To the Great Abysmal Internet

Chase McDuffie Hart the Second (that's me),
solemnly vows to write a sonnet each day
for one year, in order to see what happens.
He'll post them here, however terrible.

Petrarch, the bard, cummings, John Donne, A.E.
Stallings, and Emily Barrett Browning all say
things in his head. Holding pens like javelins,
they whisper arcs and pierce the inexpressible.

These clunk along, meter as pot-holed
as his vernacular. Rhymes scheme
or don't. Expect fourteen lines, and scold
freely if you don't find my themes

appropriate to the form. Forgive enjambment
when it bothers, and this tone of denouement.

04 August 2009

sonnet to drosophila melanogaster

Come all females to the glass of vinegar
I have prepared for you. The sour scents
compel your tiny wills. A drop of detergent
breaks the surface tension. Oh come and mar

the pure red wine gone bad.
Anoint your six legs with ruby amber,
and be still in redness closed around red
eyes. Look how her meticulously groomed wings stir

the trap while she drowns. She dies and has no brood.
If she and hers were left for a year, they could
breed a ball of flies to fill the gulf
between the earth and sun. Daughters of filth,

I love your fecund beauty, your delicate intractability.
But roost in my home and I will slaughter you in humility.