hike ku

tule fog wisps low
hides vineyards dangling blue globes
feet crush clay ‘tween rows

taming the storm

It’s a long rolling thunder past six
as sky cries hisses where it hits

streets gleam in streetlights
trees wave leaves in windy flights

cars surf wet asphalt ways
through lightning claps and lights like day

there’s only seconds in between
flash sharp snappy boom and winking gleam

now heavens really open dam
whoosh and swoosh and almost bedlam

of sweet september falling rain right through
I wish I’s out walking in it with you

in the early dark with maybe a dog or two
we could laugh and get soaked with true

then find a fires tangled dancing form
Near open windows to the storm

flights (petrarchan sonnet)

bare feet in sand and eyes cast to clear blue
through waves that tickle moving under me.
see gulls that ride above on salty breeze,
tease times when I was flying within you.
do syncing wings make one where there were two?
few flights I’ve felt on winds this side of dreams,
screams as sky calls to yawp the deep blue free;
thee and tandem flight to new heights flew true?

new waves slow pound this shoreline into now.
how wisping air taunts softly long gone wings;
brings everything that e’re was you and tao,
brow furrowing as deep as flesh allows.
vows return memory tides as we sing,
ring of bell like strings climbs cloudward somehow.

this was my first petrarchian (italian) sonnet, so cut me some slack, ye literati omnipotenti. I did challenge myself by upping the formula, ie., adding a rhyme to the beginning of each line that picks up the sound of the line that just ended before it (as well as the usual octave formula and sestet formula). It added a little bit of zen challenge, but I doubt if I will do it again.