All through the day, a pirate for the hive,
Goes golden bee to plunder ev’ry flower
And steal its dust so that his queen may thrive.
No other purpose tasks each waking hour.

Industrious and tireless in flight –
Does lowly bee e’er feel him some regret
To leave the rose that wrapped him in her light?
Or does her perfumed softness he forget?

My hive’s abandoned, lady, and no queen
Could reign above the radiance of you –
So duty lost to love, in choice between;
I cleave me to the path the heart finds true.

With petals tight, the bud embraced the bee –
My lady, will you do no less for me?

Copyright (C) Vox Mortuum 2013

Tags: Ever-Fixed Mark Letters, Sonnets

“Truth is not beauty, nor,” she said, “reverse –
Is beauty, truth — though some would have it be.
For pretty truths are shallow, and what’s worse:
Subjective beauty, unmistakeably.

“Just look at you,” she said, “a warrior poet,
In battle forged; your flesh still wears its scars
And what they are to me (you may not know it) —
Adored. A shining nebula of stars.

“Your sky-blue eyes, your tarnished silver mane,
Your care-worn face: all these are priceless things.
To me each detail precious, both mundane
And magical — your snowy sweep of wings!

“Each flaw, a gem. I could go on at length.
My love is truth; your beauty is your strength.”

Copyright (C) Vox Mortuum 2013

Tags: Ever-Fixed Mark Letters, Sonnets

The tarot card was drawn, on velvet laid:
A sunless valley plain, and waging there
My silent battle — king of beast, and maid
Garbed all in white, lemniscate-haloed hair.

How can such comely hands still hold so fast
The lion’s jaws, and tame its awful bite?
Eternal soul knows worldly trials can’t last
And in due time will fade, as day to night.

Let “Courage”, then, be golden mask of Strength –
The visage calm that looks on tragedy
And bears a smile, assured its finite length.
Stand fast! Hold hard! And, in the end, be free!

A gentle touch, tenacious as a noose,
Restrains the might within — or lets it loose!

Copyright (C) Vox Mortuum 2013

Tags: Ever-Fixed Mark Letters, Sonnets

A spinning maze, this labyrinth below:
Famed Daedalus’s art — of genius built
And royal coin (paid dear for royal woe)
To chain the monstrous child of Zeus’s guilt…

There’ll be no clever lass with skein of thread.
You might have heard that story. This one went:
“The gods had mercy only for the dead –
Don’t look you for the boy Olympus sent.

“You’ll turn and turn again, and hear the pace
As twisted monster hunts you, room to room.
No drugs can stall its unrelenting chase –
So match its step, and dance with eager Doom!”

We turn and turn again, forevermore.
This endless waltz with Pain — this Minotaur!

Copyright (C) Vox Mortuum 2013

Tags: Ever-Fixed Mark Letters, Sonnets

Like Icarus, I soared into the sky.
Like him, I lost my mind and from grace fell,
Made blind and mad by what I glimpsed on high;
In restless dreams I hear the voices tell:

“Oh — carry on, beloved prodigal;
The path is long to promised rest and peace.
Shed no more tears, though we demand your all.
Someday, my son, the war you wage will cease.”

I masquerade a passion I don’t feel,
Pretending to a wisdom I don’t know.
Tossed on this sea, I can’t tell false from real –
A ship adrift… The voices bid me go.

That unmatched splendor: Heaven’s open gate!
Can this lost sinner claim it as his fate?

This sonnet is a re-framing of and tribute to the lyrics of “Carry On Wayward Son” by Kansas. I do not claim to own the rights to that song and no infringement is intended.

Copyright (C) Vox Mortuum 2012

Tags: Ever-Fixed Mark Letters, Kansas, Sonnets

Dedicated to A.E. Housman, with the utmost of respect…

Ancestor of my soul, you lived in times
That did you great injustice; though forgot
By most the world, I still revere your rhymes
And find my goals the same as what you sought.

Untouched by age, your eloquence is clear;
Your lines as poignant now as long ago.
The echoes of your pain from yesteryear
Ring in my chest, more true than you could know.

You, half in love with death but more with life,
Lost life of loves in wars that would not cease
And now in death share sleep that mends all strife –
Your lowly student hopes that you found peace.

My heart is torn by words that worthy wrote;
Betimes, a broken flute plays sweeter note.

Copyright (C) Vox Mortuum 2012

Tags: Ever-Fixed Mark Letters, Sonnets

Because I am Vox Mortuum, who gathers up the winds,
who races hares with oxen,
and who swims against the flood waters…

Please — show no shock to find me stranded here
Tormented by the sins I’d done before;
Call Purgatory naught, with you so near –
Behold me now: your once-loved troubadour.

So I be damned for surfeit of desire?
What of it, then? I craved it, more than air –
To thaw thy frozen heart in carnal fire
And, phoenix-like, was proud to perish there.

Now go, my heart, and leave me to my fate,
To weep and sing on borderland of Hell.
Should Heaven query, to that Host relate –
I loved unwise, but always loved thee well.

All I could beg of thee I cherish best:
“Be mindful in due time of my distress…”

AND THE VARIANT VERSION (containing the original quote):

Please — show no shock to find me stranded here
Tormented by the sins I’d done above;
Call Purgatory naught, with you so near –
Behold me now: the lady you once loved.

So I be damned for surfeit of desire?
What of it, then? I craved it, more than air –
To thaw thy frozen heart in carnal fire
And, phoenix-like, was proud to perish there.

Now go, my heart, and leave me to my fate,
To weep and sing on borderland of Hell.
Should Heaven query, to that Host relate –
I loved unwise, but always loved thee well.

All I could beg of thee I most adore:
“Sovegna vos al temps de mon dolor…”

Copyright (C) Vox Mortuum 2012

Tags: Ever-Fixed Mark Letters, Sonnets

Oh, sing to me of castles in the sky –
And poet, spin me tales of wealth untold,
Of Sultan’s ransoms, staggering to eye;
A dragon’s hoard of silver, gems, and gold.

The writer scribes a dream of distant shore.
The painter brushes stroke of opulence.
Were all these in my hand I’d still crave more –
I’ve made a virtue of intemperance!

Stendhal Syndrome, they call it in the Louvre;
This storm of passion lit inside my brow
Like Dante’s soul for Beatrice did move –
One glance from you would overcome me now…

Too much is not enough! Oh, sweet the pain!
Were I the sea I’d still long for the rain.

Copyright (C) Vox Mortuum 2012

Tags: Ever-Fixed Mark Letters, Sonnets

This field was strewn with flowers all last spring,
With tiny petals — saffron, pink, and white.
This bleak year’s harvest: sole incarnadine,
And torn-up turf, and grasses brown with blight.

What strange fruit, this? What groaning music played
From gasping lung, displacing sparrow song,
Drifts o’er a bloody bounty careless laid
And bursts unheard above this deafened throng?

Transformed: my body into battlefield;
The rigors of my quest displayed as scars
Until old form to new reluctant yields
And grants me peace, resplendent as the stars.

Where can beleaguer’d nation turn for help
When war fought here is self against the self?

Read the building of this sonnet here!

Copyright (C) Vox Mortuum 2012

Tags: Ever-Fixed Mark Letters, Sonnets

I keep killing my hopes… but they just won’t stay buried.

The stillness of a graveyard is profound,
Each carven angel haloed in moonlight
On marble wings aloft without a sound.
What living creature dare disturb this night?

The first alarm: the sussurating earth
As restless hands come tearing through the loam –
Then ancient grave gives vent to reeking birth
Of lurching zombie staggering towards home…

Though murderer I am, I’ve missed you, dear –
As unprepared I was to feel your lack,
As much as my faint heart would want you near…
Still I would spend my blood to send you back!

Through strange eons where stranger things may lie,
No greater horror: hope that will not die.

Copyright (C) Vox Mortuum 2012

Tags: Ever-Fixed Mark Letters, Sonnets