One More Sonnet

Category: Uncategorized

  • This date

    This date

    Is every day the same day
    As seen through different eyes?
    Is it my awakening, say,
    That shuffles then identifies?
    What’s the likelihood of this date
    Becoming itself discrete?
    Tumbling through the keeper’s gate
    On its way to complete:
    Re-assigned
    Re-vamped
    Re-aligned
    Re-stamped.
    . Different in name – but familiar,
    . If not the same – at least similar.

    19 October 2010

    To the reader: Ponderous thoughts demand no answer! They’re posed as playful, quizzical, metaphysical; far from pointless but vaguely meaningful. How different is one day from the next and does that difference mean much in the bigger scheme of things? Courtesy of a rotating planet, and our fixed location, diurnal patterns turn us on and off. Locally, we share the same day but globally we create billions of variations on that theme. Humanity has no day … humans do.

    To the poet: Three questions tumble to the page with the dynamics of dice; tossed and skittled. The order doesn’t matter. The shape and structure of poetry can be used to reinforce its message. In this case the theme is ‘familiar but similar’ (almost but not quite the same). And so, the last stanza does just that; plays with slight variation. When does a hyphen become a dash?

     

    this date this date

     

  • Parallel Dimension

    Parallel Dimension

    At the same time being and becoming,
    Letting go of now,
    It’s the whistle while you’re humming,
    With the puzzlement of how.
    To be the parent of tomorrow,
    And the child of today,
    With the sentiment of sorrow,
    That promises to stay.
    To be oneself and find contentment,
    But to know it won’t endure,
    To struggle with resentment,
    You’re safe but not secure.
    . In a parallel dimension do we still exist?
    . Do archived remnants of ourselves persist?

    © Tim Grace, 10 October 2010

    To the reader: The multi-layered dimensions of life are not neatly stacked into rows nor columns. In a physical sense most of what we did yesterday is irretrievably gone. Likewise, tomorrow’s organization is as much fantasy as it is fact. And so today becomes the main arena, the fleeting zone of action and influence. By necessity then, much of what is done is overlapped with conflicting pressures and contrasting roles; all at once occurring.

    To the poet: The subject of this sonnet is the conundrum. The persistent puzzle of being and becoming all at once. The challenge of writing a convincing argument about puzzlement is to end it still in wonder; and so the last two lines are questions. In this sonnet the rhyming structure (ABAB) could be split into two halves (AABB) and almost keep its sense of narrative.

     

    parallel dimension
    parallel dimension

     

  • Simple Solutions

    Simple Solutions

    Nature finds its habitat,
    Where best it finds a fit,
    Accommodates to this and that,
    So together it is knit …
    To the ever changing circumstance,
    To the ravages of time,
    To the vagaries of happenstance,
    That slump as well as climb.
    Nature seeks not certainty,
    Nor acts too far ahead,
    It covets not eternity,
    So accepts its daily bread.
    . Nature is the consequence of patterns in repeat
    . Simple solutions … flexible and neat.

    © Tim Grace, 10 October 2010

    To the reader: The more we marvel at the complexity of life the more we understand its simplicity… simplexity. So many of our great writers, artists, scientists and philosophers have spent their lives reducing their vast intellects into small acts of perfect beauty. In their own way reinterpreting nature; unravelling and revealing its simple patterns. While praising the reductionists it’s nature that deserves the greatest accolade for it is endlessly holistic, forever adaptive and constantly creative.

    To the poet: This is a neat and simple sonnet. The pattern of three four-line stanzas is perfect for an arrival at a concluding couplet. This sonnet being a statement of sorts is emphasized in the ‘so that’ structure of the first and third stanzas. The middle stanza adds content and context to the statement. As summary, it was important the final couple was expressed as a ‘simple solution’.

     

    simple solutions simple solutions

     

  • Colour Gives it Rhyme

    Colour Gives it Rhyme

    A dark green shadow cements
    A soft green streak
    To the casuarina and a white fence
    That keep company with a creek.
    Home to a feathered menagerie
    Let loose to wing and wade
    They colour-in the canopy
    From crimson through to jade.
    A blue wren flits nervously
    In the absence of its mate,
    A kingfisher sits furtively
    Pleasured by its wait.
    . There’s more to this than space and time,
    . It’s the colour gives it rhyme.

    © Tim Grace, 24 September 2010

     

    To the reader: Waiting in space and time, keeping company with self, watching a menagerie of birds occupy a green dell; a copse of sorts. The image is pleasant, but there’s an underlying tension, as the verdant space is in constant dispute. The nervous twitch of a wren, the furtive posturing of a kingfisher, all signs of trouble in paradise. Unresolved shadows steal the certainty of green.

    To the poet: Descriptive poetry relies on a strong visual scaffold. There needs to be a solid structure from which the scene can emerge as worthy of note. In this sonnet, the childhood memory of colouring-in washes over the text with a thin pallet of greens, blues and a white fence to both divide and contrast the scenery. The mix of colour and message gives the poem a satisfying tonal blend of imagery.

     

    coloured rhyme coloured rhyme
  • Graphite Smudge

    Graphite Smudge

    Heavy clouds, a graphite smudge
    Scraped across the page.
    Waves against the sky-line nudge
    The view to form a stage.
    To the left a distant promontory,
    Slips into the sea,
    The unspoken commentary,
    Of a day that’s yet to be.
    To the right the yachts are reeling
    Against a stubborn moor,
    Eager to be keeling
    As they did the day before.
    . The day is but a sketchy draft,
    . A script both fore and aft.

    © Tim Grace, 19 September 2010

     

    To the reader: This wordscape ties together the natural forms of a dawning day at the coast. A beautiful but not unique coast. A familiar coast to anyone who has looked across a bay to view a thin line of sand dividing the sea from green cascading hills. Picture perfect moments, as with mental postcards, become the long lasting memories of time and place. It’s the perfectly familiar view that with a rising sun stamps the scene as finished; with nature’s signature attached.

    To the poet: That a poem might be framed to a wall in place of a picture is a tall order. The confines of a poet’s language are less universal than are the strokes of a painter’s brush. But in this sonnet the words attempt to place themselves on the page so as to replicate, not just describe, the scene. As suggested, the poem has a sketchy tone to its verbal drafting which provides the elements with a sense of movement and animation.

     

    graphite smudge graphite smudge
  • Tread Lightly

    Tread Lightly

    The cobra takes position
    Defensive in its stance
    Considers its condition
    With survival in its glance.
    The guard upon his sentry
    In demeanor is alike
    He monitors the entry
    And readies for a strike
    Take notice of his figure
    Tread lightly on his patch
    Do nothing that might trigger
    The ignition of his match
    . Beware the enemy in wait, the spontaneous debate,
    . Take care the masking of a trait … too late, too late.

    © Tim Grace, 13 August 2010

     

    To the reader: Around the world our dignitaries are guarded by ceremonial sentries. The guards are garbed in symbolism and perversely create a deliberate and distracting point of interest. The aloof but alert nature of a guard is what creates public curiosity and draws our attention away from the protected investment. Every gesture of guardianship is nuanced with reference to a larger more potent force lying in wait … ready and prepared to strike if called upon to do so.

    To the poet: Short lines and simple statements in three sets of four. The first four describe a cobra coiled with the tension of a tightly wound spring. The middle four describe the counterpart; the guard in wait, the sentry at attention, the guard on guard. The final four holds together the allegory with ambiguous use of ‘his’ as either cobra or guard. The lines in the last couplet are long and stretch the use of rhyme a little too far.

     

     

    tread lightly tread lightly