One More Sonnet

Author: sonneteer155

  • Without Condition

    Without Condition

    He stakes his claim and demands position,
    stipulates his terms and fixes his spot.
    We watch askance, this crude exhibition
    of stubbornness; will he, or will he not?
    Those around him, about his axel spin,
    infantile argument, circular shape,
    centrifugal anger fuelled from within.
    A storm’s eye, vortex, that’s hard to escape.
    He grips tight, pin-points his agitation.
    He asserts his temperament; taciturn.
    Imploding mood centres his rotation.
    With spiralling momentum, so things churn.
    . Stubbornness grips to a fixed position,
    . and so gives no ground without condition.

    © Tim Grace, 24 August 2013

    To the reader: A child’s public tantrum makes an unpleasant scene; psycho-drama writ-large! With crudely-crafted powers of persuasion the toddler tests the strength of new-found tactics; claiming more independent territory with each event. The assertive-aggressive personality matures into an effective form of attention seeking; one that loses its stamp-of-approval with years beyond five or six. The storm quickly brews, tension builds; fury is released – damage is repaired and peace restored… the toddler is tamed!

    To the poet: The public tantrum is no rare occurrence. Little bundles of dynamite regularly ignite; catching those in close-proximity by surprise. With short-wicks these volatile miscreants can derail a train of thought with devastating effect. The passenger-poet is one of many hapless victims. As the wreckage is surveyed, for post-crash forensics, there’s often an unaccounted empty seat … a surrendered supposition.

    Without Condition
    Without Condition
    Picture Source:
    http://youtu.be/OZkRWnXo6YU
  • It was Jack

    It was Jack

    So it was Jack who took the photograph.
    So it was him behind the camera.
    Twas Jack who developed the contoured map.
    Twas him who squared the circles of Canberra.
    It’s through Jack’s lens our city came to light.
    It’s through his eyes our city was revealed.
    Jack of all trades who gave this city sight
    Jack himself citified an open field.
    May not have built the house, but he was there…
    May not have cut the stalks, but so he’d been…
    Jack was at the opening, Jack was at the fair…
    Jack be nimble, Jack be quick … to the scene.
    . What Jack saw yesterday, we see today;
    . Jack’s people at work, Jack’s children at play.

    © Tim Grace, 4 August 2013

    To the reader: Jack Mildenhall was Canberra’s first official photographer. His active years (1920s and 1930s) captured our social and physical integration into the landscape. In 2013, his vast collection was digitised and put online as part of the city’s centenary activities. For young Canberrans, the Mildenhall Gallery is now an accessible treasure trove of archaic revelations; distantly familiar and curiously connected. The separation of decades has sharpened the contrast of these black and white images.

    To the poet: A teacher’s poem, an advertiser’s jingle…oh no! The temptation to make a story rhyme is sadly irresistible. The trouble is, people are kindly and encouraging; too polite to say stop. And so, with ‘vim and vigour’ we would-be-poets merrily sentence to death a perfectly good story; death by enthusiastic strangulation. With the next rhyme being paramount we lunge desperately to its match; overlooking all other creative courtesies and considerations… that’s nice, but unreadable.

    It was Jack
    It was Jack
  • Sketch of Dawn

    Sketch of Dawn

    Overnight arrival, concealed by dark.
    Uncovered by the scratchy-sketch of dawn.
    Bleak demeanour, drawn as stubborn and stark.
    Bearing the Mistral’s mark; from elsewhere born.
    And so blows the breath of an awkward gust;
    tugs at the rigging with canvas attached;
    agitates, orchestrates a whistling thrust.
    And so throws a whisper; from elsewhere hatched.
    The unknown foreigner, anonymous,
    more shadow than substance; a pirate’s mast
    that bears no scrutiny: Notorious.
    . Best comes the pedigree by light of day.
    . Open to inspection and expose.

    © Tim Grace, 28 July 2013

    To the reader: Built into the fibre and fabric of this nautical replica is a mischievous spirit. I was at ‘the coast’ doing what poets do at sunrise; walking the wharf. And there she appeared … Notorious … a black caravel. Overnight this ‘dark shadow’ had moored itself to the shoreline. As is her habit, she slips the coast of Australia slinking into ports under cover of dark; under pretence of a plundering prank… black comedy?

    To the poet: This poem was written about an experience; a Notorious encounter of sorts. But like so many interesting snippets there’s a larger back-story. While writing the poem I had no idea the ship was built by an Australian, Graeme Wylie, in his backyard, as recuperative therapy. Graeme, a furniture maker by trade, built the Portuguese Caravel by-eye from surplus wood-stock. In a physical sense, the ship is sheer poetry… a compilation of ideas and a floating metaphor.  (reference: http://scienceillustrated.com.au/blog/in-the-mag/vintage/the-mahogany-ship/)

    Sketch of Dawn
    Sketch of Dawn
  • There Are Moments

    There Are Moments

    There are moments when everything makes sense.
    For just a second nothing is at odds.
    Simplicity abounds, becomes immense;
    earns the approval of a thousand gods.
    It’s at that moment, between wake and dream,
    that all things become imaginable;
    all things at once adopt a common theme.
    One point of truth becomes conceivable.
    Clarity of thought is clean-cut and crisp;
    vagaries sharpen so ‘that’ becomes ‘this’;
    images emerge, give shape to a wisp;
    that which is simple, more beautiful is.
    . Where stems the answer to “why is it so?”
    . From the essence … in the presence of flow.

    © Tim Grace, 18 July 2013

    To the reader: If you haven’t had your introduction to the works of Dr Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (chick sent me high) you owe it to yourself to make that connection. Through this acquaintance you’ll meet yourself at your potential best. As the theory goes, there are deliberate steps you can take on the way to achieving flow; an essence you learn to channel from within a zone of intense satisfaction with your own condition of contentment… in pursuit of happiness.

    To the poet: You can’t bottle flow; it’s a meditative energy, that through active absorption describes a form of fulfilment. My gateway to ‘flow’ is through the comfortable challenge of poetry. Effort, along with challenge, is a necessary ingredient. And so, in the right mix, these energies combine to create a state of self-contained purpose. Flow, by definition, is a dynamic stream of consciousness, coursing its way through mind and soul… in pursuit of happiness.

    There Are Moments There Are Moments
    Picture Source:
    http://www.ted.com/talks/mihaly_csikszentmihalyi_on_flow?language=en#t-33296
  • Dust and a Broom

    Dust and a Broom

    ‘Tis one thing to be untaught, ignorant
    of facts and figures; as to be naive.
    Quite another to be belligerent,
    to bludgeon truth and blatantly deceive.
    One can accommodate some innocence,
    show a little slack for lack of nous.
    Such is not the case for arrogance:
    long since the boarder; banished from the house.
    For those with space to wonder, give them keys:
    grant them all access to rooms full of room
    To badgers and bullies who shoot the breeze
    give to them the basement; dust and a broom.
    . We learn to be wise, to know and believe,
    . to stand in defiance of those who aggrieve.

    © Tim Grace, 14 July 2013

    To the reader: Knowledge without the balance of skills and understanding is as useful as a one-legged stool. Content can not stand alone. Context provides a subject with its reference-point. Our conservative school systems have for decades trained and rewarded the content-collectors to the detriment of children with more broad and practical forms of emotional and social intelligence. The know-all is a renowned nuisance … often a drag on the multi-talented team.

    To the poet: There remain some clunky-lines that hold their place by virtue of adequate fill. In the absence of better content they suffice; for the moment anyway. Otherwise, and after some serious editing, this sonnet has some redeeming features. The context of consonance works well as belligerent emphasis. And I quite-like the line that gives “a little slack for lack of nous”. A poem is more than clever words; for them, we turn to a dictionary; with them, we build vocabulary; for more, we turn to art.

    Dust and a Broom Dust and a Broom
    Picture Source:
    http://youtu.be/FIBOdT86XmI
  • Death Shrieks

    Death Shrieks

    Perplexed by the passage of your passing;
    the path you have chosen not to complete.
    Death, that easy option, that ever-lasting
    expression of nothing more than defeat.
    Through your dangling obituary death speaks:
    “dirges from the book of unfinished works.”
    No songs of joy, hymns of praise; sadness shrieks
    through a minor key, morbidly it jerks
    at the heartstrings, tugs a discordant wrench;
    pulls from mortality a cheap reward.
    Never was the thirst for life given quench
    through the cut and thrust of a broken sword.
    . Rest – that which remains of a life unspent.
    . Rest – that which contains all of life’s content.

    © Tim Grace, 19 July 2013

    To the reader: In his case, suicide was an ultimate escape; a cynical determination. A deliberate departure from life’s course; one he hadn’t travelled well. Alongside a list of other broken relationships I suppose suicide was just one more; consistent with his self-absorbed character. There were no indulgences he didn’t crave and feed to the detriment of others. Eventually his ‘smartness’ wore thin, and so he resorted to ever greater forms of obliteration; the final one rubbed him out.

    To the poet: I’m sure he had many redeeming features. I knew of none. As anonymous he has become the particular avenue of my general vent. In his truncated life, I wasn’t allowed the last word; the attention-seeker makes no sense of that. But now, with his last move made it is my turn to speak. The poet’s obituary can be harsh… who bears the burden?

    Death Shrieks
    Death Shrieks
    Picture Source:
    http://youtu.be/bldW5tjfmpU