The first one was posted in Pffa in the old Merciless forum. It follows French sonnet practice in that the lines, like the French alexandrine, are syllabic, 6 + 6 syllables separated by a caesura or 6 + 7 when the rhyme is feminine; masculine and feminine rhymes are alternated; and the rhyme scheme is fine in French but not official in English.
     

MUSIC

Music was everywhere when they were starting out -
loose plaids of madrigals trailing over their shoulders,
finches with flute-salutes, trumpets in the rain-spout;
a natural racket that attracted beholders.

Bees made the honey-sound around her floral blouse;
his jeans hummed with business, and hers with fat promises;
breezes like steeplejacks wolf-whistled in the boughs;
and chimes clung long enough for everlasting kisses.

Mould grows on miracles; the seasons yawn and go.
Yesterday removes them. The one sure thing to know -
it’s the belly, not the garden, that goes drooping.

But from old sentiment, at every umpteenth moon,
hear the hoarse gramophone, the dusty, fragile tune,
the desiccated groove and the blunt needle scrooping.

     2002
     

This one was posted in Pffa in Love. The lines are nine syllables.

SWEAT

Always a corkscrew and a sunbeam
on the kitchen table when our hands
called time. We’d rise, wanting it to seem
casual and cool, without demands.

If you led, you’d pause us long enough
to fold the duvet; brush the white sheet
flat; by gentle rituals take off
our clothes; and shower away the heat.

But when I went ahead, first I’d flick
the duvet to the floor, then tumble
us straight to bed. By scrape and fumble

we’d undress; your fingers take my prick
into your mouth, my tongue your cunny,
washing the sour day to honey.

      2002
     

From NaPo 2005, Day 20. The lines are 10 syllables.

TRAVELLER’S BLUES

Still dark. Why have I woken up? Don’t know.
On the walls, still the thin light from the square;
still the whinge of airbrakes where the trucks go;
still the Gitane smell in my clothes, your hair.

Out the cold window I can see the saints
keeping stony watch from the cathedral.
‘Sainte Vierge! Help me escape! Queen of Complaints,
help me! It’s strangling me!’ She shrugs her shawl.

Yeah, yeah: Traveller’s Blues - that old derangement.
Black inside, gnawed hollow with estrangement.
You swear, ‘I hate myself, hate you, hate us’,

she says professionally. You’re silly
turning it into grand melancholy.
Just call it indigestion. It’ll pass.

      2005