Sunset

It's setting darkly in the western sky
And yet I don't believe it will be night.
I'm sure that it must be so, by and by,
After the sun has disappeared from sight,
But for the moment everything is hung
In perfect balance, and the air is tinged
With immanence. The night is not yet young,
The day still old, and where they turn is hinged
Upon this moment - if it should not pass
But stay, and linger onward in its pause,
Could night still come? I think it could, alas,
For coming darkness always overawes
Even the last of light. So we will sink
Into the night and out of this, its brink.

Travels

As far as I may wander, I will still
Declare a home to which I may return.
Other lands and places may fulfill
My necessary wants, yet I will yearn
In some internal place, to be where I
Can be myself most freely. It is there,
No matter where my present self may lie,
That I am best. If in some otherwhere
I seem content - or even am - then ask
If I am truly happy. I will say
That while I may, in that small instant, bask
In other sunbeams, that will soon decay
And turn to night; but when I cease to roam
I'll light up from within, and be at home.

Edges

The safest place to be is on the edge
Where boundaries are clearer, more distinct.
Interiors may insincerely pledge
Existences more intimately linked
To one another, but they blur to one
The differences that matter. Where the line
Is visible, the cracking has begun,
And incongruencies cannot combine
But rather stand apart, there you can see,
And seeing, know. The comfort found elsewhere
Is false and fleeting. Here the boundary
Inspires fear, because it is right there.
But seen, it can be watched, and watched, secured;
All other safety but perverts the word.

Fall

A single leaf has fallen from the tree
There may be more, but I will never know
For I continued on and cannot see
If any more will fall - or maybe grow.
It fell so slowly, as if even air
Was sad to see the lonely, pale descent;
It fell, and was without a partner there
Stuck on the sidewalk, lying on cement.
I did not see what caused the fatal fall,
And if I had, what would there be to say?
It fell, whatever caused it, after all
And nothing I could do would make it stay.
But yet I wonder; and as I walk on
It saddens me to think the leaf is gone.

Ackbar

It was a trap. But then, of course it was.
He'd warned them of the fact a hundred times.
They didn't listen, but nobody does,
So he was not surprised. A thousand crimes
Could be committed safely if he were
The sole protector of legality,
Because although he'd know they would occur,
No one would listen. He thought it would be
A sheer delight if anybody heard
A single warning, and attended to
The meaning he intended in the word.
Yet when it came, he floundered. For he knew
That crying wolf, when wolves are really there,
Just gets you blame. Nobody said it's fair.

Introduction to the Sonnet VII: Metrical Irregularities

So a topic that requires further elaboration is meter, and specifically at what points a poem can, and ought, to deviate from the purity of its meter. Here I will discuss two points: the value of having a predictable meter, and something of the difference between an extra syllable and a missing one.

A predictable meter is definitionally necessary for a sonnet. A poem cannot be a sonnet without a meter. But it is also a good and effective tool. Not only does a predictable meter give a poet something to display against - a framework whose very constancy makes deviation significant - but it also in and of itself gives the line a pitch and roll whose value should not be discounted. Metrical lines read easily; they give emphases to the stressed beats and take them from the unstressed (about which more in a later post); they provide the reader or hearer as well as the author with a structure which can ease both interpretation and the growth of expectation and preliminary understanding (which can be undercut or respected much like the metrical framework itself); and last but not least they can just sound gorgeous if done correctly. A poem - much less one that wishes to be a sonnet, a formal form - that abandons meter abandons one of its primary potentials for affecting the reader and his or her expectations and understanding.

One of the ways to modulate the effect of meter is by eliding or adding syllables. These have a few obvious effects: making the line hiccup or trip, making it last longer or be over shorter, drawing attention to the line and specifically to the moment inside the line where the effect occurs, and (relatedly) raising the stakes for that moment and line. Not all of these necessarily have to be at play - especially not the hiccup, if the first syllable is dropped or the extra one is at the end of the line - but they all can be and awareness of them is critical.

The most common elided syllable is the first, in an iambic or anapestic line, or the last in a trochaic or dactylic; other elisions are very rare from iambs and trochees and still uncommon from the others (except in intentionally mixed meters, where it is not properly an elision but a change of foot). Only unstressed syllables are elided, and those mentioned above are the ones least missed, because they either trail after the last stress or precede the first, which since lines pivot around stresses means they are in some, very very limited, sense extraneous. Mid-line elisions are extremely odd in iambic or trochaic meter because it slams the stresses together and is very very marked as such. In the trisyllabic meters, it is possible - and functionally equivalent to an iambic or trochaic foot being substituted for the original foot - and much less marked. It is still somewhat rare however.

Added syllables are also most common at the beginning and end, as exact opposites of the elisions: before a trochee or dactyl and after an iamb or anapest. This is from the same limited sense of extraneousness as above, as they are beyond the pivot of the stressed syllables. In the case of iambic pentameter, an added unstressed syllable (and again, extrametrical syllables are unstressed, as it is otherwise referred to as adding a foot to change the meter) placed after the normal ten results in what is known as a "feminine ending." Adding other, internal, syllables is again the opposite of eliding internally: more marked with trisyllabic feet (which morph into odd four-syllable feet with too few stresses to hold them together) and less with iambs and trochees. Again, these are rarer internally than externally, and should be used with care.

Pairs

The hands that hold you are not his, nor mine;
But neither of us may be jealous now.
The time for that has passed. I used to whine
That you should not be his; he used to vow
That if you were with me, he would be done
With you - and now we are both quit thereof,
Both promises are kept. What was begun
By us is finished in another's love,
And both our hopes are ended. We should be
So happy in our mutual success.
But yet he is (and I am, honestly)
An all-together, devestated mess.
I thought you being his was worst; yet I
Have found a worse: having to say goodbye.

Heat

The weather's sudden turn reminded me
Of something you once said: the winter chill
Which comes whenever it decides it will,
Is not that cold. Or rather, should it be
As bitter as I often think, then we
Could find a way around it. If you still
Believed what you said then, that love can kill
The worst in us, and summon faithfully
The warmth that supercedes the wind and snow,
I might not notice what surrounds me now,
Swirling down to smother me with frost.
But somewhere in the spring, I don't know how,
You left that warmth behind, and turned to go.
I hope you have it back - for mine is lost.

Secrets

I had a little thought that I might share
With you, if you could spare the time to hear.
Come on, slide close, I need you to be near
To me so you can listen. Don't you dare
Tell anybody else. I wouldn't care
Except I'd like to trust you, and I fear
If you told anyone what I say here
It could be bad for me. Just sit right there
And listen. I'm ashamed to let you know,
Or anyone, it's not just you. I thought
I might, at some point, get a chance to say -
Oh, it's embarrassing. I like you, though,
And that's what I...I mean it's not
Important. I'll tell you another day.

Interiority

I fumble towards conceptions of the truth
Which do not suit me. All experience
Seems to repudiate the hopes of youth
And, even more, what seemed like common sense.
The reason which was in me, and hard-wired
Is useless, and what's worse, still calls to me
Because although its usefulness expired
On contact with the world, immediately,
I have no other instincts. I do not
Know any other way. And yet each day
I see the need for other kinds of thought
And other actions. Therefore, come what may,
I cannot be myself, but have no choice;
There's nothing else inside me to give voice.

Lucidity

I'm never sure if you were really there;
It might have been, I do not think it was,
A trick of lying lights, or of the air;
Or drinking could, as I'm aware it does,
Have made me conjure you; or maybe just
The sheer desire wafting through my brain
Created such an image, soaked in lust
And fantasies that never quite came true.
In any case, I'm sorry: if you were
With me, then you know why, if not I rue
The fact that even fantasies concur
That I do not deserve you. Either way
I'm too ashamed to talk to you today.

Altruism

No reason; I just wanted to, that's all.
They say don't look a gift horse in the mouth.
I think they're right. If you get a windfall
Looking too closely can make it go south.
Let me advise you: don't ask anymore.
I've done what I have done for you because
Of my own reasons, which you will ignore
If you know what is best for you. What does
My purpose mean to you? It is opaque
And will be best if it remains that way.
Whatever the advantage I may take
From helping you, there's nothing more to say
Than it is mine alone. If you insist
My generosity may not persist.

Autumn

Tonight there should be blankets curled in piles
Around a roaring fire, in whose smoke
The bright reflection of a pair of smiles
Should float in ghostly happiness; a cloak
Should be thrown over shoulders cuddling
A mug, whose scent should waft enticingly
Across the fire, while the puddling
Remnants of the pot are stirred, to be
Re-heated and rejuvenated. There
Should be tight hugs exhanged not just for heat,
While every instinct shows the need to share
The moment with another to complete
The sense of joy. And in the end there should
Be soft content around the burning wood.

Fourteeners

The only time I'm fully safe is when I'm all alone;
I don't deny that this is paranoid of me to think.
I think it's just a symptom of how strange my life has grown,
Or maybe just how deep it's possible for me to sink.
The constant buzzing in my empty ears seems to imply
That I am followed, though I cannot tell who'd dare so much;
But since my senses tell me that, and almost never lie
(At least I'm pretty sure they don't), I'm far too scared. If such
Is to be, or have been, my fate, to die in company
Then all this buzzing serves me as a guide to my distress;
But if it isn't, and I will survive successfully
It's just annoyance on the road to my final success.
I hope the latter, fear the first, and therefore I'll be clear:
It may not be the safer way, but don't you come too near.

Sound

The sound was part of it. I know that much.
Without it I would never -- that is, I
Would not have thought to turn around and clutch
Your hand. I think you knew that that was why,
Or else why did you smile at me, so kind
And open, when so many others were
Closed up against me? It's not that I mind,
Of course I don't, and yet I might prefer
To know if you were totally sincere,
Which I can never know because that sound
Drove normalcy away. I can still hear
That beat sometimes when no one is around.
It pulsed, and we moved closer in the throng,
Enough to make me feel I could belong.

Heaven

Not everything is perfect, even here
There is unhappiness. Officially,
Of course, that isn't true. It couldn't be,
For who would struggle through mortality
Only to reach another place of fear?
So we pretend that everything is sheer
Unbridled joy, and all those who appear
Are ushered into blissful ecstacy.
I wish that it were so; so do we all.
But every wish cannot come true at once,
Nor do desires always cleanly match
With what should be desired. Each man hunts
For happiness, and some by chance will snatch
Another's for himself: and so they fall.

Improvement

I think it might be better than it was,
But that's hardly a comfort; once before
I thought, or hoped I thought, that in encore
It would improve, but I was wrong, because
The first, when uncorrected, was retained,
And therefore nothing changed. If anything
It was made worse by the familiar ring
Of bad decisions constantly sustained.
I've gone that way myself, of course - we all
Have kept on doing badly once or twice
Because we knew no better. In precise,
Clear terms, then, I pronounce this battle call:
Seek criticism, so you may correct,
And having done so, be the more perfect.

Thrill

I feel my body tingling tonight
And no, this time it's not because of you.
I've worked all day, more than I wanted to,
In ways that, if I wrote them down here might
Surprise you, and I'm staring at the light
That drew me here (I've also had a few
Innocuous and nothing drinks). The view
Is marvelous; I don't think that I've quite
Seen anything so beautiful before,
And all the buzz and murmur - everything
Attracts attention, and, what should be more,
Rewards it. It's a perfect time to sing.
I feel this thrill inside me to the core
And just this once it's not the one you bring.

Tease

The mountain rumbles, and the sky is still;
The tide still murmurs closer into shore.
A great seabird above us seems to fill
The sky all by itself. A creaky door
Somewhere behind us scrapes upon its hinge
As if in warning; children scream and play
Below, within the surf. The tall trees cringe
Before the non-existent wind, the gray
Sea-mud has ceased to wash ashore, and all
The artificial sounds of gas and oil
Seem to have ceased. A little heron's call
Goes on unanswered. Arthur Conan Doyle
Could not have scripted better mysteries;
And all of it intended just to tease.

Proximity

It's strange how close you are, because I know
That mentally you're just as far away.
I've never known exactly where you go,
But I'm completely certain when I say
It isn't here by me. Oh, you're aware
That I am sitting here; that isn't it.
It's worse than that would be. You just don't care.
You aren't concerned at all with where I sit,
And if I were not here, although you'd see
An empty space beside you where I was,
You wouldn't mind. It does no good to be
So near to you; and since it never does,
Why am I here? I am because of you,
Of course; you may not care, but I still do.

Matter

I used to think I mattered. Silly thought.
I certainly am matter, and I know
In certain contexts I am, like as not,
Considered as "a matter." Being so
Might I not say I matter? Yet to be
The simple answer to the question "What's
The matter" cannot be enough for me.
I want to matter, no ifs, ands, or buts,
But that kind fate I cannot entertain;
It's obvious enough, indeed, too plain,
That I am but a nothing to you all.
And if a nothing, then it follows next
That I, although I might have you perplexed,
Cannot be said to matter. So I fall.

Mine

When I say I want you, I don't mean
I want you to be mine. No, you are yours,
Delightfully, and all that I have seen
And loved has been just that: my heart adores
The sight of you just being you, your own,
So happy in yourself. Why would I choose
To take that joy, so wonderfully grown,
And make it wither? Why should I abuse
Your happiness by trying to impose
Some ownership by me on you? I know
What I desire, and where it arose,
And both are you. Should you be mine? Hell no.
I know exactly what I wish you'd be:
Completely yours, but also yours with me.

Preference

It's so much easier to just sit here
Ignoring everything I ought to do;
In theory that's something I always knew,
But now it's true in practice too, I fear.
Indeed, I can't believe it wasn't clear
That I could sit and calmly watch the view
Without moving a muscle, much less two,
And nobody would try to interfere.
Yet when I do, there's something that feels wrong
About my immobility; I seem
To be more eager than I want to be.
And if that laziness goes on to long,
I cannot simple waft into a dream.
I'm not cut out to be a Bartleby.

Introduction to the Sonnet VI: Enjambment

One of the most basic questions in a sonnet - and indeed in any poetry written in verse - is how to end a line. By this I do not mean how to end a line metrically - the meter tells you that - but whether the line break should correspond to a break in the internal rhythm or sense of the poem. If the line break does correspond with such a natural break, the line is referred to as "end-stopped;" if it does not, the line is "enjambed," and the poet is said to be using "enjambment."

To illustrate the difference, let me use two of Shakespeare's sonnets. Sonnet 130 is almost entirely end-stopped; sonnet 116 uses a lot of enjambment. We will look at both, and I will attempt to show how the two different styles affect the poems.

Sonnet 130
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun.
Coral is far more red than her lips' red.
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hair be wires, black wires grow from her head.
I have seen roses, damasked, red, and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks,
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.
And yet by heaven I think my love as fair
As any she belied with false compare.

Sonnet 116
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
That alters when it alteration finds
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! It is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out, even to the edge of doom.
If this be error, and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

One thing that's clear from these examples (or at least, from my assertion that these examples have some value as examples) is that end-stopping is common in sonnets; even sonnet 116 has a lot of end-stopped lines. And it is common, especially in English sonnets, and particularly (as we see a lot of in sonnet 116) at the end of the quatrains and even in the middle of them. It is particularly common to see an alternation of end-stopping and enjambment, where the even lines are end-stopped but the odd lines are enjambed.

Looking more specifically at these poems, though, we can see the way end-stopping allows sonnet 130 to build up a series of propositions: all but two of the lines (the lines ending with delight and know) are end-stopped, and each line or pair of lines in the case of enjambment is a separate section of the build-up. This orderly erection of line upon line allows for the swift (enjambed) turn at the end to have its maximum effect; if such a massive edifice had not been provided, the turn would be much less effective. The end-stopping contributes by allowing each line to seem like its own separate entity, emphasizing the sheer number of points; if they were more enjambed, they would flow together more into a single mass and not separate out. Their separation makes them seem larger, as they add up more massively. Obviously there is a lot more going on in this poem, and a lot more that can be done with end-stopping, but that seems to me to be a suggestive start.

Sonnet 116, by contrast, is built up in the opposite manner. The lack of impediments to love is indicated by the flow between lines allowed by the enjambment; even the later lines, where every other line is end-stopped, give a sense of continuity and unity not really present in sonnet 130. I suggest that this effect is due to enjambment; by making the lines run into each other in sense, the line breaks are in some sense eradicated and made to seem more artificial than they otherwise might; this in turn creates a sense in which the poem as a whole, and the meaning of the poem as a whole, become paramount over the meaning of individual lines. That effect in turn contributes to the singularity of the "this" in the final couplet: the first twelve lines are indeed a unity. It is not "these," as might be said about the series of end-stopped propositions in sonnet 130, that must be true or false, but "this:" the single, holistic suggestion of the previous part of the poem. That unity is heightened by the flow permitted by the enjambment. Just as with end-stopping and sonnet 130, there is much more that can be done with this poem and this technique; but again, this should be suggestive of the ground available to work in.

The choice to end-stop or enjamb is of course mixed in with the rhythm of the poem and the diction; certain words and certain sentence structures are easier to enjamb or end-stop, as the case may be. But the overall effect of a series or pattern of end-stopping or enjambment should not be overlooked. Nor should certain conventions; traditionally, the eighth line of an octave in an Italian sonnet, and the twelfth line of an English sonnet are end-stopped, to allow the turn in the succeeding line to start fresh, and often, as noted above, the even lines are end-stopped and the odd lines enjambed. But each of these conventions existed just as much to be violated with a purpose; an enjambed octave-into-sestet or quatrain-into-couplet can be extremely effective, and other rhyme schemes entirely can have different implications in the interplay between rhyme and enjambment. Enjambment is simply another register on which the poetry of a sonnet can play itself out, to join with meter, rhyme, and diction.

Tomatoes

By Thursday we believe tomatoes will
Begin to sprout along the vines and grow;
But for the moment everything seems still
And so all seems relaxed, although we know
Beneath the surface something's going on.
The last of last year's crop is almost gone
And we are hoping soon something will change.
If nothing sprouts, who knows what we will do
But let's not borrow trouble. It seems strange
That we rely so much on something new
Arising from what is so far inert
And cannot act ourselves. Therefore we wait
Watching with bated breath the hopeful dirt;
I pray that the tomatoes are not late.

Stop Loss

What I have lost I never will regain;
The fire has consumed the wood to ash;
The chaff is blown, but so too is the grain,
The turnip's shape is gone into the mash.
The light that shone will never shine again,
The iron rusts into a crumbled red;
The infants have grown in older men,
The wind has carried off the words I said.
The recipe, once mixed, won't separate,
The leaves that fell will not return to green;
The hours tick past early into late,
What once I saw cannot become unseen.
But on the other hand, I can still see
All these recorded in my memory.

Arctic

The icicles pressed down across the sled;
I tried to lash it tight, to no avail.
The light that slanted on us, harsh and red,
Was just enough to see my men grow pale
With realization that the coming night
Would bring us worse than what the day had done.
I tried to wring some comfort from that sight,
Some hope to counteract the setting sun,
But every thought turned slowly to the grave.
The destination to which we were sent
Will never come; I have no hope to save
These men of mine. I wonder why we went
So uselessly; we never will achieve
Our purpose, and for that I mostly grieve.

Brother Zeke

I think there was a time that it was true
Before he came; but, then, you know, things change.
That doesn't mean that we were wrong to do
The things we did, but now they would be strange
And what was once a normal, everyday
Occasion would seem totally uncouth.
I would dare imply -- I mean to say,
That might be how we did it in my youth
But nowadays -- of course, that doesn't mean
He hasn't always been correct, he has, you know --
I musn't say -- but then, you mustn't glean --
I'm sorry, but I really have to go.
The other brothers can attend you now;
I'm sure we'll meet again. I'm not sure how.

Dis-Ease

Is it still here? Oh, please God let it stop
I don't think I can stand it anymore.
It shakes my faith and body to the core
And yet it will not, though it makes me, drop.
I must consign myself into the slop
And writhe as I have never done before
And still there's no relief; for an encore
Arises in me, readying to plop
Despite what I might wish. If it could cease
I would be moved, because my bowels weren't,
To sing hosannahs, joyfully serene;
Right now, however, everything feels burnt,
With flames that will not let me rest in peace:
Leaving my soul and body both unclean.

On Fictional Poetry

One of the concepts I struggle with the most in writing poetry is the role of fiction in the process. I have touched briefly on this issue in a previous post; I will dilate slightly more fully here. The issue, for me, is one of emotional clarity as well as of sincerity. Because I write poetry to capture moments, thoughts, and feelings, there is a strong pull towards nonfiction, both because I can only truly claim to have any understanding of my own emotions, thoughts, moments (etc) if even those, and because I can hardly expect to be able to successfully convey what I cannot validate in myself. These are closely entwined arguments that. together, I think portray what I mean by emotional clarity: I cannot achieve the true expression of feeling with feelings I have not felt. To this is added sincerity: how honest can the poetry be if I make it all up, not just words but basic thoughts, out of whole cloth?

I will here discuss a few possibilities for dealing with this issue: the intercommunicability problem, the imaginative principle, the Browning option, the aesthetic theory, and the denial of the question. I will only sketch these out; I intend to treat each at further detail in future posts. I hope, however, that they will serve as the beginning of a process of working out this issue.

The intercommunicability problem begins with the assumption that it is impossible to truly know if we can understand each others inner mental states. As such, it is almost pointless to talk about communicating such mental states to each other, and so poetry must, almost axiomatically, find its meaning in some other criteria than making one's mental state (or past mental state) open to an audience. This theory suggests nothing specific as replacement criteria; almost anything may qualify. The central idea is that there is no point to judging a poem on its communication of mental states.

The imaginative principle seems similar on the surface: the fundamental idea here is that imagination affects mental states, and so there is no "real" mental state for the poem to point the reader to. Either the reader and author undergo a similar effect from the poem, and that creates the tie of sincerity between them, whether the author initially felt the state being communicated or not; or they undergo dissimilar changes, but in related ways that allow the poet to predict in some manner how they will differ. In either case, because imagination and mental state are so closely bound up, it is difficult to call "fiction" dishonest, because honesty is not the same as journalistic fact-finding, it is something deeper.

The Browning option, named for the Victorian poet Robert Browning who was known for his dramatic monologues (poems written in the voice of a narrator who is clearly not the poet), suggests that it is the creation of plausible, possible, believable mentalities for the reader to interact with that is the goal of the poem, not the transmission of the single dominant authorial mentality. So long as the poem engages meaningfully in the interaction of the reader and a narrator of some sort with a distinct point of view, real or imagined, it may be judged a success; there need be no relationship between that point of view and the author's.

The aesthetic theory points to the beauty of the poem, usually in relation to its sounds and rhythms, as the primary point of judgment, rather than to anything having to do with the author. As such, the question should not be "how sincere is this poem," but "how beautiful is it." Sincerity may contribute to beauty, or it may not; it is in any case secondary.

The final suggestion I wish to raise is that it is quite possible to deny the validity of this issue; for whatever reason, to suggest that of course poems can be fictional, and there is no reason to ask this question. As I have suggested, my own view of why I write poetry makes this difficult to accept, but it is a very valid way of looking at the world.

These theories are of course neither the be-all nor the end-all of the question (even the last one), and I am always eager to hear about more suggestions. I intend, as I mentioned, to cover each in more depth in the future. At the moment, however, I hope that they can begin to suggest how one can grapple with the joint issues of fiction and sincerity in poetry.

Celebrity

There isn't too much you can do to me
Under-prepared, and yet over-exposed
I wasn't ready for celebrity
I should have had new hair, new face, new clothes;
But now that I have passed that first bad stage
And recognized that I am what I am,
It doesn't work to tell me "Act your age"
Or try to trick me into some strange scam.
I've done this now, and so I know the ropes,
And nothing you can do to me will change
The fact that I've been interviewed by dopes
Coddled, attacked, and told to rearrange
My whole entire being; what can you
When all of this is done, pretend to do?

Mistakes

I've done things I'm not proud of, in my life;
Hurt people badly, terrorized their friends,
Sowed endless anger and encouraged strife,
And used good people for unworthy ends;
I've torn a husband from his family home
To make him kill, and mutilate the dead;
I've driven children from the warmth to roam
In frozen snowbanks; I have even led
Entire armies to despoil lands
That should have been their allies, rightfully,
And turned fair pastures into desert sands,
Or bodies of fresh water into sea;
I did it all for you; how can you say
You hate me now, and slowly turn away?

Permission

She should have told you; that is true.
But when did you imagine that you had
The right to hold her choice? Would you review
Every decision that she makes? Too bad,
That's not your place, no matter what she said.
She might have meant you're everything to her
And then again, you might have been misled
By your desires, wishing that they were
The same as hers; and so what if you're right?
She said it, but it's still hers to unsay,
And not yours to control. Please see the light
And realize the truth. There is no way
That you can own her. You want sympathy?
Then do not treat her disrespectfully.

Shylock

Appeals to honesty will not suffice;
No more will freedom, liberty, or love.
Do not attempt to call on God above
Or hope that, underneath it all, I'm nice.
I will not stake a bet on cards or dice,
Nor excavate the liver of a dove
To look for signs; I am not guilty of
Those types of foolishness. The price
That I have set is what I will receive
Or I will not deliver what is mine;
I say this not to bluster or deceive
But only to inform you. I define
My own self-worth, and so will either leave
Or take from you the substance of your fine.

Bethlehem

It might have mattered; I don't think it did,
Mind you, I think it was a total waste,
But even if it minimally slid
A single slice of doubt about his haste
Into their minds, then I would say it was
Significant enough to do. But since
I don't think it did anything, what does
It matter? Nothing ever would convince
Them he was wrong; he is the golden boy.
And yet to even say you had a qualm
Might do some good. I am not being coy,
I honestly don't know. But let that balm
Be spread across your wounds, to think at least
You tried to slow the coming of the beast.

Hermitage

A grey light filters slowly through the glass
As if it didn't want to shine at all;
The blinds reluctantly allow it past
To glimmer awkwardly against the wall.
Within the pool of almost-dying light
A single figure bends its weary head
As if the finally exhausted night
Had been no reason he should go to bed.
He stumbles as he notices the beam
And turns to slow shamble to the shade
Where he extinguishes the little gleam
By tugging down a second one - home-made.
I cannot see him now, but if I did
I think that I would wish he were still hid.

Sonnet Analysis: My Old Sonnets VI

I no longer remember when I wrote this sonnet; I do know that for some reason the first line resonates with me, and pops up into my memory at strange times and in strange places.

Monochromatic as I used to be
Portrayed in only grayish scale and hue
I seek the color of eternity
Unending swathes of purple, red, and blue.
A deep cerulean to coat my sea
The evening sky a bronze museum piece
And shadows of the deepest shade of plum
Unsettling the steady light grey hum
That fills my world and never seems to cease
Except to modulate and mock at me.
These vibrant and demanding colors rise
Where black and white have stood this endless while
They burst from out your smile and your eyes
And spring like flowers in your brilliant smile.

What Went Wrong:
I think we can all look at the final two lines here and say in unison what went most wrong: I used smile twice. That was silly of me, and it robs the ending of substantial punch. I think it might be better rewritten as (well, almost anything, but try this on for size) "They burst out of the sweetness in your eyes/And spring like flowers from your brilliant smile," which has the additional virtue of correcting a couple other minor errors, specifically the prepositions. It's better to burst out of than from out and better by far to have flowers springing from the smile than in the smile, unless the subject of the poem has been eating the topiary. I'm also not a huge fan of "grayish scale and hue," because it means "gray hue" but is stretched out over more than twice as many syllables for no real reason besides meter. The "steady light gray hum" isn't nearly as bad an offender, but in the context of having already had a "grayish scale and hue" it suddenly looks suspicious. Also, is the world black and white or gray? It seems that it's probably grayscale, but the sudden introduction of the starker terms in line twelve seems out of place. And if the colors "never cease/except to modulate," are they ceasing or aren't they? It seems a bit confused, and not in a particularly fruitful way.

Not Too Shabby:
The idea of the poem is spot on. The rhyme scheme is innovative (ABABACDDCAEFEF) and I think does a nice job of bringing out the unusual nature of the colors being mentioned in the middle sestet. It also contrasts nicely the first and last quatrains with their opposition of the narrator's monochromatic life and the "demanding" colors the subject is introducing into that life. Some of the lines are quite good, notably the first, third (which is a little hyperbolic, but works well to introduce the specific colors that follow), the eleventh, and the fourteenth. I'm also quite happy that "purple, red, and blue" are then mirrored in "cerulean," "bronze," and "plum," albeit in the opposite order, which works well as conservation of color lends a sense of sincerity. I love the idea of the colors "demanding." And I simply cannot get over that first line: fitting "monochromatic" into iambic pentameter makes me ecstatic for some reason.

Turns

I've always wondered what it would have meant
If I had said what I was thinking then.
Would you have turned to look at me again,
Or not gone down that road? Of course, you went,
And I, because I did not speak, have sent
My hopes into the hands of other men,
Who keep them better than I did. But when
You think about that day, and my intent,
I'd have you think of this as well as that:
That I'm aware how dumb I was that day,
And know the costs of idiocy now.
I hope to make you understand, somehow,
That I am better now then when I sat
So silently and watched you walk away.

Lamp

The blinds are closed to keep the darkness out;
There's not enough light trapped in here to see.
It flickers, and I worry it's about
To gutter, go out, and abandon me.
I couldn't blame it if it chose to go;
There's not much left of me here anyway.
What lingers is sustained by its small glow;
I may not last in darkness until day.
If so, why should the light stay on to look
As I burn out myself with pondering,
Since night's arrival here is all it took
To set my soul free for its wandering?
And yet if it illuminates 'til dawn
I think I'll find the strength to carry on.

Earnestness

I could deny it I liked. I could.
But doing so despite the evidence
Would be to do some wrong and little good
A choice that, of itself, makes little sense.
I could go on and on, declaiming lies
To throw you off the scent of what is true,
Or hoodwink you with overzealous cries
That claim I did not do what I did too.
I might, perhaps, a little off my theme
Declare that I was not then what I am,
And therefore did it in a kind of dream
Where what might seem consent was but a sham.
I could; but I will not, because you're right
I must apologize about last night.

Night

These quiet hours might just be the worst;
When night-time threatens to destroy my mind.
The gains I made in day are all reversed
And where the light of happiness once shined
There's only introspection and despair.
On better days, I might find reason there,
Or logic, or good sense, but neither thrives
In darkness, and the light that flickers on
To try to push away the dark contrives
Only to make me wish the night were gone
But not to make it go, and so brings out
The sadness and the angst which threaten
And plant the seeds of anger and self-doubt;
But with the day, I think more happily.

Onions

The secret to it all, my father said,
Is to burn the onions just a bit.
Of all the wisdom I have ever read,
I think that might have been the best of it.
In every situation I explore
I try to find the onions I should burn;
In some, I know, and therefore wonder more
What burning means for them, which, when I learn,
I do. Now, this might to be too trite,
And useless, since it's liberally used.
But still, the method always steers me right,
And never fails me, nor has it abused
My trust in it. Therefore, as I look
About at life, I do so as a cook.

Friends

I wish that I could make my friends all know
There's a pleasure just in listening to you;
In knowing that you trust me, trying to
Help you however possible. I'd go
To greater lengths than I have gone to show
That I am here for you. That feeling grew
Out of our friendship. Whatever you do
I'm here to listen, if you just say so.
And if I ask you questions, they are there
For you to answer only if you feel
Completely comfortable with them, and me;
I'm only here to help, because I care,
So everything I ask you to reveal
Is just so we can talk more helpfully.

On Sincerity and Inspiration

I wrote the same poem three time today. Or rather, to my annoyance, I did not write the same poem three times today. The initial poem (whether it is the best I cannot say, but it will serve as an ideal for the rest of the process) was lost in the obscure workings of an inexplicably failed upload; the second iteration, composed immediately after in a vain attempt to recover the first, was lost to a sudden crash of a program; the third, a memorial reconstruction of the first two following closely on their heels, appears for now to have succeeded in that it may perhaps pass on beyond its initial composition in the memory of man as assisted by computer.

It almost goes without saying in the context of this blog that these were sonnets. The rhyme scheme (in this case ABBACDDCEFFEGG) was an undoubted aid to memory, as was the meter (iambic pentameter). Yet I could fundamentally feel the sonnet shifting as I attempted to rewrite it from immediate memory. Some of these changes were no doubt improvements that I should rather have preferred to retain in the poem; most were likely neutral; some few may have impaired it. Yet unquestionably and perhaps unreasonably I was annoyed. I wanted that first sonnet, and I wanted to make any changes deliberately and with due consideration, not by the force of a faulty memory. But most of all I wanted my authentic reaction to the stimuli that produced the sonnet, and so I thought its loss might be an excellent reason to discuss, or at least begin discussion of, two topics I have been looking forward to treating here: sincerity and inspiration.

To treat them in the reverse order just mentioned: the inspiration for a sonnet can, of course, come from anywhere. Anything associated with any of the common themes of poetry - or anything not associated with those themes - can serve as an inspiration for a poem. Young love, the flowers that bloom in the spring (tra-la), and death, but also garbage collection, an odd crack in the sidewalk, and a lightbulb can be inspirations for poetry. But that's not particularly useful to hear is it? It's practically a commonplace. What's more interesting, at least to me, is what to do when inspiration does strike, whatever it happens to be triggered by, and the relationship between that inspiration and the final poem-product (or at least the initial poem-product; editing is an issue for another day).

For the former, I am a great proponent of writing right then as the moment strikes. This may be because I used to try to bottle up the feeling and express it later, and failed; you may find a different process better for you. But I believe that attempting at least some initial expression of poetry as soon as the inspiration comes tends to produce a result that is substantially different from doing so in later repose (whether better or worse is almost beside the point; after all, you can recollect at leisure, well, at your leisure, and having written initially should never stop you from doing so). The quicksilver nature of that instant expression is unretrievable, and therefore, even if only therefore, worth preserving. The immediate turn to poetry also strengthens, in my opinion, the poetical instinct: you are more likely to find inspiration the more you react to the inspiration you already find.

The relationship between the poem and its inspiration is complex, and I will only scratch the surface here. For me, a poem is in some way intended to crystallize the feelings that inspired it, to take a moment, real or imagined, and preserve it for others, not to marvel at, but to experience or re-experience in the reading of the poem. Whether that moment and those feelings come from a grand high sense of purpose or a fleeting glance at something interesting on a wall is hardly material to this process, although not every moment is one I would prefer to reproduce. The key is an attempt to make subjective experience communicable, to take a thought, a feeling, or even an action and translate it into a form someone else can take and retranslate back into their own life. That's a high aim, and a hard one to meet - and it is part of why I value both the instant flash of inspiration as it turns into poetry and the later recollection in repose; without both forms it can be very difficult to properly digest and present one's own subjective experience. It is for this reason that I was so unhappy about failing to find the original words, because I was losing the link to my initial subjective experience even as I was trying to recast the poem out of memory, because my focus was turning on the poem rather than on the moment I was attempting to capture itself.

Sincerity is an even more vexed topic than inspiration. To what extent should poetry truly mirror life? To what extent should it be a faithful record of truly felt emotion or truly experienced experience? To what extent is it fiction? To what extent is it the imaginative extension of the poet into feelings he or she may or may not have experienced in life and filters through a process of invention (ie fiction again)? I myself have wavered back and forth on this. Clearly, what I said above about crystallizing experience has a strong tinge of the belief that poetry should be an honest reflection of genuinely felt emotion. But I also believe it is possible to attempt to solidify and translate emotions one only imagines; harder, but possible. Somewhat easier is the presentation of an emotion that has been genuinely held in circumstances different from the one in which it was held; emotion redirected is still emotion, and partakes of the same register of human experience. Thus the strong association between sincerity and my views on the process of translating inspiration into poetry is not airtight; and I definitely believe that there is a place for what I would hesitate to call "insincerity," and should perhaps rather call invention or fiction. There have most certainly been times in my life when reading my poetry would have directly followed my emotional state as surely as that of the most stereotypical angsty teenager ever; but there have equally been times when I wrote completely from imagination, and everywhere in between on the spectrum. What is crucial regarding sincerity for me is that the poem, in the moment it is created, should feel sincere to the poet - the emotions, thoughts, and experiences being communicated may be altered, or invented, or even in the original, but they should be communicated in such a way as to communicate how they are making the poet feel in the moment of creation of the poem. This I find solves the crisis, because even the altered or invented emotions can only be said to have been actually altered or invented if they are affecting the poet in the moment of creation. For example, I may not feel the sadness I am attempting to convey; but thinking of the sadness should be invoking a sympathetic response of sadness within me that I can then place into the poem. If my imagination is not strong enough to conjure up the feelings within my breast that I am attempting to convey, then the poem will fall flat. Thus sincerity comes not in its relation to how the poet might feel at a moment of not writing poetry - hence fiction is not only acceptable but standard - but in its relation to how the poet feels in the moment of writing, a moment in which even invented feelings should be making their impact via the keen edge of imagination. Again, this is why I wished for the first poem that I tried to write, as the experience it was intended to convey was slipping away due to my focus on the recovery of the poem rather than the primary experience itself.

Poetry relies on a focus outside of the poem itself, both for inspiration and for the sincere expression of emotion and experience. In losing the first poem, I lost those points as well, and it became difficult to recreate the poem on its own terms. That is the cause of annoyance - not only the loss of the first poem, but the loss of its connection to the initially sincere expression of inspiration.

Pretty as a Picture

A gust of wind and all the leaves fall down;
Another spurt but there is nothing left.
The naked trees are finally bereft
Of what was once a green and growing gown.
The smaller and less vigorously grown
Still cling to stubs of greenery and yet
They must permit the larger trees to set
Their wasted leaves upon them. Freshly thrown,
The dried and curling carpet will arise
With every whisper of the wind. So these,
That fell so statelily down from the trees,
Now reach in vain back up into the skies,
Only to fall, forever tumbling.
Behind their fall there's winter's rumbling.

Askew

Most people won't admit there's beauty there;
She's got the kind of face they do that to:
A slender smile a little bit askew,
A framing fringe of slightly sloppy hair,
A never-vacant, yet not piercing stare
That always made me wonder if she knew
How long I've looked at her, an inch or two
Of dainty cheekbones, in a matching pair,
But not so much as to inspire songs;
Yet when I look at her, they all combine
Into a pattern I cannot deny;
And everything seems right. Her face belongs,
Inside my heart, as well as in my eye,
And when I cannot see her, they both pine.

Sonnet Analysis: Shakespeare I

Well, it's time to go into the bowels of literature and dig out the metaphorical entrails. By why I mean, it's time to tackle (one of) Shakespeare's sonnets. The big 154; the "sugar'd sonnets" circulated among his private friends; the sonnets famously "begotten" by a Mr. W.H. Those bad boys.

Let's start with sonnet 138: "When my love swears that she is made of truth."

When my love swears that she is made of truth
I do believe her, though I know she lies,
That she might thinks me some untutored youth
Unlearned in the world's false subtleties.
Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,
Although I know my years are past the best,
Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue;
On both sides, then, is simple truth suppressed.
But wherefore says not she she is unjust?
And wherefore say not I that I am old?
O, love's best habit is in seeming trust
And age in love loves not to have years told.
Therefore I lie with her, and she with me,
And in our faults, by lies we flattered be.

Triumphs:
I should say up-front that this is probably my favorite of Shakespeare's sonnets, although I can never decide if I prefer this one or sonnet 130 "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun." In either case, I adore this sonnet, and so I think there are many triumphs in it. One of the greatest is the use of multiple meanings of the same word within the poem - or more impressively, even in the same use, where the word makes sense in two or more of its potential readings, thus allowing multiple readings of the same line. This effect occurs in line eleven, where "love's best habit" can mean either the best action to which love is accustomed (one sense of habit) or the best (metaphorical) clothing for love (another sense of habit). The latter sense even shades over towards devotional implications via the associations of the word "habit" for clothing with religious orders. That definition of habit is also strengthened by the "seeming trust," which implies some form of alteration or disguise - such as putting on different clothes - but either meaning remains possible, delightfully. The crowning glory here though is line thirteen, where "lie" splits into both "telling a falsehoods" and "having sex with." Obviously, the sense of "lie with" tends towards the latter - it's Biblical, after all - but given the entire sense of the preceding twelve lines and the connective "therefore," it is impossible to dismiss the former in the sense of "tell falsehoods in conjunction with;" that is, that together they are conspiring to lie, and therefore they are lying with each other. It is a glorious double-meaning, and it allows the sonnet to simultaneously turn, by moving slightly away from the theme of falsehood, and stay straight on tack with it.

A related bit of brilliance is represented in the phrases "age in love loves not to have years told" and "vainly thinking that she thinks me young," in which words reappear in slightly different forms with different uses in the sentence. In both cases, this serves to emphasize the importance of that word both in the line and in the poem as a whole; and "lie" (repeated over and over throughout), "love," and "think," echo through the poem with immense power. The implicit negation of one of the two in each of the pairs quoted at the start of this paragraph is also extremely powerful, as it pushes towards, but not does not fall into the trap of, paradox, and draws strength from the association.

I also adore the end-stopped rhythms of this poem. It is not purely end-stopped, of course; the first line is arguably enjambed, so that would be a difficult accusation to make stick. But it manages to feel end-stopped because the couplets are most definitely so, and even what seems like it should be enjambment between those first two lines is also freighted with a little pause for effect, almost enough to call it end-stopped as well. Yet unlike with much end-stopping, which can feel heavy-handed or harsh (and I will have a post on this in the near future), the poem instead draws strength from it. The sense flows so clearly that the end-stopping does not halt the poem, but instead gives weight to the sense of each line individually, nicely balancing what would otherwise be an absolutely blistering pace of rhetorical speed. No line or even word seems wasted; the closest that comes is "simple" in "simple truth," and to call it unnecessary is really to second-guess what was in the author's head to a degree even a critic should shy away from; it fails both tests that I would use in this case, which are as follows: does the concept being modified by the adjective does always possess the property of the adjective (no, there are complex truths) and is the meaning of the poem enhanced by specifying that property (yes, as it is important that the truths they are each denying are indeed simple and obvious to anyone). It also hits the "simply" of "simply I credit" for added emphasis. So even that "simple" is doing its bit to improve the poem, and a poem with no wasted words is one to treasure; and in this case, that lack of waste causes the poem to skip rapidly on its way to the end, only slowed down to a reasonable speed by the weight of the end-stopped lines, which produces an excellent tension within the poem.

Imperfections:
There are few imperfections with this poem; most of what might appear to be imperfections can be more clearly understood as archaisms (for which see below). But sadly there is one point I think appears as an imperfection even in Shakespeare's day, and it appears in the last line. "By lies we flattered be" completes the rhyme, and it is not unusual in Elizabethan or Jacobean poetry to see inversions like this or the replacement of the "are" in "we are flattered" by the infinitive "be" within those inversions. But within a poem that has otherwise avoided any such hiccups in normal word order, even when this was not an archaism it would have seemed a slight blemish, as the resort at last to poetic convention after such a strong beginning cannot help but seem a little forced.

Archaisms:
The greatest archaism is that mentioned above, that "by lies we flattered be" should seem only slightly and not massively discordant with the rest of the poem. Also, the rhyme of "lies" and "subtleties" would have been full in Shakespeare's day rather than slant at the current moment, and the need for "unlearned" to be trisyllabic is definitely archaic. Finally, of course, "lie with" itself has fallen out of use, but it is still definitely recognizable enough to hold its own within the poem. Aside from these minor points, however, the poem holds up quite well to a modern ear; and I think even those imperfect archaisms cannot undermine the ultimate beauty of the poem.

Heat of the Night

A little swelter goes a long, long way
And yet I almost wish there had been more;
To feel as if I'd never felt before
And, in the heat, feeling your waist sashay
Hoping to stretch a little more today
Out of the unforgiving night, to soar
Within the warmth, pouring from every pore
Not sweat but laughter. I would hardly say
That I love boiling, but when I see
You swaying in the mist that's risen from
The smoking bodies that surround us, I
Cannot, though I might wish I could, deny
That you - and this - are everything to me;
And if we're sweltering, well, let it come.

Wondering

When I was smaller, as I used to be,
Wondering was always so much fun;
I'd let my pure imagination run
Across the fields, and then return to me
Delighting me with such inanity
As it might choose; an unignited sun,
A dandelion grown so large that one
Gigantic seed embraced reality
And dwarfed the universe. A silly game.
But as I aged, imagination grew,
And thought of better fictions to invent;
That someone, deep at night, whispered my name.
But I was older, so of course I knew
That truth was one thing that it never sent.

Pasts

There was a moment when I thought you cared;
The world was full of possibility
Which reached with open arms, embracing me.
That fatal hesitation, which I dared
To think was positive, completely snared
My soul and made it undeniably
Yours to dispose of. And so, naturally,
You disposed of it, and I in turn despaired.
That was a long, long time ago by now
And yet I have to harp on it, because
I see the moment looming up again.
You're crushing me again, I'm not sure how -
And yet I'm certain as I ever was -
Just please don't leave me like you left me then.

Mess Hall

The scattered bottles with their missing corks
Spread across the table, wobbling,
Among the crusty spoons, blunt knives, and forks,
Should be reminders, somehow, of something.
Of course I can't remember what it is,
Or even if, whatever it should be,
It had to do with happy champagne's fizz
Or somber chardonnay; perhaps chablis.
I tried to find someone to tell me what
I should remember, but nobody could.
They all were just as ignorant. We shut
The doors upon the mess, and called it good.
And now when I recall that dirty hall
I wonder if we should have cleaned at all.

Sonnet Analysis: My Old Sonnets V

It's time for another trip in the wayback machine, this time with added profanity! This comes from one of the several protracted periods when I was struggling more than usual with how to express emotions simultaneously in modern words and sonnet verse (for evidence that I am always struggling with this issue, see here). This particular case involved attempting to use profanity and simpler sentence structures, as we will examine afterwards in the usual commentary.

Why the fuck am I in love with you?
It would be so much better if I weren't.
I wouldn't envy everything you do
With someone else. I might, in time, have learnt
To be a friend, a good one, and not be
Always desiring more. I love your smile,
But I could do that and not love you, see
You laughing and not feel that all the while
My heart was being torn. It would be nice
To be with you, and not to be in love.
And yet not loving you would be the price,
And that is something I'm protective of -
I love to love you; and that's why I do.
If only you reciprocated too.

What Went Wrong:
This sonnet starts off with a bang. There's "fuck," right in the middle of the first line. Is that a good idea? I'm still unsure. It definitely gets the point of the poem out there immediately, but it's also, I think, a sign of weakness. It says "I have to do this now for you to keep reading," and it says "I couldn't come up with a better way to say this." Now, it's arguable that, since the line is actually quite decent metrically speaking, there doesn't have to be a better way to say it. But certainly there is a measure of desperation there not only on the part of the poem's narrator, which is fine, but of the poet, which is bad. This is the blunt instrument way of incorporating "modern diction" into the poem: short words, and profanity, smacking you in the face really hard as soon as you start reading. Otherwise, there are a couple places where the interaction of the meter and word order seems unfortunate: "always desiring more" almost seems like an afterthought to complete the above rhyme, and "something I'm protective of" doesn't quite feel natural either. The word "love" gets repeated an awful lot; not necessarily enough for it to start losing all meaning, but fairly close. It's interesting to wonder how it relates to the "desiring" in line five or the being "protective" in line twelve, both of which deviate from the dominance of the singular verb love.

Not Too Shabby:
The English rhyme scheme I think fits the blunt Anglo-Saxon theme of this poem. Really only "protective" and "reciprocated" are not simple, everyday words, and they aren't exactly uncommon or out of place. "Learnt" instead of "learned" might go in that category too, although it's really easy to understand and, I personally think, actually a pretty good way to slip out of the rhyme trap of "weren't" while allowing the former, naturally contracted form to appear where it ought to. The poem does a fairly good job of examining the indecision inside its narrator's mind between the advantages of not-loving and the advantage (and apparent necessity) of loving. The balance between lines one and thirteen("Why the fuck am I in love with you" and "I love to love you; and that's why I do") in both sense and rhyme (and repeating the initial rhyme in the couplet is very effective here) not only brings a good sense of closure, or at least completeness, to the poem, but also punches up the effect of the final line, which is tied in with respect to sense and rhyme and yet also manages to stick out because lines one through thirteen have summed themselves up so well. That sticking-out effect in turn emphasizes that final line and gives the sense that it sums up the entire rest of the poem - which of course it does. On a smaller note, I like how the compliments about how pleasant the love object is are buried inside the complaining tone of the poem as a whole.

Diction:
As mentioned, obviously this poem is an attempt to go into more natural or everyday speech rhythms and diction while retaining the sonnet form. I'm not entirely sure how successful it is; metrically it seems to work, although that may be partly because monosyllables are easier to group into iambs than polysyllabic words, and it certainly provides the poem with a punch that can sometimes be lacking, but as I mentioned above there is a sense of a blunt instrument about the means in which it is achieved. Too many monosyllables can weaken a line by undermining its rhythms (after all, a full word receives in a sense full stress, unlike the unaccented syllables of longer words) and too strong of a commitment to avoid longer words can be as stilted as too strong a commitment to include them. I think that overall this is a successful effort, but the weak half-lines mentioned in the first section of analysis in lines six and twelve look like aftereffects of too many monosyllables, which in turn often increase the sheer number of words and push meaning into those enjambed overflow sections. The fact remains, though, that the meter and rhymes both manage to escape largely unharmed by the intended change in rhythm and diction, and the directness of the poem is certainly improved, which seems to me to signal a successful experiment within the terms in which it was created.

Light

A faint electric glow still clings to her
Outlining shadowed spots against the black
Permitting thoughts of things that never were
But inchoately live inside the lack
Of definition in the humming sheen
Which tingles not-quite-yellow drawing me
With shaking hands and thoughts not all unclean
Beyond the bar of my timidity
And yet not fully into open voice;
The flickering discernment it permits
Cannot quite force from me a clearcut choice
Between inaction its opposites.
Yet someday I will break through that, I know,
And bathe myself in her delicious glow.

Train Wreck

It's moving slow enough it shouldn't crash;
I mean, there's so much time to turn away.
This isn't some insane, last-second dash
That goes awry, and makes what once was play
Seem deadly real. No, this was planned ahead,
The path was scouted and the way assured,
But even as it gathered to a head
Before, it seemed, it could not be deferred
The end was obvious - yet it went on,
Into a clear and devastating turn.
Before the flying embers were all gone,
Even before the first small spark could burn
I could see it coming. But no force
Could alter or amend the settled course.

Move On

The hour is late, and yet not late enough
For my desires. Were I master here,
The very clock itself would feel my rough
And forceful grasp, and I would quickly peer
Into the motion of the minute hand
Ordering its march to quicken through the day
That every hour should hasten 'round the band
And time flow faster than right now it may.
Alas, I do not rule the pace of life,
Nor may I bend its passage to my will;
So I am subject to uneven strife
And in my terrors, time seems to stand still.
Move on, move on, and do not look at me;
For I am not what in time I might be.

Mutability

If summer ended before spring began
With winter once again upon its tail;
If evenings ceased to consequently trail
The final moments in which sunshine ran;
If winds would not inevitably fan
The deep-sea trades, and lacklusterly fail
To push ahead the cry "A sail, a sail,"
If Scotsmen should forget their native clan
And league with Englishmen against their kin;
If all of this should pass, and men should be
Discouraged and distempered by the change,
Still I despair that it would rearrange
The painful future that envelops me:
I cannot do what you will not begin.

Help

Is failure to do everything a sin?
Does every moment that we eat, or sleep,
Indulge in simple pleasures, or let in
A moment of calm contemplation, keep
Away true holiness, because we fail
To reach out to our neighbors? If we spend
A moment for ourselves, are we but pale
And lifeless imitations of the end
We were supposed to reach? Must we exist
To solely aid our fellow-creatures, or
Can we excuse the chances we have missed
To help them by suggesting that the more
We cultivate and grow as people, we
Will be more help in our futurity?

Aridity

What is a thunderstorm if no rain falls,
And nothing washes down into the sea?
If nothing changes, can it really be
A thunderstorm, whose very echo calls
On memories of sudden waterfalls
Exploding on the unprepared? Can we
Imagine thunder without rain, or see
A dark, uncloudy sky, within which crawls
No streak of lightning, while we hear the crash
And still believe the thunder that we hear?
Or must we think it is imagination
That conjures up the noise without the splash
Of raindrops on the street? There is elation
In empty thunderstorms - but also fear.

Mint

Unreasonably, the place still smells of mint.
I told you that that scent gets everywhere.
It isn't overwhelming, just a hint
Of memory, that says you once were there.
It whispers in my nostrils as I pace
Whole evenings out because I cannot rest
While it reminds me of the missing grace
Which you supplied. This almost welcome guest
Still haunts me, though the cause of it is gone,
And yet I smile as I sniff it out;
It's nice to think, while you are moving on,
That something of you lingers with the doubt
Which will not leave me. So I do not clean
To keep the smell where it has always been.