One More Sonnet

Blog

  • The Grind

    The Grind

    The higher that we stake our claim
    The loftier our reach,
    The fewer people play the game,
    The more it means to each.
    The greater sums that we invest,
    The richer the reward,
    The better that we do our best,
    The louder they applaud,
    The closer that we get to home,
    The easier we sleep,
    The longer that I write this poem,
    The less it’s worth to keep.
    . The finer that we mill our grains,
    . The less of what began remains.

    © Tim Grace, 20 April 2011

    To the reader: The nub of the matter is often in dispute. People like to get to the point. We resent a purposeless consumption of energies. We seek positive relationships between inputs and outputs; effort and return. Each of us has a measuring stick by which we determine our expected degree of gain. At some point that extra bit of effort loses its impact. Satisfaction is the pivot; frustration the tipping point!

    To the poet: As a definite article ‘the’ serves two masters. Firstly, it’s attached to items deserving specific attention within the text. Secondly, it establishes a reader-to-writer relationship relative to objects and subjects in the narrative. The defines things as specific to the statement; anchors internal meaning to external understandings of position and place. By the way, ‘the’ is the most commonly used word in the English language.

     

    the grind the grind

     

  • Need to Regulate

    Need to Regulate

    If profit is our only cause,
    Then limit not the market.
    Let them starve on foreign shores
    For it guarantees our target.
    If speed is used to measure skill,
    Then limit not velocity,
    Just beware that this might kill,
    Our common sense of quality.
    If it’s pedestals that make us fall,
    From grace to deep depravity,
    Then maybe we should ban them all,
    To force the hand of gravity.
    . Stupid thoughts will incubate,
    . Hence the need to regulate.

    © Tim Grace, 17 April 2011

    To the reader: We can wrap stupidity in garlands of bright remark. The preposterous thought is easily disguised as plausible. The laws of logic can be mimicked, befuddled into submission. The accepted truth is often more convenient than it is tested. There is no shortage of dumbness on display. Mostly, as benign, it does no harm; but on occasions the fatuous need reminding of their folly.

    To the poet: The art of evaluation is based upon determining the veracity of if/then relationships. This sonnet’s backbone, being about logic, is structured to parody an if/then sequence of thought. There’s a pattern to each four-line stanza. The first pair of lines establish the if/then relationship; and the last two provide a perverse conclusion. Take it as you will; but look before you leap to a conclusion.

    need to regulate need to regulate

     

  • Closer Steps Disaster

    Closer Steps Disaster

    As golden as our gait might seem,
    We cannot run much faster,
    The more we pace at rates extreme,
    The closer steps disaster.
    As brightly as our stars might shine,
    Be they cast upon a silver screen,
    Or raised as part of night’s design,
    Both in time become routine.
    As noble as we paint our cause,
    With posture and good poise,
    If the canvas is but full of flaws,
    Then thus itself destroys.
    . As often as not, our pledged convictions,
    . Meet the knot of contradictions.

    © Tim Grace, 19 April 2011

    To the reader: The source of a disaster becomes more obvious at the point of no return; at the precipice!. That inevitable conclusion, that certainty, delivers that unavoidable consequence; that calamity. That ‘that’ was always going to have that ending. For that ending was designed into that beginning. That be so. That be that.

    To the poet: When is a poem not a riddle? I often write surrounded by people doing crosswords; riddling out a cryptic solution. The obtuse poem and the cryptic riddle have much in common… word play. Together in time, apart in place, we silently sip our coffee untangling semantic clues. For the poet, unlike his company, he poses and answers his own riddles.

     

    closer steps disaster closer steps disaster

     

  • Trust We Must

    Trust We Must

    We hold true to our convictions,
    As determined through belief,
    We deny our contradictions,
    As would worry us to grief.
    We deliver our devotions,
    With dedicated verve,
    We limit our emotions,
    With bundles in reserve.
    We prize with admiration,
    Every skerrick of her soul,
    We lack the dedication,
    To surrender our control.
    . Through trust our faith is born,
    . Make not ‘must’ that it be sworn.

    © Tim Grace, (WS-Sonnet 66: line 4) 13 April 2011

    To the reader: How we arrive at our conclusions and determine our responses is a matter of overlapping considerations. As one decision adds to the next the combined wisdom will lighten or darken in transparency. A great decision may have required an enormous number of overlaps but in combination will seem crystal clear. On the contrary, a clumsy decision, muddied with contradiction, will always be opaque.

    To the poet: The symmetry of this sonnet appeals to my structural sensibilities; it unpacks with layered clarity. Throughout the poem there are patterns woven into its wordy web. In a vertical sense the lines alternate to emphasise that ‘we’ are at the centre of trusting relationships. And horizontally, the lines switch between short and long syllabic words. To finish, the last couplet share an internal rhyme; trust we must.

     

    trust we must trust we must

     

  • Luscious Lust

    Luscious Lust

    Once it grew with luscious lust
    As fresh as it was new
    But desiccated (turned to dust)
    Its verdant days are through.
    Once it stood in splendid state
    To shine as new-born sun
    And so it did but radiate
    Til’ all its strength was done.
    Nothing of its shape is left
    Was buried grain by grain
    As if unsculptured (now bereft)
    Its past is but a stain.
    . Give not what would cause despair,
    . Offer not the desert to a beggar’s prayer.

    © Tim Grace, (WS-Sonnet 66: line 2) 11 April 2011

    To the reader: Is hope a gift? … you’d hope so; false hope is a curse. Mostly, we manage hope, we contain its enthusiasm; restrain its expectation. Having hope is an optimistic trait, a forward-looking approach to life’s unravelling. Giving hope is an altogether different matter. Those who trade on the hopes and wishes of the bereft need be careful of motives; the more needy are prone to false enticements.

    To the poet: Punctuation of a poem is important. Shakespeare’s punctuation is creative, but most of all, consistently helpful. His full use of grammatical mechanics is as it should be: obvious yet subtle; deliberate and considered. Beyond a comma, Shakespeare (the masterful wordsmith) wields the heavier tools of trade with confident ease. Deliberately inserted, between semantics and syntax, grammar integrates its purpose and so a string of words is spoken; voiced with expression.

    luscious lust luscious lust

     

  • Counterfeit

    Counterfeit

    In the absence of required kit,
    we fear ourselves unready.
    We lament the missing part of it,
    and hold ourselves unsteady.
    We see ourselves as incomplete,
    as such we so behave,
    We cast ourselves as counterfeit,
    as fraud and worthless knave.
    We dwell upon our weaknesses,
    our deficits and flaws.
    We worry over pittances,
    and under write our scores,
    . When need is an all consuming quality
    . the gift is lost; nothing’s trimmed with jollity.

    Copyright 2016 (text & image) Tim Grace, (WS-Sonnet 66: line 3) (written: 11 April 2011)

    To the reader: The undressed nakedness of a manikin has nothing to sell. Life without gloss has a dull patina… cake without icing, shoes without polish. Raw ingredients hardly rally enthusiasm for the product. The bear-staples are just too mundane to sustain our interest. We need the the decoration, the ornamentation, to up-dress our excitement and warrant our celebration.

    To the poet: Rhythm, rhyme and emphasis are the working ingredients in this sonnet. Seven references to ‘we’ (and four to ‘ourselves’) underscore the collective message. Establishing the repeats early in the sonnet creates a dependency; we readers are pushed towards the next expected point of emphasis… and we find it waiting.

     

    countefeit countefeit