatly by multi-syllabic and internal rhyme- loving poets, especially hip hop artist MF Doom and Edgar Allan Poe. You will note themes from both of these artists appear in the sonnets below.




While I stumbled in a night, dark and dreary,
With only streetlights and my thoughts for company,
And only deserted lots that could hear me,
As an edgeless shot brought me agony.

I walked forward, though little I could really see,
The edgeless sword aching inside of me,
But then I walked backwards, towards the sea.
Erasing the imprint of what I had been.

I went backwards now, away from the night,
So dreary and dark, a meaningless question mark,
Away from the devils and fright,
That lay out there, grinning in the dark.

So I escaped my night, dark and dreary,
And now here I ponder; weak, but not yet weary.



There's a clown dancing on Bourbon Street,
Painting the town red, drinking herself to sleep,
Falling into beds drenched in Orleans heat,
She screams silently; you won't hear a peep.

I knew this clown before it found it's mask,
I gave it a pound of flesh from my chest,
I never got a ducket in return, I never asked,
For much from it, and you know the rest.

Last night I saw it, in a stumbling dance,
On the right of a corner in Larraways Bend,
She fell from flight into a hopeless trance,
She fell one more time, and that was the end.

Sometimes I think I may have been that clown,
Hoping, wishing, staining my town,

But I let that clown die on Bourbon Street,
Covered in New Orlean's heat.

Dan: Free Verse

Dan is the nicest man you'll ever meet.
He smiles in the rain.
He finds sunlight in the shadows.
He is a friend to the merchant and the poor alike.
Dan turns his cheek even when the blood streams from it,
and pools on the ground like an offence against God.
For if someone were to hit Dan,
Then a Devil they must be.

Dan is short, and wears a baseball cap on his head like the top of a watchtower,
Gazing out at a grey sea of concrete and broken glass around him.
At night, he stumbles around,
Led by only his own personal light.
His skin is old, and worn, wrinkled like leather and tougher then it too,
But his hands are soft to the touch,
Because they've never held a weapon.
Dan doesn't have enemies, but sometimes does not have friends.
But even the blackest soul that meets him in the night,
Wishes him no harm.
For even a Devil doesn't step on a wallflower.

I met Dan on a morning that was neither sunny nor frosted with cloud,
There was no rain, but the air was still heavy.
He stood at a street corner, smiling at something no one could see.
Approaching me of his own vocation as I stood with a friend.
In 30 seconds, he knew me.
In a minute,  I would have considered us friends.
In two minutes, I admired him,
But that was all I would see of Dan.

Dan is homeless.
Dan never stops moving,
Like a rock rolling down a mellow hill,
Only the hill never ends,
So the rock just goes down, forever.
Gathering momentum as it goes,
And eventually crushing trees and rocks beneath it.
In the end, it was Dan's own weight that brought him down.
That anchor inside him.
That chained his mind to the bottom of an empty sea,
With only itself for company.

Dan didn't know when he became "ill",
All he knew was that he wasn't "right".
Maybe he just didn't see what other people saw,
Or maybe they just didn't really see him.
But Dan had a problem with seeing that no living optometrist,
With all their degrees and knowledge,
Could ever really grasp.

Four hours after I saw him, Dan shot up again.
I didn't see him do it and I didn't hear about it from anyone,
But I can tell you from the scars on his wrist that after he saw me,
He lasted no longer than four hours.
I can picture the veins on his arm,
And that dark needle going into them.
It haunts me.
That needle is killing Dan, taking away the "good" part of him,
And leaving only the "ill" part behind.

Dan might be dead right now.
I looked for him one day,
Among the addicts and the trash and the concrete frames,
But his picture is lost somewhere in there.
The shredder.

But Dan is still the nicest man you'll ever meet.
Because if anything, he chooses to not see what he can't understand.
Because if anything, his shadow eclipses ours,
And because if anything, he's just a photograph in my pocket that can't hurt me anymore than he could.

Somewhat Witty Limericks

There once was a man from Nantucket,
Who was lugging a heavy old bucket,
He heaved, and heaved,
And grieved, and grieved,
And finally said "Oh, fuck it!"

There was was a boy from a land,
And land covered in sand,
Twas even his food!
I don't mean to be rude;
But it really was quite bland.

There was was a lass from Japan,
Who met a young lad named Sam,
But when they went to the shed,
And later to bed,
It turned out she was a man!

There once was a lad named Peter,
Who was quite the odd little eater,
He could only devour
What was organic and sour,
And smelled like a joint of reefer.

There once was a man from Atlanta,
With a gun shaped like a banana
He shot at a ape,
Of formidable shape,
And that's how he killed Santa.

Inappropriate Limericks

Increasingly Inappropriate Limericks

There once was a fellow from York
Who couldn't put down his fork
He had too much bacon
His gut was forsaken
And now the man hates pork

There once was a lass from Berlin
Who liked a guy named Tim
She cornered him right
Showed him quite a sight
Then discovered he wasn't a him

There once was a boy with the flu
Who really needed the loo
He ran like a bug
Tripped on a rug
Now the room is covered in poo

There once was a man in the rain
Whose head was in a lot of pain
He went to a doc
While chewing a sock
Turned out the guy was insane

A guy was in the wrong lane
While he was flying a plane
He looked ahead
And saw in dread
Another pilot had done the same

Alone in a Crowded Room- Free Verse Poem

Alone in a Crowded Room
Have you ever been alone?
I don't mean you didn't have a girlfriend
Or a guy, or whatever you fancy
Or that your friends haven’t rung you up
And your family is too busy
To give their son a visit.
And your siblings are too engrossed
In their existence
To see yours.

I mean truly alone.

When I was just a boy
I went to the moors of Scotland
There was nothing but fog
And the rain
And the insects
And the muddied grass
The color of sorrow
And the slow beating
Of my empty heart
And that was when I realized
The best day of my life had come

I didn’t fear anyone
I didn’t hate anyone
I didn’t love anyone
I didn’t know anyone
Because in the moors
No one mattered
Especially not me

When I was with others
I never felt more alone
In that crowded room
I felt myself suffocating
And my voice
Pleading for help
For anyone to just take the time
to say;
“Why are you so sad?”
“What are these marks on your wrists?”
“You seem nice”
“I love you”

I have never heard those words
And I never will
Because the chaos in my own
rotten skull

Is too much already
So why should I bother to reach out
To you?
When you can't
Stop me from drowning?
Please.
Please pull me up.
Please.
Please say something.
Please.

But I have heard the heartbeat of the moors

And I know that loneliness
Is the cure to itself

The Man on Main Street- Free Verse

The Man on Main Street: Free Verse

If you walk down Main Street, and up 15th
To the cafe with the faded sign
Next to the bakers, the one whose son runs the shop
You’ll find there a man, his legs bent
He’ll nod hello, stranger or friend
As he sips on his coffee
And picks at his biscotti
And skims his paper
And wears his skin like paper
With the weight of iron
His arms crossed, his face withered
And in his eyes an ocean
Once I stopped to talk to the man;
he reads his paper
Because he always wanted to write for one
He dreamed of travelling the world,
of not having enough to eat
Nor a home to call his own
and only legends and rumours for food
Of tales of adventure
And bravery
And romance
And passion
Of being so much more
And he sips on his coffee
To remember the ones his mother gave him
When he was just a youth
And to remember the ones he shared
With friends, gone and passed
In a land he no longer knows
Where he used to sit and laugh
At the people who walked by
And the friends who smiled at him and his face
Which was once unwithered
And at the other men who sat at cafes
Like he does now
And the man still picks at his biscotti
Because his sister became a baker

Not the one next to the cafe;

His sister lived in the land
That he no longer knows
She would give him leftovers
Small favors from her shop
And to her, they were nothing
But to him they were the world
They filled him with joy
And gave him scraps of his broken past
Charity for the poorest of men
A prop to stand up the broken frame
That is the poor mans soul
Sometimes the baker-not the sister, shes long gone-
Comes and talks to the man
And wishes him well, honestly
From the bottom of that baker’s heart
Theres a little tiny ray that he tries to give to the man
Because he sees the man every day
And thinks of him more than that
Because he hopes, maybe one day
He will look out his window, and the man will be gone
But the ray doesn’t touch the man
He is too far away in his chair
And so he sits there, and eats
And drinks
And reads
To remember what he has left behind
And where he could have gone
He sits there every morning, and looks across the street to the house
Where the one he loved once lived
He saw her every day, walk past that cafe
But never told her
That her visit kept his heart beating
Beneath his paper skin
In his iron chest
So the man sits there, and drowns in that ocean in his eyes
And he never lets the world know
His pain
And he never let the world know
What happiness he might have had
Or who he is
Beneath his paper skin
He refuses to let his fire
Burn away
Instead the man on Main Street
Flickers on
Because he hates what he is but can’t die yet
Like a lost candle in a vigil
Flickering
Never ending
Never dancing or crackling or hissing

It simply is

Like the faded sign
Next to the man on Main Street

The Hero We All Deserve- Epic Poem

The Hero we All Deserve

On this black city, pain dealt its card
A place beholding false gods of hatred
The streets, black and dark and hard
Bore water that ran filthy and red

Deliverance was needed
To the sky, they pleaded
But no answer was heard

For an ordinary man
From the rooftops ran
And took from the thief his weapon and pride

And thus the tide,
of endless crime
Was stopped by a light;
the darkest of nights

He sits upon a concrete throne
Austere, he reigns
Guardian of our home
Defier of Bane

The Lord whispers in the night
“Should any villain reach my sight!”
They will be driven to flight!”
Except for Penguin, who, despite
Being a bird, cannot escape
the masked man and his cape

And when the killing joke was had
When people cried and screamed
And the world went mad

When a clown ruled over Gotham, a false king
The streets his; the opposers gone
His arrows of fortune and madness to sling
His marchers singing their victory song

The austere knight, justice fell
Devouring day, devouring hell

And so the night would end
And give wake to day
From heaven, or hell, was the hero sent?

For whenever those
Who could not bear arms
Faced a shadow’s blows
He would save them from harm

If the shadow should ever overtake that land
Then the mountains would first turn to sand
And if that knight should ever falter or fall
Then it would be because the small grew tall
And fear no longer ruled
In Gotham’s halls.