Sonnet in the House of Awareness

by J. Alan Nelson

I state my life inside this fourteen-line cage
that does not cage but loosens like a rib
freed from the sternum so the lung can rage
and praise the ordinary mess I live.

Under the sun I love, under the moon I hate;
I parse a brutal beauty in the math
of leaf veins, debt, and failing cartilage,
while madness paints its ugliness in wrath.

Decades back I clawed into the light,
a bloody infant blinking at the glare,
and now I cling to seeing as the night
of body eats the meat that brought me here.

More free than any ghost or god I have met,
my grammatolatry a quiet grith. Come sit.

---

J. Alan Nelson is a poet, journalist, lawyer, actor, and nominee for a Pushcart Prize, Best of Net, and Best Microfiction. He played the lead in the viral video “Does This Cake Make Me Look Gay,” the verbose “Silent Al” in HBO’s Emmy-winning SXSWestworld,” and narrated New York Times videos on AIDS programs in Africa.