A Sonnet to Death
by James Piatt
In darkness, what shall more hours bring
as the lonely night, dark and bleak
causes a demon’s lethal voice to speak
of blood and death and the lethal sting,
to the old and guileless youth who sing
with no thoughts of death or things oblique
or the fearsome fiends with talons sleek,
who scratch and claw and fearfully bring
fear and dread to those who are naïve
the realities of life and death and pain
and whom ideas of essence they abstain,
while living life only to play and achieve
forgetting death arrives without restrain
and comes far too quickly as it deceives.
as the lonely night, dark and bleak
causes a demon’s lethal voice to speak
of blood and death and the lethal sting,
to the old and guileless youth who sing
with no thoughts of death or things oblique
or the fearsome fiends with talons sleek,
who scratch and claw and fearfully bring
fear and dread to those who are naïve
the realities of life and death and pain
and whom ideas of essence they abstain,
while living life only to play and achieve
forgetting death arrives without restrain
and comes far too quickly as it deceives.
James Piatt has published five collections of poetry (The Silent Pond, Ancient Rhythms, LIGHT, Solace Between the Lines, and Serenity), five novels, forty short fiction stories, and over 1,775 individual poems in scores of national and international publications. He is a twice-nominated Best of The Net nominee and a four-time nominated Pushcart nominee. He earned his doctorate from BYU, and his BS and MA from California State Polytechnic University, SLO.