Life's Vicissitudes: Three Sonnets

          Life Passions

Passions make up the gist of one’s life

At age ten it was comic books

Plus bikes and baseball cards and backyard strife

Like Hopalong battling the crooks

I took up hoops in junior high

Steve and I played for hour upon hour

Then tennis became my pie in the sky

And jazz gave me spiritual power

Most of these passions have faded from view

Late seventies, line dancing’s my craze

Poetry has its own fervor too

And workouts help anchor my days

There’s one obvious moral to this story

No passions, no meaning, no glory

          Morning Ritual

           

Our clock goes off at a quarter past eight

I lie awake, hear news on NPR

The nation’s now the opposite of great

I brush my teeth and ponder the bizarre

I go downstairs, fry bacon in a pan

Page through the Times and get news from the coast

The wall, the leaks, Sean S., and Kellyanne

All scrambled up amidst the eggs and toast

Computer on, I open up my mail

I check my tweets, perhaps send off a few

Then struggle with my poems — such travail

And play a game of solitaire or two

My sister asks, “Are all your days the same?”

They better be or else I’ll go insane!

          Misbegotten Youth

I wish that I could live a second life

I’d be more close to friends and to my dad

And, yes, be kind and caring to my wife

My brother Steve…I wouldn’t be so bad

I’d spend more time on learning how to dance         

And be a better student when in school

Perhaps I’d even take a trip to France                       

I’d be more careful toward the Golden Rule

Another thing, I’d never start to smoke

And likewise I’d imbibe a little less

I’d spend more time with different kinds of folk

I’d ferret out the secrets of less stress

Bad news, I know I’ll never get this chance

But, that’s okay, I still have time to dance