rima fragmenta, Fragments of a Rift: Fifty Sonnets for Kevin - 8. finding the ear

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Sonnet No. 15

Whether trained on stars, or locked on the ground,

you spin me like the hands of a dervish –

one up to capture, one down to impoverish –

surging through the vessel me to redound.

And in that tumult, your kisses abound,

caressing my neck, finding the ear which

channels your passion to heavenly pitch

as your weight on me feels deeply profound.

And then, a pause as cries well and erupt –

a new rhythm for us is suddenly born

in pulsations to fill me body and soul.

No pleasure is ever new or abrupt

that rushes from the moment life was sworn

to let heaven and earth in us lose control.

Sonnet No. 16^[1]

Our minds alter all they will encounter

– Its touch Midas-like makes matter golden;

Its scorn debases like any doubter –

And to its judgments we seem beholden.

Yet freedom and soaring heights are there too,

Like Sappho’s far-branched apple just in reach,

But hidden from the pickers in plain view

Because they never the obvious beseech.

And so my love for you I change each time

I think of your smile, unguarded and free,

Gilding rays of sunshine with thoughts and rhyme

While reaching for what’s plainly before me.

Memory is both a blessing and curse;

Our wings to heaven and our earthly hearse.