By Karina Bush
Sonnet I
Chest fur helix deep—sought as in blindness
My bed when I get the sickness in mind
Psychosomatic—shriveled feminine
He makes me useless as an imbecile
Visions—suck on his sweat—it turns into
Wine in my mouth—transubstantiation
My core absorbs his rhythm—I go like
The worn Theresas agape in sculpture
Begging from the blackness of the old pit
Where sweat could pool if we could show restraint
A fountain to wash in and drink plenty
Lie like plastic beauties from the future
If we didn’t wail and scare them away
Or prefer to be wound up almost high
Sonnet II
Oh pregnant negative, I’m in trouble
He’s wrong inside, his real face hides, like me
A blank storm of psychical inertia
Awakens—I know the pattern of this
Sickos who plant nirvana but they can’t
Water it with more than a drunken sob
We know the bend love is capable of
Yet we won’t sleep for this, slump in chambers
Full of monoxide eroticism
Far from love or even lust: neurosis
Tricky to escape, we are unwilling
Navigators of the intricacies
Of pain—and there is my fear eye to eye
That he lacks the stamina this requires
Sonnet III
Knew it was fucked, my gut is a screamer
Still took off my clothes, walked into the cult
Focused and bloated with fantasy drifts
Aiming high—the peak-headed forever
All-aloft, accessing my medicine
Saliva, jealousy, roses, roses
Exploding roses that I’m sure he sees
Quest for him to explicitly say it
To ask me to lick him, utter the words
It’s a control-measure of the leader
To not do, and I am always willing
Ever-willing, sacralized, a glutton
In-waiting, looking up his skirt so shy
I’m a cum-powered pet with one program
Sonnet IV
In the depths of night, what does his dick dream?
Does it have its own little brain flashing?
Capable of memories and visions
And working through issues like unfinished
Business—attempts to solve the emptiness
And sense that it was made for more than this
Is it like a woman’s heart in the night?
So desperate and so cinematic
Weeping quietly onto the bedsheets
Thinking of me and sending messages
Up to the brain, causing a double dream
And making the morning more confusing
For a man in his forties long past prime
Still prime leaks into and from him nightly
Karina is an Irish writer, born in Belfast and now living in Rome. She is the author of three books: Brain Lace (BareBackPress, 2018), 50 EURO (BareBackPress, 2017), and Maiden (48th Street Press, 2016). Karina’s work has been published by Tangerine Press, Akashic Books, the International Poetry Studies Institute at the University of Canberra, Morbid Books, The Nervous Breakdown, Entropy Magazine, and many more. For updates, visit karinabush.com and www.instagram.com/karinabushxx/
One thought on “Quarantine Sonnets”
Uhm- I don’t mean to be rude, but the first one isn’t a sonnet. Sonnets follow this rhyme scheme: ABAB CDCD EFEF GG