One More Sonnet

Tag: Time

  • Fourteen lines…

    Fourteen lines…

    Fourteen lines of rhyming verse
    No need for clever tricks.
    Obey the rules or face a curse
    No remedy can fix!
    For those who can not do as told
    There is no path to glory.
    In sets of four the tale unfolds
    And so becomes a story.
    Be not tempted into broad display
    Do not detail every instance.
    Resist the line that leads astray
    It’s the curse of least resistance.
    .    Let the story tell itself, no metaphor need mix,
    .    A story is a story, not like a pile of bricks.

    © Tim Grace, 4 February 2010

    To the reader: As the traveller and poet learn, new ideas are built upon loose impressions that over time mature into tighter understandings. In the early stages of construction an idea is best left unconstrained and deserves the liberty to indulge in vagueness; to question and wonder without the confinement of certainty.

    To the poet: The best comparisons happen naturally and need no forcing. Telling a reader that one thing is like another strips a poem of its own power to conjure a playful twist of thought. Vagueness in a literary sense can establish an intriguing ambiguity; it is suggestive and creatively loose – enticing.

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  • Vagrant Wordsmith

    Vagrant Wordsmith

    A dispossessed poet has no address?
    Vagrant wordsmith finds himself lost for words?
    Sunday morning solitude, more or less
    A waste land; quarters apportioned in thirds.
    Fractional allotments, absurdities;
    Occupied tables, multiples of six,
    Or four, or two; disputed territories;
    Unilateral remedies, far from fix
    An awkward treaty. Spaces between lines
    Become expansive; attract attention,
    Heightened meanings and hollow countersigns
    Position the possessed in contention.
    .   A poet in the margins, far from lost,
    .   Far from desolate, with his words embossed.

    © Tim Grace, 24 August 2014

     

    To the reader: If you’re outwardly observant and inwardly conscious the creative mind looks after the assembly of a poem. Once the mind is in-flow with the general gist of a theme it will mix and match its contribution of frames and reference points. That’s all very well, and easier said than done; practice and discipline are critical components of the process – and that presumes a conducive space to write.

    To the Poet: Rhyme inducing comfort zones are hard to find, and even harder to keep; context is everything. For years, I’ve sampled cafe cuisines in pursuit of an ideal writing ambience. For the most part, a hotel’s ‘breakfast room’ seems optimal. As a large enterprise, hotels usually offer an affordable option of ‘tea and toast’. With a passing trade, the regular change of clientele constructs an interesting sense of community; notable but not obvious.