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

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I Weary of These Infernal Patterns

Old Photos Sonnet



Old photos are fountains of youth

Capturing happy memories 

Keeping our histories as truth

The past is kept: caged canaries

Fading images we look at

Strongly remind us of those times

When we made choices: no regrets!

(Decision-less times are “life-prime”)

Awkward pose & outdated clothes

(Compensated for with smooth skin)

Emphasize happiness youth knows

(That search for original sins)

Treasure all those old photographs

They can keep you laughing youth’s laughs

Failed Aspirations Sonnet

All aspirations collapse within me
Into tangled wreckage & commotion
They bear all society’s weight and dreams
Destroying my most personal notions

I can’t live up to the publicity
Created by my world’s expectations
My life with its needless complexity
A mendacious attempt at salvation

Deep within this fleshy walking corpse
Unable to lie down dead with my faith
Beats a healthy heart with a moral course
Dragged like a prisoner forever forth

In this corrupt ethical universe
There’s no place for my feeble moral verse

Cancer Caught Mom (November 28th, 2013)

	38. My mom is dying/ As we all will do one day/ No words can explain/ #haiku
39. I’m proud to hers/ Sharing eccentricities/ That I’ve learned to love/ #haiku	40. My mom’s shortcomings/ Are paradoxically her/ Greatest life assets/ #haiku	41. Our frugality/ Is an aesthetic impulse/ Be happy with less/ #haiku
42. My lack of tact is/ From her honest directness/ & clear sightedness/ #haiku	43. I love my mother/ Filled with salty opinions/ (She never judged me)/ #haiku	44. This slow motion death/ Offers a chance to tell her/ If I haven’t yet/ #haiku
45. Love is in doing/ The best that we can today/ In all our actions/ #haiku	46. I’m my Mother’s Son/ Creative, stingy & shy/ Simply loving life/ #haiku	47. I’m sad she’s dying/ But so glad that I knew her/ Proud to be her son/ #haiku
48. She made a diff’rence/ In subtle and small events/ In so many lives/ #haiku	49. Liabilities/ Every human carries/ Perfection’s just dull/ #haiku	50. Knowing my mother/ Explains this America/ Accepting all life/ #haiku

Lyn Gregoire

2/15/14

4. My mother just died/
A Quick and painless finish/
To a good long life/
#haiku

5. Two days in hospice/
Her life slowly departed/
It was time to go/
#haiku

6. Feel like a villain/
For not sobbing openly/
But that’s not my style/
#haiku

7a. Her life, good & long/
Ended quietly without fuss/
Just as it should have/
#haiku

7b. Her life, good & long/
Ended quietly without fuss/
As she’d have liked it/
#haiku

8. Mom’s life was human/
Courageous & cowardly/
Just like everyone/
#haiku

9. Showed me how to live/
When I was just a baby/
& ev’ry day since/
#haiku

10. She always liked looms/
Weaving one thread at a time/
Making life’s fabric/
#haiku

11. Didn’t take short cuts/
Enjoyed the road less travelled/
One thread at a time/
#haiku

12. She took what she found/
Making her world out of it/
So creatively/
#haiku

13. Not one for drama/
Or any ceremony/
Mom lived quietly/
#haiku

14. Lived the life she found/
Accepting whatever came/
One day at a time/
#haiku

15a. There’s something else/
My Mom always saw beauty/
In the worlds she saw/
#haiku

15b. There’s something else/
My Mom always saw beauty/
In the worlds she made/
#haiku

16. Each moment a thread/
To weave the broadcloth of life/
Slowly & surely/
#haiku

17. Life’s fabric wasn’t/
Some mass produced perfection/
But a live matrix/
#haiku

18. Life’s tangled matrix/
Looks diff’rently to each soul/
From their perspective/
#haiku

19. My mom saw living/
As fortune’s strange privilege/
Bestowed randomly/
#haiku

2/16/14

20. Mom finished her walk/
Among physical beings/
She walks with G_d now/
#haiku

21. Eternity came/
To carry my Mom’s burdens/
Though they were quite light/
#haiku

22a. How can I thank her/
For my entire existence/
She deserves much more/
#haiku

22b. I can not thank her/
For my entire existence/
She deserves much more/
#haiku

23. Those walks in the snow/
Down streets, lanes, paths & alleys:/
She showed me beauty/
#haiku

24. I hope you can see/
The beauty of innocence/
My Mom always saw/
#haiku

25. Talking to her friend/
I learned she was not naïve/
(Chose to see life’s best)/
#haiku

26. I share her world view:/
Look for the best in people/
Life’s better that way/
#haiku

27a. It’s better to be/
Naïve than cynical so/
You live in Hope’s world/
#haiku

27b. It’s better to be/
Gullible than cynical/
You live in Hope’s world/
#haiku

28. We make our own worlds/
Our attitudes create lives/
That we inhabit/
#haiku

29. My Mother taught me/
To see all the world’s beauty/
From my own essence/
#haiku

30. So my Mom is gone/
We will converse no longer/
But she’ll never leave/
#haiku

31. Mom taught me enough:/
I can enjoy creation/
With her faithful eye/
#haiku

32. Her goodness taught me:/
Enjoy this life we’re given/
There is nothing more/
#haiku

New Year’s (Eve) Haiku

12/31/13

7. Time never comes back/
Memories are like cobwebs/ Texturing right now/
#haiku

8. Right now is golden/
Absorb all its perfection/
No matter how bland*/
#haiku *rough

9. If I time traveled/
I’d go back to that moment:/
Tell you “thanks” again/
#haiku

10. Your greatness is lost/
In those endless uncounted/
Goodnesses unseen/
#haiku

11. Your friends saw this good/
Bobbing on the cold surface/
Of our modern lives/
#haiku

12. Those moments we shared/
Gentle friendship peeking up:/
An iceberg of good/
#haiku

13. This life happens fast/
Undermining all our plans/
But still it’s perfect/
#haiku

14. Please enjoy today/
For it’s all that we’re given/
Squander it with joy!/
#haiku

15. YOU made a diff’rence/
In some unrecorded way/
In my life this year/
#haiku

16. This moment of grace/
Lies in the vault of my soul/
For eternity/
#haiku

17. Hope me & my words/
Have brightened your existence/
In some way this year/
#haiku

18. Instagram, FaceBook/
Photography & Haiku/
Are distracting me/
#haiku

19. I love seeing you/
Sprinkled in digital life/
But you are legion/
#haiku

20. My Fifty Four Years/
Have given me so many/
Friends that I value/
#haiku

21. I cannot keep up/
With all of your small triumphs/
& lead my own life/
#haiku

22. The Digital noise/
Of Social Media needs/
Technology lent/
#haiku

23. Maybe a “Ramadan”/
Dawn until dusk without/
Social media/
#haiku