Poetry is a dangerous siren’s song,
That calls the soul towards a chasm deep,
Dulling the mind and making the heart long,
For that which it may touch yet never keep.
A Sonnet is too much the friend of truth,
And leaves no room for self-deluding lies,
It conjures up the honesty of youth,
And artifice through artifice soon dies.
Essential truths will spill onto the page,
Transpiring through the pores of consciousness,
Leaving exposed the battles that we wage,
To build facades of hope for hopelessness.
I can deny the painful song I hear,
But it’s too late; its message is too clear.
Note: You can hear my reading of this poem in Spotify at https://lnns.co/DR92lcTJ5-L
Mar 16
Mar 16, 2026 at 1:37 PM UTC
Poetry is a dangerous siren’s song,
That calls the soul towards a chasm deep,
Dulling the mind and making the heart long,
For that which it may touch yet never keep.
A Sonnet is too much the friend of truth,
And leaves no room for self-deluding lies,
It conjures up the honesty of youth,
And artifice through artifice soon dies.
Essential truths will spill onto the page,
Transpiring through the pores of consciousness,
Leaving exposed the battles that we wage,
To build facades of hope for hopelessness.
I can deny the painful song I hear,
But it’s too late; its message is too clear.
Note: You can hear my reading of this poem in Spotify at https://lnns.co/DR92lcTJ5-L
This is another of my early sonnets that is also still one of my favorites. It was published in my first book of poems, Of Pain and Ecstasy: Collected Poems in 2014.
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