Sonnet for C.B.
A POEM
How strange to see this landscape in the glass,
The surface — twinges frozen to a sneer —
An ancient planet’s blunt, misshapen mass,
Where tidal sandstorms and volcanoes sear
The well-worn fissures of familiar sins
And feelings now like stunned survivors creep
From silent caverns: half-suggestive grins,
The broken grimaces of too much sleep;
A cinder long ago escaped its star,
Careening weightless through unblinking space,
A fugitive in interstellar war,
Too far for an alien settlement to grace
This darkening image in the startled glass
That rings more hollow than a sounding brass.
© 1986 New Oxford Review. All Rights Reserved.
You May Also Enjoy
Ballpeened by a bumper,
Struck down by steel,
Bowled hard over pavement,
Done in with…
Wordsworth, thou shouldst be living at
this hour.
England hath need of thee, so hath…
However pure this love, however holy,
I want to hold your poor flesh in my…