XIV- Sonnet to Terra Nostra

o New World of bad mouths the Habsburg jaw
and the old young - why did we settle you
just to ...

XIII- Sonnet for Delmore Schwartz (1913 - 1966)

it is hard to be friends with any Hamlet
Ophelia screams in the river
and his mates barely survive the ...

XII- Sonnet for the Scots Irish

gold is the root - between three cold seas
Lough Neagh the Irish and the Atlantic
escarpments crenellate the wide valleys ...

XI- Sonnet for New Ulster

the nature of European empires
is this - conquerors are the conquerors
of small countries :- the skies are sapphire
in New ...

X- Sonnet on a Wren in Quince

the wren riding on the pink storm outside
kept its footing on the swaying branch
and flicked its tail in ...

IX - Sonnet for Korea

no question these pinnacles are alive
that they have seasons like vegetation
and that the earth decays and revives
from ...

VIII - Sonnet in Homage to Lightborn

this is already the after-life -
after the lives of plants and animals
consciousness sleeps in the bloom of a knife ...

VII- Sonnet to Lethe

Lethe’s so full of wounds that the river
lapses such as when sheets of ice descend
and when slow wreckage ...

VI - Sonnet to a Sakura

the path is shovelled as far as the bridge
can we pay the price of Spring ? desperate
birds on the ...

V- Sonnet on Rue

what is rue ? is it iodine applied
to the green river’s wound - or frozen streaks
from the frost’s hard hour ...