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Waterworld

by C. B. Anderson

There’s an uncle residing alone in the heart of your brain
With a theory of justice your conscience has tried to ignore,
Who is perfectly willing to countenance rivers of pain

Just so long as the pain is a torrent that others endure.
From the swell of his cogent avuncular-sounding advice
The debris of compassion is beached on a desolate shore,

And the water of life is bound up in a fastness of ice.
The beliefs of this obdurate uncle are written in stone,
But the adamant terms of his credo could never suffice

The most intimate needs of his woman, the bone of his bone
And the mind of your heart. Now the aunt who was absent for years
Has some words to impart to the nephew who wishes he’d known

Her: The unguent afloat on the generous flood of her tears
Is the sole antidote to the sum of your ultimate fears.


C.B. Anderson has written scores of sonnets that will likely never see the light of day, but several others have recently appeared in Trinacria, Soundzine, Strong Verse, The Penwood Review, The Sonnet Scroll, Sonnetto Poesia, Ship of Fools and Pennine Platform.

Pat Jones
Published 29 March 2011