Never ventured much into sonnet territory. Tried both formal (which sounded
stilted coming from me) and more informal, unrhymed ones. This is an old
poem from my 2nd book which consists of two related sonnets. Just for the
record. Also wrote a series of 11 inter-related 'sonnets' - they were all 15
lines instead of fourteen - last line of one became first line of next - you
know the kind of form I mean. Won't bother you them - far too long to post.
But they were fun to do. I ended up calling the poem Eleven Fifteen - a time
mentioned in the poem.
But am now interested in the form again, partly as a result of the recent
discussion and Chris' prompting me about Sue Hampton's book and soemthing I
read yesterday in The New York Review of Books, of all things.
Hideous weather here this weekend so ideal time to pursue. Thanks all for
ideas and poems.
Cheers,
Jill
P.S. thanks also for poems and interview from Matthew - will get back on
that soon.
Postcards and snapshots
I
A second hand shuffles you forward.
A map blocks out where you may want to be,
shipping you, your mercantile heart, with cargo ...
But sometimes it is really a postcard,
and you step out onto a sunset beach
where fishermen and their dogs like children,
play among thick ropes like snakes.
The boat new caulked, the paint still fresh.
Open and unalarmed, no fear of cameras,
no wary armour layered on the eyes,
the beach fisher with his solid boots
striding through a knowledge of tides,
heaving a line into a known and gathering dark
you conforming to sand you hope no-one will stop.
II
Those instamatic moments stay in place.
You flip over the layers in your cells once again.
Their perfection passed unnoticed mostly
until theyıd gone into your great book of recall,
which fattens with a certain weight of time,
yet thins when you try to peer with sight
shorter than the breath of each dayıs work.
Still, your intelligence shows itself, though scared
to admit the sun did shine against the wall,
and a path lead along the cliff above the sea,
thinking of a concerto, Bachıs Double Violin maybe.
You walked with someone, and you hoped.
The sea below was flat and green, and dolphins
arched through the surface in their shadowy mass.
It all wrestles now with your fading depth of sight.
Cheers,
Jill
_________________________________
Jill Jones
50 Ruby Street
Marrickville NSW 2204
AUSTRALIA
[log in to unmask]
http://homepages.ihug.com.au/~jpjones
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