One More Sonnet

Tag: Events

  • Manufractured

    Manufractured

    The world in pieces,
    Colours combining,
    Clarity increases,
    With distance defining.
    The world segmented,
    Kaleidoscopic split
    Patterns augmented,
    With nibbling fit,
    The field of view,
    The focal range,
    The tonal hue,
    With angles change.
    .    Impressed and enraptured,
    .    The mosaic is manufractured.

    © Tim Grace, 12 February 2011

    To the reader: Cathedral ceilings find counterbalance in floors of magnificent mosaic. The segmental nature of a mosaic adapts itself to undulating and odd-shaped perimeters. Tile by tile in decoration. A surface treatment deliberately fractured; pre-empting the impact of traffic and age. A strong and versatile solution. Suited to subtlety …impressionistic, geometric, kaleidoscopic. Betters with age.

    To the poet: Small pieces of text. Small phrases, reliant on each other for meaning. As with a mosaic, this sonnet begins with the micro-meaning of individual words. As the aperture widens the macro-meaning reveals itself as a play of words; built around the concept of ‘manufracturing’… to build from broken pieces. Meaningless becomes meaningful; fixed.

    manufractured
    manufractured

     

  • Inundated

    Inundated

    Overwhelmed. Swamped by a deluge
    of cascading abundance.
    Engulfed; swallowed by a huge
    and raging expanse
    of turmoil. A torrent unleashed.
    Swollen by a backwash; pressing
    itself into spaces diminished
    of capacity. Structures stressing,
    crushed beyond identity. Ripped,
    flipped – agitated – broken debris.
    Strewn remains; a carcass stripped
    of shape … and what might be.
    . Sodden and soaked – saturated.
    . Clogged and choked – inundated.

    © Tim Grace, 16 January 2011

    To the reader: When enraged, the elements devour what lays before them; fire consumes and water engulfs. Flood victims are utterly inundated. The rising intrusion is unstoppable. The creeping thief, enters without welcome, invades every crevice; leaves behind a crime-scene of muddied mayhem. The forlorn victim, sodden and soaked, has no recompense; can expect no apology; the thief has come and gone… more than escaped, evaporated!

    To the poet: In this sonnet it was pleasing to arrive at a wash of words that flowed with singular effect. The flood of words were delivered through the media, describing the devastation of a summer flood in Queensland, Australia. Capturing the graphic vocabulary of an event is important in constructing a descriptive poem. Words, with particular nuances, speak through a sonnet. Words locate a poem as real. Words give the poet a licence to authentically narrate the scene; albeit from a distance.

     

    inundated inundated

     

     

  • Smooth the Edge

    Smooth the Edge

    The edge, roughly cut and jagged;
    torn apart and broken;
    crudely split and ragged:
    ‘a scratch’ if plainly spoken.
    The rim, rounded-off and even;
    comfortable to grip;
    shaped to give good reason
    to the curvature of lip.
    On the edge, where fibres fray,
    the straight grain is splintered.
    On the rim, where fingers play,
    the subtle move is hinted.
    . Smooth the edge to a bevelled rim;
    . and be content with its levelled brim.

    © Tim Grace, 31 December 2010

    To the reader: The tactile sense, haptic in nature, is pleasured by the touch of a smooth and rounded edge. The sculptor, the chef, the luthier and the lover all recognise the appeal of a softly chamfered edge. A deliberately honed finish invites the caress of a curious finger-tip. The delicate rim of a china cup whets the lip. The family of stringed instruments nestle into the human form; they are eager to be strummed or stroked by a skilled and attentive hand.

    To the poet: The reading of a sonnet is a tricky thing. The performance of a sonnet exposes the inner tension between literal meaning and lyrical reading. Obviously, the poem’s metre is critical to simplifying the reader’s task, but too strong a metre runs the risk of delivering a ditty. An oddly placed pause, a quirky phrase are complicated but necessary if a poem is going to attract sophisticated interest. Sonnets are not written for the speed reader; not to be scanned or read once.

     

    smooth the rim smooth the rim

     

  • All but done

    All but done

    In the end, when all is finished,
    And the task is all but done,
    When the burden is diminished,
    To what it was before begun.
    It’s then that we can savour,
    The taste of sweet success,
    Let linger long the flavour,
    And with confidence impress,
    Be not bothered by the critic,
    With his crooked rule of thumb,
    Be not worried by the cynic.
    With his surface level scum.
    . In the end, the real end, all things being equal,
    . What’s done is done … so deliver not the sequel.

    © Tim Grace, 27 December 2010

    To the reader: We begin, often with an end in mind. At end, we arrive at a moment of completeness. Completeness delivers finality and/or conclusion; possibly both. Conclusive moments ought to be rich with satisfaction and deserving of hiatus; time for a break. A self-satisfied pause should offer some protection from those who would wish to offer judgement… the artist steps back from the canvas.

    To the poet: No doubt there was a particular incident that created my need to express frustration with an ending too abruptly injected with criticism. Get used to that. Responses to art are pretty quick to condense and find expression; the first impression says it all. The trick, I find, is don’t declare the ending too soon. Prepare the finish carefully.

     

    all but done all but done

     

  • Intensity

    Intensity

    Is intensity a frequency
    Scaled to a pitch?
    Has it got to do with density
    Is it triggered by a switch?
    Is the metaphor electrical,
    So the force is but a buzz,
    Maybe that’s too technical
    And far from what it does.
    Is it chemistry, that holds the key
    To bundling up our nerves?
    What’s the source of energy
    That taps in to reserves?
    . Things condense, and things increase,
    . As things in waves, and springs release.

    © Tim Grace, 18 December 2010

    To the reader: Pulling apart an idea, stripping it of meaning, testing its logic; all the stuff of lexical unpacking. It’s what’s done to clarify understanding and guide debate. For the teenage mind, with its ever expanding glossary, the discovery of wordplay is an absorbing pass-time; as driven by dark matter … it has a pervasive attraction.

    To the poet: Not a perfect sonnet, but snippets of it work. The word intensity has a nice syllabic percussion. The self-conscious question of ‘is it?’ (drawn from the letters of intensity) resounds. As a half-posed question ‘is it?’ deserves no answer and consequently receives a series of tentative possibilities. Interesting that the definitive ‘it’ is resolved by ‘things’ in the last couplet.

     

    intensity intensity

     

  • Purpose Revealed

    Purpose Revealed

    What’s a possible conclusion,
    What’s a problem yet defined?
    What’s a plausible solution?
    What’s a pattern recombined?
    What’s a process before production?
    What’s a thought before it’s said?
    … a conceptual construction
    tied to a central thread…
    It’s a scaffold, it’s a bridge,
    It’s a design, it’s a build,
    It’s a process, it’s assemblage
    It’s a purpose … so revealed.
    .    An answer defines what’s given … the fixture.
    .    A solution describes what’s needed … the mixture.

    © Tim Grace, 7 December 2010

    To the reader: Between two points there are infinite possibilities. How and why we join dots, bridge gaps and grasp ends indicates a degree of purpose. Understanding our purpose reveals the sharpness of intent and clarifies the nature of activity. There are times when a definitive answer too solidly fixes a problem. Better might have been a softer solution; flexible and adaptable in mix.

    To the poet: Much later, I came back to this sonnet and ironically decided to tighten it up. As a final draft it had far less symmetry and left the reader struggling to find shape and structure. In its current form I may have over-played its pattern; stripped it of variation… left it void of interest. I may have over answered its solution… what’s fixed cannot be mixed.

     

    purpose revealed purpose revealed