He who clings to conviction too tightly
will through suffocation more likely squeeze
the goodness from his cause and un-rightly
render breathless the whistling breeze.
The iron-clad grip is a fragile bond
and a stifling form of forced adhesion
that lacks the surety to best respond
to changing needs of rhyme and reason.
He who takes a stance too rigid, he has
built us all a prison; a crippling cell.
And so confined we may well find, alas,
that this one place provides no space to dwell.
. He who needs to grip tight is insecure.
. He who does not trip light will not endure.

© Tim Grace, 2 October 2011

To the reader: The need to dominate apparently reflects how you perceive your environmental context. Those who mature in a social atmosphere of mistrust will often compensate by adopting controlling behaviours; survival strategies. Their default position is to gain control over threatening circumstances; loss of power is not an option. Once established, the personality trait will reinforce itself and over time reward its own suffocating strictures, leaving no room to move; no air to breathe; no space to think.

To the poet: As rules go, sonnets have their share; some are useful and allow the poet to create content within the frame. I’ve enjoyed getting to know the simple mathematics of fourteen lines. Some purists may describe one combination but in fact there are infinite ways of slicing and dicing the form. Shakespeare’s sonnets often play with internal relationships that loop backwards and forwards from an original stem of thought; he had no single formula. In the end, it’s a matter of balancing the equation; measure for measure and dose for dose.

clings too tightly