"In the Weave of Night" and Other Sonnets
Daniel Hargrove
"In the Weave of Night"
and Other Sonnets
by Daniel Hargrove
Copyright 2014 Daniel Hargrove
Cover art copyright 2014 Daniel Hargrove
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Table of Contents
01) In the Weave of Night
02) After the Setting of the Sun
03) In a Frayed Glimpse
04) The Spy
05) In the Tangled Wind
06) In the Clutch of Arrogant Pose
07) In Cover of Darkness
08) Between Relatives
09) A Spur of Blossoms, Sleeping
10) At the End of Winter
11) About the Imperfection of Saints
12) As the Desert is Wide
13) Nor Under Roses
14) A Stranger Before Dusk
15) At the Knocking Gate
16) One Foggy Night in the Everglades
17) Of Surrendering Our Blindness
18) From the Merest of Sighs
19) On the Timelessness of Sleep
20) In a Bloom of Trills
21) In Our Innermost Rooms
22) All I Ask
23) In a Hot Shade
24) In the Quiet of Her Willows
25) ...and Keenest Sight, Ajar
26) In a Maze of Doublethink
27) In One Man's Eye
28) A Promise Broken
29) Delirium, it Shines
30) In That Portion of Living
31) In Perspective
32) At the Shadow's Gleam
33) If Never Regret
34) In a Trick of Tales
35) In Loyalty to the Billowing Smoke
36) In the Thatch of Fray
37) Nary a Time
38) Never Heard of It
39) Such as it Was
In the Weave of Night
As elusive and mysterious as it seems,
without quite understanding when or where,
I've known your gentle touch, so soft and rare...
I've walked along beside you in my dreams.
We've met in cotton places, hidden and soft,
we've seen the view below from the top of the stair,
I will never have to ask you if you care...
for you wing upon the winds like a bird aloft.
In a cave at the edge of the world, away from the glare,
lies a sadness, locked away in an iron box.
You know, as I do, I have seen your footprints there.
Something that can't be touched, though it is real,
draws me to you, unchains and opens my locks...
elusive as silk, I cannot name what I feel.
After the Setting of the Sun
In shuttered castle high upon a rock,
a gray old woman sat inside a room,
weaving complex patterns on her loom,
her curtains drawn, her door, her chamber locked.
Upon the walnut wood there came a knock.
The woman froze and felt impending doom...
a voice that seemed to ring out from a tomb
drowned out the quiet ticking of the clock.
"Your time is up, the king has made his oath!"
the hollow voice declared in hollow words...
and sorrow gripped the hearts of each and both.
"Tell the king the king himself must come!"
she commanded loudly through the walnut door.
The old guard quietly left then, keeping mum.
In a Frayed Glimpse
I've watched the years roll on, I strike a match,
reflected in our eyes, we watch the flare;
a flame, a promise, fire a reckless dare,
now caught in whispered dust, a restless scratch.
And at the door, my heart, she lifts the latch,
and though I know she long considers, there,
to visit, for awhile, an old man’s lair,
or see my garden, but a weedy patch.
She sees the fray of love's criss-crossing thatch,
now lit with sulfur light, I cannot bear
her gaze on unwove pleat, now unattached.
It seems to light of love, there is a catch,
no matter true, no matter fine and rare,
uncertain words, aloud, for wind to snatch.
The Spy
In a house upon a hill you once knew well,
inside the crumbling remnants of a wall,
a mouse is waiting for the dinner bell...
to scurry by the baseboards down the hall.
A lonely little girl had cast a spell
(and left a few stale bread crumbs by her doll)
to insure a spying mouse would never tell
the magic learned before she'd learned to crawl.
A mouse may not be dangerous, it's true...
but to the little girl her secrets were
not something to be risked to nosy fur.
Into the ancient coven she was born,
and always she had known just what to do...
to keep the ancient knowledge for the few.
In the Tangled Wind
Lightning flash reflected in her eyes...
rain beats down and soaks her clothes and hair.
Moon in clouds, her face in storm, so bare,
no doubts of love, no recoil or disguise.
Raindrops mix her tears, forlorn, she cries,
a place far from the storm, we always share...
and for some time she's been away from there;
lured from my embrace by thorny lies.
Remember, love, no matter when or where
you're caught outside 'neath black and cloudy skies,
you're only hours from our warm, safe lair.
No matter how the howl of bluster tries,
can't change the truth of how I always care,
yet lost on breezes, lover's troubled sighs.
In the Clutch of Arrogant Pose
The world is masked from us with obfuscation
no matter how we peer or how we pry…
not very clever, rarely very sly,
a cover masking nothing but predation.
For many, it’s a source of recreation,
veils on veils, and shadows of goodbye,
mistaking then, a glimmer in the eye,
a fox-and-henhouse spark, for our salvation.
Winding on, but never asking why,
demanding that we kneel in our frustration,
and finally, extortion, for the lie.
It is nothing less than degradation…
a mind expected to believe or die…
for honest men, the heighth of aggravation.
In Cover of Darkness
I creep into your dreams at night
and bring the shrieks which you aver;
slinking thus in dim starlight
I bang on pots and cause a stir.
There is a chance, however slight,
your visions will not pale and blur
and you'll be left with phantoms bright
of dancing waters, long impure.
In midnight, tossing, never sure
if white is black or black is white,
you never reach an ending, quite.
One thing you know, it isn't right
> if every moment leads to her
and what those silver bells infer.
Between Relatives
A chord is struck…a web, a clock, is made,
yet, we cannot, this harmony, sustain…
right or wrong, a second joker, played
is never answered with a calm refrain.
While seemingly, it’s just a spot of shade,
what follows is the lightning, thunder, rain,
and cold and shiv’ring winds would so embraid
in coil of midnight’s stroke, a diamond, plain.
In contradicting so, we've sorely strayed,
and black as coal, have redly, sunrise, slain…
yet now, the kings and queens, we think, explain.
Still, if I had my druthers in a trade,
I’d turn my jacks to deuces, drawn in twain,
and winning hands, to teatime, on the train.
A Spur of Blossoms, Sleeping
When lace and silk, upon my love, adorn,
in heated blood, my hapless heart will flow
a song that winter birds, for spring, will know
and flowers’ petals part unto, this morn.
All that reaches sun has stirred and worn,
yet sun is not at all that burning glow
within me, that her sweet suggestions sow,
and of my ration, I am quickly shorn.
Her tender calm, alike to grazing doe
will startle, catching sight, awild, of horn
the call of spring within her, even so.
A rush of breeze, a curious fire is born
tattling on a lick of weave, although
in naked scent my root and sap are sworn.
At the End of Winter
Inside her breast, a wild and gentle heart,
I yearn to sleep and dream in hollow, there;
by berry's hunt, and blue jay's feathered art,
warm in winter, caved and dreaming bear,
While the winds of wildness fan the sparks of seed
her smile has captured me in a branchy snare.
Leaves enfold and nurture flames of need...
off to spring in the warmth of dreamy lair.
Quiet mow, the charms of willowy green,
in passion of melting snows, I stir, and wake,
in my beating heart, a fresh and summery ache.
I am there with her, in shallows, I am seen...
my eyes still closed, I imagine her by the lake,
and under the sun, we join what spring will make.
Dec. 9th, 2001
About the Imperfection of Saints
We all have caught philosophers and seers
striving to avoid the truth, forlorn.
Our dreams are but a patchwork quilt, all worn
and all our lives are made of fleeting years.
So if their vision yet is in arrears,
we should not cruelly tear it down with scorn,
as to a swath of shadows we are sworn
and no one paints a portrait just with tears.
Though for release we battle and we burn,
certain truths pertain to one and all,
and fire is a lesson, as we learn.
To each his own, a motto that we know...
but living it is harder than we think,
and anyone who has would tell you so.
As the Desert is Wide
When time lies drifted into dunes of sand
and arid winds lend shape to desert floor
which whisper secrets of a foreign land
into the shifting sand, a path we score.
Our steps uncertain, charted by our hands
our thirst demanding water more and more,
the sun above repeating its commands,
the desert heat yet burning to the core.
Mirages in the distance seem so cool
though promises they make are for a fool.
Oasis in the shimmer beckons clear,
horizons paint rewards which disappear
out of sunlight's all consuming glare
Which way to water? Where is it, oh where?
Nor Under Roses
No one came and stood beside its grave…
forgotten, covered over where it lay…
for so long defended by the brave…
that for which so many kneel and pray.
It never mattered much what youth will crave…
I only wish, a dragon, lies would slay…
and if true love had ever owned a slave
its dying makes a hundred more this day.
For only this, the miser in us gave,
so no surprise a liar’s game, should play…
how easily our hearts are led astray.
The song is over, nothing left to save…
I didn't know, still over yesterday,
no matter what we do or what we say.
A Stranger Before Dusk
I must explain just where the sun has went
or else this night will chill me to the bone.
Again, I’m falsely asked, then, to atone
and appease this sweetest lover I am lent.
A shadow struck, a ray of sun was bent,
tired of trying to find me all alone,
and now the dark has tumbled down a stone
for me to wear, whatever my intent.
Behind a crescent frown, and silver moan
this dusty voice of rock, so aptly sent,
defies the red of dawn with every groan…
for, once the coin of sunset, I have spent,
while time again, the stars expanse has shone,
I’ll wonder long just what the day had meant.
At the Knocking Gate
The latch slipped off the table onto the floor,
and clattered, though the wood was covered in dust.
It broke in pieces, eaten, as it was, with rust.
Not for years had it locked the old man's door.
This night, the widower's bones were tired and sore.
All day in the garden he had sweated, worked and fussed
with peavine and trellis, as in the summer you must,
if, in the fall, a tub of peas, and more.
All day long, how he had puttered and cussed;
his boots were muddy, his overalls were tore.
His beard was long; his hair was tangled and mussed.
No one remembered his house in the woods, he was poor...
and, so what if the lock on his door should long ago bust?
What family he had considered him a wretched bore.
One Foggy Night in the Everglades
A bullfrog somewhere nearby loudly croaks
on a pond in some dark and willowy bog
cloaked by sheets of wet, low-hanging fog.
A full moon shines through mist enshrouded oaks.
Nearby a water snake considers, and soaks,
submerged upon an underwater log
just a foot from the unobservant frog.
Ten feet away a female bullfrog spoke.
The snake struck sharply as the big bull jumped!
And missed his likely captive by a hair.
The big male splashed somewhere way over there.
Both the frogs jumped deeper in the swamp.
The snake would have to find nother meal...
his victim's life happily spared by a woman's appeal.
Of Surrendering Our Blindness
Of the parting of the folds of that dark veil...
of the light we see from on the other side...
to starry blackness we have told a tale,
the light will show us if or not we lied.
In darkness we must weave extensive themes,
and from the nights consuming glare we hide...
the truth is not exactly as it seems;
we find the shadow of that truth inside.
To journey of the green we lend our hand,
tangled we must hold a torch up high
to see wherein the woods the others lie...
once finding in the thick a living glow
we're welcomed in the warmth of cooking fire;
to embraces yield the thorny clutch of ire...
From the Merest of Sighs
As every silken dress must first be spun;
as every impossible knot must first be tied;
every untold story, yet begun,
depends on what we've seen and felt inside.
Each blade of grass was first a ray of sun;
each once of courage first a hint of pride;
each time of peace, a battle never won;
each freedom that we have, a plan untried.
So when you set to spinning on that wheel,
your hands know what to do from times before...
your thoughts are occupied with ancient lore.
Pertaining to that brightly colored thread
from which the simple patterned cloth is made;
of bold, contrasting hues, be not afraid.
On the Timelessness of Sleep
Out of time and out of night we sing,
far from harness of the sleepy town,
away from pillow, blanket, bed, and gown,
we take to willows, dreaming on the wing.
Too often in our lives we've felt the sting
of crippled fates and yearnings all tied down,
we've always had retreat's freedom around...
with all the leeway starry skies can bring.
We join eternal forces, broad and deep...
expression painting wand'ring hills and trees...
unfettered so, we journey in our sleep.
The sureness of our step is never lost,
our measure never finds our keeping, there...
as underneath the scattered gems, we're tossed.
In a Bloom of Trills
A song of spring, to love, your passion, lend,
and sweetly blush in blossoms’ fragrant scent…
we’ll follow where the melting ice had went
and scatter dandelions on the wind.
