Self-Jeremiad Sonnet

I wish I could be a better person
& live up to more of my high standards
For then I’d be of myself, more sure then
(Poems aren’t the place to be candid!)

I imagine I could be happier
Living up to my grand aspirations
I might even dress myself snappier
(It might involve some preparations!)

The “perfect me” is a troublesome man
Ideals purely theoretical
Through a contrived obstacle course he’s ran
(To humanity antithetical!)

Fantasy me, like Frankenstein’s monster,
Of intentions built, will be abhorred

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Thesis-Argument Sonnet

I must ask you what is an “argument?”

How would you define “it:” referring to

An English paper’s crucial component?

I’m trying to explain how to get through

An “argument’s” a justification

Of something that is disputable

(Not any mere stupid altercation)

It should be something that is provable

It’s a “case’s” rationalization

A specific “claim,” to be defended,

Proven, analyzed, with explanation

So your audience you “understanded!”

I tried to make this poetic essay

To explain in rhyme my lessons relayed

Self Pity Sonnet

The unrelenting exhaustion I feel

Is the sum total of my self pity

An amorphous weight that despair does seal

Rhyming this observation is shitty

While I am painfully aware of it

(My proclivity for melancholy)

I cannot seem to be free of this shit

(Such is the modern bourgeoisie’s folly)

While I might appear to be paranoid

Seeing enemies in familiar faces

These grim thoughts help to fill depression’s void

Cementing me in these dreary places

I do not feel worthy of these feelings

Garish 1st World problems have me reeling

Vice Sonnet

When does independence become a sin?

What makes providing for one’s self like pride?

It is clear that the line is very thin

Between virtue & viciousness inside

Deep within the “do for yourself” lies greed

Having to share survival’s accolades

Is the beginning of pride’s erosion’s seed

& just witness: “ease” becomes “sloth’s” bridesmaids

“Gluttony” is a psychological

Reaction to famine irrational

We can’t control the dialogical

Reaction to the inspirational

Vices are virtues shadow inversions

Showing people’s necessities’ diversions

Fourth of July 2018

What to thinking Americans is this

Holiday of our state’s independence

The ironies at this time are adrift

Pointing out avarice’s impudence

I wish that people would read histories

By our pasts’ repressed & hidden subjects

Then today there’d be fewer mysteries

To a more just & fair future construct

But our history’s been corporatized

Expressing only moments of triumph

Therefore justice warriors are resized

So not to diminish marketing’s “UMPH!”

Today there’s a frightened American

Who thinks only might makes us “great again”

Mass Media Murder Sonnet

The pain of a broken metatarsal

(Which is quite substantial & actual)

Is nothing before the myth carceral

That might bring us any peace factual

The ruthless cold blooded murders of five

In a tired salon of the fourth estate

Was one loser’s attempt to keep alive

His myths of when America was great

The pain, superadded to the murders

(Of five souls who I am sure were wonders),

Is for how we lift grifters & burglars

& then corporate media scale

Fox News & ABC pull the flesh off

The corpse of America now so lost

Reality Sonnet From Photo

All the realities that we enjoy
Are merely some thin projections’ shadow:
What’s seen by us are visions we deploy
From the base existences that we know

The concrete reality that we see
From gentle breezes to birds & buildings
Are things that are & things we just believe
Existence is consciousnesses’ gildings

While it is painfully obvious that

There is an external reality

Within which we are all totally trapped

Without beliefs is falls to frailty

Here I have spent some time meditating

On the nature of truth: start berating

Lost Sonnet Sonnet

I wrote a sonnet on an envelope

About the scope of my students writing

I’d just read an exploration of Hope

In beginner’s rough English challenging

The essay before that one was superb

Exploring determinism using

A Kurt Vonnegut book absurd

In these papers was the range of learning

Alas, I stuffed envelope unopened

Into the pocket of my cargo shorts

It had my membership card that they send

When you donate MoMA ǝʞıן a sport

Those fourteen lines about my students’ work

Are lost forever, I feel like a jerk