H e a r t S o n s & H e a r t D a u g h t e r s of A l l e n G i n s b e r g

N a p a l m H e a l t h S p a : R e p o r t 2 0 1 4 : A r c h i v e s E d i t i o n

RANDY ROARK

The Sonnets (1592-1595)

The red glow of a manuscript in the fire,

red waves erasing everyone and everything

I’ve written on the page, stirring the embers,

restive, the ash drifts upward, as if life

was a riddle that must be puzzled out,

the way my face floats in a mirror

dreaming of things I’ve since forgotten,

not remembering what I was other than the writing,

the hills silvered-over, yellowed fields, the sun

reduced to an amethyst hung around my neck.

But to wear this world out to the end. Nothing

stands to the scythe as I do now.

[Excerpt from The Shakespeare Poems by Randy Roark. Originally published in NHS 2012, http://www.poetspath.com/napalm/nhs12/.]