One More Sonnet

Tag: Place

  • Water’s Edge

    Water’s Edge

    A sunlit jetty, jutting out to sea;
    a wall of rocks resist the lapping tide;
    the Water’s Edge cafe is serving tea;
    two tethered yachts are dancing side-by-side.
    Waves absorb the jetty, drink to the bar;
    it’s an all-day breakfast, a seafood quiche;
    jelly-fish, tangled nets and caviar;
    loose jib on the Cactus Wren breaks its leash;
    a docile doberman lounges at large,
    waitress brings him water in a blue dish;
    father and son wave to a passing barge;
    a day without limits… just as you’d wish.
    . Today’s consumption will be time well spent,
    . awash with moments, as were sort of meant.

    © Tim Grace, 15 September 2012

    To the reader: To the sound of gently lapping water I wander the coastal promenade; find an outdoor table; it’s perched at the end of a short jetty. With the morning sun’s warmth on my back I open my eyes to the scenery at large. At water’s edge, a cafe has delivered the first of many all-day breakfasts. Behind me two yachts acknowledge as passing wave. Eyes shift, a waitress is delivering a blue bowl of water to a black dog. Scene closes with a father and his young son greeting the black dog with a ‘good morning’ pat-and-chat.

    To the poet: Light extends a poet’s vision into the realms of colour and movement. The crisp light of dawn is by nature poetic. With fresh aspect it exposes familiar forms to new interpretation. Dawn’s crisp exposure, fleeting as it is, delivers a lasting impression. Beyond an hour or so of rising its particular beauty is diffused to a general sense of mundane utility. The day is best seized by the touch of dawn.

     

     

    Water's Edge
    Water’s Edge
  • Three Complications

    Three Complications

    The cave, the campfire, and the carnival.
    Three complications, mine to be resolved.
    In one, the cave, I am most comfortable.
    Most myself, most at home, most involved.
    Drag me from my cave, my favoured dwelling,
    wrench me out of this reclusive hollow;
    pull me screaming and ignore my yelling;
    tow me to the campfire, make me follow;
    wright me in the carnival’s raucous script;
    place me with a crowd, put me on parade;
    chain me to the mob – least of all equipped
    to cope with this, and most of all afraid.
    . I’m a caveman, that’s my disposition.
    . Elsewhere, I’m awkward in rendition.

    © Tim Grace, 26 August 2012

    To the reader: In a social sense we all have a comfort zone; an interactive range of capability. In the cave dwells the ‘home alone’ introvert. Oblivious to external distractions, he happily crafts an inward-facing palace of private pleasures. His windows on the world are guarded lookouts; portals that provide protection as much as they do vistas over new horizons. His home is an introspective exhibition of self-sufficiency… he looks forward to your company, but rarely seeks it.

    To the poet: I write from the vantage point of a cave. A metaphorical-mobile-cave that has no fixed address. The metaphorical-mobile-cave is appointed with modern amenities and adapts well to its surrounding conditions. In this sense, it’s a versatile-metaphorical-mobile-cave with its own sense of respectful hospitality. The cafe is my cave… a poet’s paradise.

     

    Three Complications
    Three Complications

     

  • Brittle Surface

    Brittle Surface

    Then there’s the other playground, hidden
    from the cast of eyes, from the field of view.
    Given shape of whispers, a forbidden
    terrain that no survey could map as true.
    Due regard, a somewhat wise precaution.
    As with a grain of truth in rumour’s mill,
    this place has no scale of good proportion.
    All things can be ground to a common swill:
    ’til there’s nothing left of confidence,
    just the remnants of dignity, respect,
    and honour; nothing but shallow pretence,
    a bastion of moral poverty … wrecked.
    . Play, ground away, under spiteful attack,
    . Brittle is its surface; ready to crack

    © Tim Grace, 22 August 2012

    To the reader: As a school principal, I watched with horror the spiteful subterranean attack of girls on each others’ friendships. Damage to dignity inflicts a cruel wound; one that festers long after its initiation. The attacks were often highly orchestrated and finely targeted at a hapless victim. The remedy was to some extent exposure but humiliation of the perpetrator was fuel to the fire. Reconciliation was the broker’s joy!

    To the poet: This sonnet was constructed to highlight the fragility of a playground. Designed with a sharp tongue in mind. An outpouring of emotion, prone to pretence and posturing. A string of words nuanced with nastiness. If you’re listening carefully there’s a reference to self-pity; an obfuscation, that distracts attention from cause and effect. The mere suggestion of ill-will is an affront worthy of indignation. Words just words… I don’t think so.

     

    Brittle Surface Brittle Surface
    Picture Source:
    http://youtu.be/YYfxfudoE_k

     

  • Bedlam’s Gift

    Bedlam’s Gift

    Do you remember the playground, that place
    of inherited rules, rough and tumbled
    into kingdoms with short reign: King, Ace;
    no certainty of claim – empires crumbled?
    Humbled victors became losers. The once
    proud owner of a patch relegated;
    made to start again. A bottom-up dunce
    stripped of position, mocked and berated;
    slated; given no slack; given what comes;
    given the licence to begin again;
    to re-climb; to reclaim status. That’s bedlam’s
    gift, that’s the playground I remember then…
    . No need to keep the playground free of dust.
    . The prissy playground is a breach of trust.

    © Tim Grace, 18 August 2012

    To the reader: The school yard is a swirling patchwork of colours and shapes. The blacktop accommodates the hoops and high bouncing balls; white slashes of squared concrete cater to the criss-cross of tennis balls; and the green-grassed fields squarely frame the arc of foot propelled projectiles. All of this in the context of highly competitive play; skin in the game delivers respect and reputation. In my memory, it was sometimes fun, sometimes fair… very rarely perfect.

    To the poet: A jumble of words. A connected tangle of playful poetics. This sonnet works in three fields that overplay the shape of simple four-line stanzas. Each stanza ends with a rhyme that begins the next; text creating an extra ripple of repetition. Then there’s the enjambement that carelessly bounces over boundaries; a breach of rules; edgy, annoying but fair play.

     

    Bedlam's Gift Bedlam’s Gift
    Picture Source:
    http://youtu.be/ul3cmqXz5vU

     

  • Queen of Science

    Queen of Science

    She speaks of dark matter, she seeks its clue.
    She maps the empty, voluminous void
    that fills the heavens with galactic glue;
    such keeps the Queen of Science full employed.
    Visible space (her realm) she understands.
    The pull of planets and the death of stars;
    the gaseous clusters that time expands;
    with curiosity she’s there on Mars.
    But what of the vast unknown, the unseen,
    the invisible, lightless, hidden mass?
    What sense does she make of the in between?
    As yet, it would seem, not that much, alas!
    . Chaos reigns above the Queen’s universe,
    . order favours the black night … quite perverse!

    © Tim Grace, 10 August 2012

    To the reader: The Queen of Science is mathematics. Her realm, comprised of all things great and small, is understood through the logic of numbers. As with the best of monarchs, she is most interested in relationships; how things bond and bridge. The Queen’s interests follow the path of human curiosity: deep seas and shallow shores; heaven and earth; the living and the dead. She’s a woman of substance and structure; as real as she is abstract; as infinite as she is nothing.

    To the poet: I remember flying, from here to there, with a popular science magazine as company. Page after page of ‘new science’ flipped before my eyes; with each flip came an array of impressive numbers; usually well-beyond my comprehension. Obviously impressed, I used my simple understanding to pay homage to the Queen of Science. The sonnet has a simple structure with the last stanza acting as counterpoint … but … there is much to learn.

     

    Queen of Science Queen of Science
    Picture Source:
    http://youtu.be/A9S9gwhS6Yk

     

  • Sad Indictment

    Sad Indictment

    Pall of darkness on road to Damascus;
    It’s a sad indictment of light’s reform.
    The mood is tense and turning fractious;
    What says the message in this rising storm?
    They do not hear its thunder. Are they deaf
    to its rumbling; to its tremulous pound?
    They are so broken of spirit, no clef
    can orchestrate meaning, make sense of sound.
    How loud must the message be amplified
    before these soldiers are stopped in their tracks?
    What lightning, what thunder must coincide
    in their hearts and minds? … meanwhile Kingdom cracks.
    . All roads lead to somewhere, they are the course
    . of discovery; fortune and remorse.

    © Tim Grace, 29 July 2012

    To the reader: Two years on… and the crisis intensifies; a sad indictment of geo-political posturing. As tallied, the numbers describing death and displacement are staggering. Associated stories are horrendous; and yet, the map of suffering and destruction consumes itself with ravenous ferocity. Nothing to do with justice. Misguided conviction plays out another confrontation; another catastrophe; another war crime – such a pity.

    To the poet: Man of darkness on the road to Damascus. A conversion story, where Saul takes on a simple journey that leads to a complex tale of self-discovery. Paul (Saul’s alter ego) emerges from the flash-point a transformed individual. In Aristotle’s theatrical framework (Poetics) Saul’s crisis is the turning-point; the reversal, from which Paul seeks resolution. The equivalence of one man’s story…

     

    Sad Indictment Sad Indictment
    Picture Source:
    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-22798391