Three Sonnets

Three Sonnets

Three Sonnets

(i)

how, after those months, we met again (remember?).
I called, must have been mad around August confessing my trivia,
conferring delight you asked if I was nervous,
‘No!’ why should I be even dried the dishes
as we listened to the radio                  how, not much later
I heard that Otis Redding had been killed,
(wouldn’t have known him if Crazy Wayman hadn’t squeezed on those tracks)
I said – what’s he trying to prove –                  yet
there it was for all our debates Al, Otis rhyming
,proving everything on Michigan’s bed                       ’course
A Modern Death Befits A Modern Man                      as
blessed and doomed, all the Russias ground on through the Holy Frozen Water,
not having you, any of you to retreat, to respect,
they have I suppose died either modern, or frozen


(ii) Otis Redding

(and) at the same time, unaware they were playing you into the lake
(and) glory! the industry had to leave you die Otis,
wouldn’t have known who you were, if squeezing
the stations hadn’t sponsored the tribute tracks, saying:
I searched, and was found blazing for glories I was glad to go out of:
(In Ending,) Otis                     one opus of quizzed admiration; who wants
the screaming crossed soul by crotch, (Michigan Music)?
you gave and how, I little know,
tribute in a bitter, man kind of love.
Redding, Redding, remorse will smash any epilogue chance,
any sweat-liturgy you sang and I might have attempted
once                  I walked in the rain until one once
to shout                         O, ’tis (forever!) Redding;
but in this my poem, it is only one of others


(iii)

So, to you it concerns itself                    yes
what I could have said was
:as to murmur ‘Madness!’ was (my Toorak Road!) madness,
though we loved through the lovers
at any rate                     let’s dabble with our lip-on-lips
even with the Russians and Otis buried out stanzas back
and hope                       (old, cheesy grin – but it was mine,)
that none of us have laboured any inconceivable horrors
that is perfectly understood and                       unsatisfied I said
nothing                           I said  – we used to have goodnight prayers at ‘club’-
a walk (run!) ‘round th’ block its your time you’re wasting             thank you god for everything
I said,                           I and by now you have become just trivia, a fault
mine exclusively mine                        but
after seeing any of you again, the fault will start                     and how?                       how