My newest sonnet, inspired by the inexpressible loveliness of Stokes Croft

Sonnet 32

Perplexed and eke disgusted, I look out

through windows on the street at broken men,

and scope a swarm controlled by pathogens,

all yellow eyes and chronic shuffling gout.

Tuberculosis spits from blackened teeth,

from winnowed skulls the septic flesh withdraws,

and diabetic wounds are scratched with claws,

disclosing the obscenity beneath.

Where once was moderation and restraint

with freely chosen boundaries to keep,

is now the consequence of lawless vice:

squalor, indignity, and rancid taint,

nightmare while reason, opiated, sleeps,

and souls embedded comatose in ice.