five-syllable sonnets I - XXV | XXVI - L | LI - LXXV | LXXVI - C i figure, if i write enough, i'll make one perfect phrase.
XXVI the class is writing. while they continue to slack, i make these poems in a vain attempt to further my craft--whatever craft that may be. i can't help but be pro- lific, can't help but put these words to the page. whatever type of deity holds my pen guides me to a wonderful place.	XXVII i find this class to be embarrassing. it's like these people don't want to learn, don't want to read, don't like the idea of being smart. what a foolish way to live! why would anyone temper themselves so downwardly? to lie to the soul, to cheat the vastness of their mind with utter shit?
XXVIII it is tectonic plates, the movement of this hour. it is grass beleagured by centuries of grow- ing. i will wait with patience, a zen koan of body and soul. i hate this feeling of being smarter than most everyone in this hour. it is ridiculous. i would rather sleep.	XXVIX i went into my old house one last time, forcing the back door open with my dri- vers license. an old trick. i ran my hands along the walls, the memories trapped in the dirty paint and remodeling that went okay, but not well. my old room was last. i didn't cry, but i felt bad.
XXX here is where they used to practice music. here is where i used to watch anime with a girl while we fascinated ourselves with our own bodies. here is where the ceiling sort of broke, and water dripped for days. my feelings for this place are en- trenched in shit, and i couldn't love it more.	XXXI when i take her to thanksgiving, i won't feel so bad showing off the new place. my parents will love her, my family will love her, but i will love the fact that our house isn't awful to look at. a small type of victory, for my childhood will be replaced by a home i've never lived in.
XXXII every day i look at pictures of you and wonder if i was there in your mind at that moment. if i made a lasting impression on your family, your friends, your relatives, or if they see me as just some other guy who came in and tried to be something he was not. do you care?	XXXIII no, really, do you care? i find myself asking that question daily, more for my own benefit than yours, and it's raining and my bicycle is out there getting rusted, and all i can think is, do you care? do i care? who cares? the answer, i hope, is that every- one cares around here.
XXXIV i just want to en- trench myself in the blankets, hunker down with this bottle and with this gun beside my pillow, and wait until the sunrise stops coming. i want to spend every last dollar in my bank account on something frivolous, like hats. i want to take your head and bury it.	XXXV fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck. seems my intuit- ion is better than you thought, you manip- ulative bitch. when should i tell you how much he's bitched about you? two backstabbers make the best couples, don't they? oh, but you're young, and you've got a lot of living to do, and all i have are false memories.
XXXVI i was stabbed by it all, stabbed and rolling through days and lightning until my muscles were tender and raw. sometimes i sit here and stare for hours. it is the transfer of energy; when i am happy, some- one else is sad. when you are happy, i am stabbed. i am here but i am rolling.	XXXVII i could wear this cup as a hat. it's big. it's really big. i mean, i have a big head, so that must be one giant cup, you know what i mean? a family of four could live in here. damn! lookatthiscup! i filled it with a hose for chrissakes! it's our new swimming pool! god damn it! fucking shit!
XXXVIII subsequently i laid in soft downy towels strewn around the room, nursing a beer with one hand and the back of your neck with the other. in the dim light we felt for hours, fighting insecurities with alcohol and free flowing fingers. once we passed out, we slept the sleep of death.	XXXIX i am alone. the house sings in silence, reverberating. sometimes i am lost to my own mind, stuck in the sea of syn- apse, each wave breaking against the back of my senses.            alone. the fan hums behind me. the music lulls. i would sleep, but i cannot stop thinking.
XL destitute, he ran filthy fingers through his oily hair. the sunset burned orange against the purple sky. colors. nothing but colors in his mind, swirling and soft and commanding. he fell asleep in the grass, tears bounding down his greasy cheeks, a dream of his long gone in his bubble head.	XLI and she, a pinprick of woman against the universe, sat with her head resting on a tree trunk. the death of days lingered behind her, beside her, all around her. she, no longer scared of bombs and briga- deers, found her conscience traipsing through tall weeds and resting among the rocks of ages.
XLII i am trying to think of something real ly depressing to write about, something that will wilt your heart and make time frozen for just a moment. but when i try, it's nothing. i can't think of anything. i just want to break this hurt on my ventri cles, i want you to apologize. please.	XLIII i am worthless. to say "a shell of a man" would imply that i am worth enough to have a shell. my depreciating value will bottom out, and i will weigh more than the trenches at the bottom of the ocean. trudging. always trudging, and when i'm done falling i'll have to go up.
XLIV they wrapped themselves in the leaves of autumn, buoyant above the colors red, orange, brown, with branches as clouds above them. she went for a kiss, and his lips, electric, sent shocks down her spine. he wrestled with her as a faint snow fell and collected on the tips of their fur lined coats and mittens.	XLV suppose, then, that i am to be for ever left alone, to settle along the bottom of the populace like turk ish coffee grounds. what, then, do i do with the rest of my damned life? do i await my fortune? do i wade into obscur ity, until i hit the bottom? what?
XLVI ultimately, she, bound to him only in words, flew away with the wings of a falcon, the eyesight too. he formed a band to write songs about her, but each song was really about him. in twenty years they'll meet and talk like ghosts stuck in the same house, bound by small talk and forced to be civil.	XLVII she was achingly accurate, judging him to a t. he, on the other hand, intuited her subconscious desire, something that ulti mately ripped them a part as he tumbled into some kind of fervor to control and shape this person. in recompense, she left him with nothing.
XLVIII there is the curve of the golden rati o in your hips, the curve of your waist as it thins and thickens and gracefully finds the niches in my own body, to po sess and inhabit. this is the holy matrimony god expects of us, to live beside others blissfully naked.	XLVIX sitting on the edge of the bed, i watched her slide tight jeans o ver her hips, shimmy back into her top, and not look at me as she left the room. the argument was done, the damage in tense and corroding the walls. on my bed, in my boxer shorts, i swallowed mucus, wiped away the tears.
L how did i write so much? half of this is bullshit, half sordid details of nothing, and some of it is purely silly fluff. do i write more? can i handle it? if so, perhaps the rest of these poems will convey some meaning greater than the shit i've written thus far. we'll see, man. we'll see.	LI - LXXV