Cowboy Sonnet 30 Posted July 08, 2000The Sonnets of Colin James III Colin James is a forty-nine year old computer database consultant and a traditional Episcopalian priest. He makes his home in Loveland, Colorado. In his spare time he rides two motorcycles and writes Elizabethan sonnets.
Colin says, "The focus of my undergraduate education in the late 1960's and early 1970's was to teach myself to write poetry in rhyme, early on finding my niche in sonnets based on syllable counting. Most recently, 'Cowboy Sonnets Volume 1', published in 1998, contains 18 love sonnets."
Colin continues, "'Cowboy Sonnet 23', is how the Sturgis area appears, the rest of the year."
©1999 Colin James III - All Rights Reserved
A low cloud ceiling moving north, no gilded clouds corpuscular,
Befits this time alone as C. S. Lewis' "A Grief Observed".
My heart cries out as singular, irregular but muscular,
And flexing for the beating hope that yours alone is not unnerved.
The spring snow slush in deep gray ruts derails the wheels for blowing back.
The taller prairie grass is dusted hard with powdered sugar frost.
On Easter Even morning wet black pine tree trunks make Black Hills black.
A red clay cinnamon coats jeeps and trucks, without a heart breath lost.
The fog again is thick and treacherous and masking Hot Springs sign,
At eighty-seven Fahrenheit, not worth a fight for history.
The purpose of this job search trip reveals itself to mourn for mine.
So can you see me when I speak, and can you hear this mystery.
The coal trains stack to seven deep on double tracks just west of Lusk;
The three white axle dots on shiny wheels are blurred in motion's dusk.
©2000 Colin James III - All Rights Reserved
A low cloud ceiling sucks up blue black hills and pine tree whisker dwarfs
Into the wispy vapor hanging white and still in silent guard
As if protecting rock and soil so chilled almost against endorph's
Yet hiding humid ridged peaks and unknown softer plants less hard.
I cruised back pushing eighty, floating over frigid South Park roads.
The random ordered frosted sagebrush, sugared coat on gingerroot
In pre-spring March, proceeds away in camouflage as troops with loads
Of formless noise and shapeless light, impervious to wind or boot.
I have a muse with perfect ears and lips and breasts, entrancing eyes
Of iris gray or green or tweed, with auburn accent, Texas hair.
She speaks so softly when asleep, and moves with light when time to rise.
Intriguing laugh and wit intuitive make for a perfect fare.
You know the fleeting joy and pain of growing up, of sibling child;
I know you as a spice of pomegranate passion, nibbling mild.
Cowboy Sonnet 25
Colin writes; "this is about a place named Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, where I have visited many times, but not in person, as yet."
© 2000 Colin James III All Rights Reserved
Your parcels' catalogs: a purple light bulb charm on golden thread;
I ate selected ginger cubes, dark tan and firm for one hot spree.
I nibbled, chewed, and swallowed one brown bitter crunchy coffee seed
And pecans, one encased in blue green play dough with its recipe:
Computer classified help wanted yellow pages print to read.
The yellow lassos, bucking bronco arched, and cowboy boots outside
The bag of grande silk black boxer shorts, so smitten, overcome,
A green and yellow stripéd cactus, yellow prickly pear inside
(A silver bike chain for your wrist) and leopard lettered COWBOY strum.
I put the charm inside the glove and saved it in the bag with ad:
I'll meet you at the Charles Hotel in Truth or Consequences, clad.
Loveland, Colorado