Dauphin's

Wonder of nature, far beyond compare,
Made first and best, the awe of every eye,
In whom all gifts of loving virtue lie
Beyond the bounds of any other, fair
And more than so, object of every stare,
The paragon of loveliness, whom I
Am slave and captive to, defy
The torn and tattered customs by whose care
Your grace and pure delight are kept from me.
Be mine, mine only, and be my sole love;
Do not be strange from what my heart desires.
Be the sole image and perfection of
The adoration which reciprocally
Burns in us both, consumed by loving fires.

Foundation

Ah, Selden, Selden. Selden is a myth.
A fairy tale to tell our little boys.
A fantasy, fit to be talked of with
The Easter Bunny. "He foretold our joys,
Our sorrows and our ends. He will appear
When we most need him, to direct our course."
What hogwash. People live in fear
Of what he'll say, but tell me, what's the force
Of eighty- or one-hundred-year-old words
Spoken by a ghost up on a screen?
He will not come. The superstitious herds
Will wait for nothing. Wait, what have you seen?
A tape recording, nothing more. What now?
He knew? He what? He couldn't have. But how?

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Seasonal

The tastes of autumn now have given way
To winter flavors, deeper, more intense.
The falling leaves now stand for yesterday
While snowdrifts pile up against the fence.
We wander almost blinded by the cold
Among the relics of a broken fall,
Which now seem sadder, as they melt away.
The days are shorter, and the nights feel old
Before they reach their limit; a thick shawl
Of darkness covers up the start of day,
As if for comfort. Winds that once were breezes
Now chill us deep inside, where we light fires
To push away the fear. As winter freezes
We will forget the hope that spring inspires.

Cave Canem

I write you youthful poetry, with rhymes
Determined independently of sense,
And phrases hyperbolic. In the chimes
Of over-ringing verse, I hear the tense
Ecstatic clamorings of puppy love
Which cannot self-imagine as mature
But must be, as it is, the image of
What later passions will deny they were:
Enthusiastic and unthinkingly
Prepared to swear to anything. Should I
Condemn this feeling, or at least this verse,
As representing what I shouldn't be?
Or can I safely to myself rehearse
The shopworn practice of a lover's sigh?

Pause

The need for patience never seems to end
Though my desire for it is long gone;
It came, and simply lingers on and on
And thus recursively appears to lend
A self-necessity to patience too:
I must be patient with its own self-need,
Ignore my inner yearnings, and not heed
The siren song rushing after you.
I still must wait, though waiting is so long,
And stiffen up my sinews to the test;
Although I know what's long-looked-for is best,
I sometimes doubt my power to be strong.
I wait, and try to do it calmly, but
I can't deny the anguish in my gut.

Flight

I have a hope; if you give me a sign
That indicates that hope may be achieved,
Those two in one endeavor to combine
To make a wonder, never quite believed,
But no less magical for that. I breathe
A better air because it might be true,
And so I will no longer sigh and seethe
From thwarted hope, but rather think of you,
Happily reminded that despite
The shock your sign inspires, it yet might
Convey the truth, and thereby set me free
From doubt and disappointment evermore.
If you could do this little thing for me,
One sign, my hope would cease to sink; and soar.

Compare

I search among the fauna and the flora
Seeking a good comparison for you;
The lion fails, you don't posses his roar (a
Positive, I must confess) nor do
The bees or birds present me any chance
For apt creation of a simile;
The lesser mammals neither: each one pants
An indication of a low degree
Of grace and sprezzatura, which define
Your very essence; therefore they cannot
Be placed as equal to you. I incline
To this opinion: you are self-begot
And being so, unique. I think you so
Because you are best person I know.

Spending

I sometimes think there's only so much time
To do what I desire. Yes, it's true,
But just how true? I waste some hours in rhyme;
They are forever gone. Should I then rue
Such frivolous, unserious pursuits?
Or should I choose them, just to prove the point
That chosen leisure bears more joyful fruits
Than overearnestness. Would that anoint
Those hours otherwise implied a waste
With greater value in the public eye?
Or would the appetite, from such a taste
Of leisure time, grow larger, and defy
All later hope of pruning? Either way
There's only so much time inside a day.

Disbelief

I could be content that way, I think.
It would be nice to have a certainty,
A definition. I can sometimes wink
At certain points that always seem to be
Off-kilter, but I would prefer to know,
And know undoubtedly. To live in fear
Of what may change is not my way, and so
I think I'd be content. It may seem queer
To give so much up for that clarity,
But those who think so do not understand
The way I think. I am incredibly
Conservative that way, and so I stand
More happily in certainty. I choose
Not what may win, but what will never lose.

Basics

As easy as it is to be with you
I cannot tell if it is good for me.
I often think, of course, that it should be,
But I'm not certain if that's really true.
I know, indeed, that I would want it to
Be how it is, but I can't really see
If it is so. It's obvious that we
Enjoy each other, and I'm glad we do,
But in a larger sense, I do not know
If this is good. I hope it is, of course,
And as I notice our affections grow
I feel the fear of an unjust divorce
Between us. It would have to be by force,
And yet perhaps it would be better so.

Dough

It crumbles in my hands as I reach out
And grasp it. Even as I try to hold
Myself and it together, I must doubt
The possibility of doing so. I'm cold
And not just from the temperature outside.
I fumble wildly, in hope unjustified
By any real foundation that I could
Be able to reconstitute it, save
What should have been, as I imagined, good
Out of the mess I've made. Weary, I crave
Some little indication I might be
Successful; but my doubt is stronger than
The hope inside me. With finality
I must set by the project I began.

On Different Types of Rhyme

So having defined a rhyme scheme, it occurs to me that we require another definition to make sense of that one: the definition of a rhyme.

I have in most of my definitional work here used the term rhyme sound rather than simply rhyme. This was not only to avoid confusion between too many uses of the single word rhyme, but also to define a rhyme in a sonnet against a specific type of rhyme, the eye rhyme. This "rhyme" is not a proper rhyme, as the words involved will have explicitly different sounds. Rather, the eye rhyme consists of two words that share a spelling of their final syllables but not the sound, and so look like they should rhyme (hence the name) but do not. Home and come, plough and tough, c'est and west: these are all eye rhymes. The definition can expand a little to include spellings that, while not identical, still look to the eyes like they would normally be pronounced the same way: Illinois and annoys, for instance. In any case, these are not rhymes, at least for the purposes of the sonnet, whose name, meaning "little song," serves as a hint to its primary concern with sound rather than sight. That does not mean they cannot be used for effect; rather, if they are, it means the two falsely rhymed words should be actually rhymed (obviously with different words) as well.

With that behind us, there are also differences in actual rhymes to be considered. The key one is the difference between masculine (one-syllable) and feminine (two-syllable) rhymes. A masculine rhyme has the same sound only in the last or only syllable of the final word: lady/baby, scorn/horn, school/fool, to borrow from Shakespeare's Benedick. A feminine rhyme has the same sound in the last two syllables of the word: assigner/diviner, wining/dining, carry/marry. It can also be created by adding the same word (or homonyms) to the end of two otherwise masculine rhymes: want to/haunt too, to be/newbie, cram it/damn it.

The main difference between the use of these rhyme types is in the flow of the poem: feminine rhymes, by using more syllables in the rhyme, emphasize the interconnectedness of the lines, and speed the reader through the poem by making more syllables predictable in some way; masculine rhymes are almost default, being easier, but therefore almost serve to get out of the reader's way, making the rhyming less marked. A feminine rhyme within enjambment is very marked to the reader, where an enjambed masculine rhyme has a very light touch. Poems may and should freely intermix types of (actual) rhymes for intentional effect. It is worth noting, finally, that feminine rhymes are less marked in feminine (11-syllable in iambic pentameter) lines, as the extra syllable is swallowed into the rhyme.

Growth

I am like a fungus; I expand
To fill whatever space appears to me.
I will not cease until I understand
What limits to expansion there may be:
I talk until the clock is all unwound,
And only let my listener depart
When I have talked his ear into the ground,
I let my eye as fulsomely endart
As those I look on will allow it leave,
And spread my person wide as it can go.
I do so much, and more, without reprieve,
Despite the fact I know that I should know
Better. But I can't stop. I do
Only as I've been accustomed to.

Tales

There have been stories like to ours ere now;
Tales told by fires at the set of sun
Of men who loved, and who, and often how,
And what became of them when they were done,
Of women and the loves they came to take
And hold, and sometimes even make their own,
Of others, following within their wake,
Who had to hear the lovers sigh and moan.
Which shall we choose? Shall we be lovers, then,
And sing our sorrows (and our joys) betimes?
Shall I write sonnets to you once again,
And glory you within their cloying rhymes?
Or shall we be the others, and observe
How lovers act, and what they should deserve?

Odyssey

Indeed my lord, I had imagined such
A scene might greet me if I hastened home.
But, being as I am, I think too much,
And far too much for one enforced to roam
Across such distant seas. I cannot spend
My endless hours studying the deep
In contemplation of what life may send
To help my wife into a gentle sleep.
If she is warm without me, who am I
To keep from one I love a useful thing?
If not, why then my lord I wonder why
You urge me so to question if my ring
Will hold her true. And though she should desire
I choose to think she warms her by the fire.

Blasts

I feel the wind that whistles all around
Interpenetrative, howling
As if production of so great a sound
Established its importance. Anything
That seeks ennoblement by such a means
I do disdain, and shall reject therefore;
So even as the angry tempest keens
I push it out of mind, and from the door
I walk with head held high and chest erect,
Ignoring all the force it wastes on me.
I do not claim to not feel its effect
But that does not mean I submit. I free
My mind from my own body's tight control:
Come, wind, and see if you can chill my soul.

Delays

Time is of the essence. Or it was.
Now I can spend a liberal largesse
Of it. I used to hear the constant buzz
Of possibilities in great excess
Passing away unrealized, but now
I twiddle hours away unwillingly.
I would be active, but instead must bow
To stern necessity, which calls on me
To waste myself. I hate the tiny crawl
Of minutes that were once there to be used
But now are useless, empty, pointless all
As if instead of time, now I'm abused
And bored beyond belief. I notice I'm
The subject, not the sovereign, of my time.

Introduction to the Sonnet IX: Rhyme Schemes

So I previously mentioned that a sonnet is a poem with a rhyme scheme. However, that definition is useless unless a rhyme scheme is in turn defined, which I intend to do here. I will begin by defining a rhyme scheme in general and then turn to rhyme schemes and the sonnet.

A rhyme scheme is any organization of the final sounds in a poem. Theoretically this includes rhyme schemes without any rhyme (Ezra Pound springs to mind) but as a practical matter there must be rhymes; and usually at least as many rhymed lines as unrhymed (ABCB is a common ballad rhyme scheme for instance, and the previous post mentioned the ABABCDCDEFEFGG rhyme scheme of an English sonnet). A rhyme scheme expressed in this manner (with letters standing in for different rhyme sounds ending lines) is a useful tool for seeing how a poet has organized a poem, particulary as regards sound, flow, and interaction between lines.

Sonnets have certain traditional rhyme schemes (the Italian and English sonnet styles, with their 8/6 and 4/4/4/2 splits between similarly patterned sections are the two major ones) and certain conventions regarding what is and is not acceptable outside of those traditions. For instance, all the lines should rhyme with at least one other line; no ABCB unless there's another A and C rhyme in there later or earlier. Also, usually (but less rigorously), these rhymes should be close together; it is vanishingly rare to see more than 4 lines between a rhyme sound and its nearest rhyme, and most common to see 0, 1 or 2. Couplets (AA) are acceptable, triplets (AAA) rare and any longer string basically nonexistent; couplets are rarely followed by another couplet, unless locked into something like the Italian ABBAABBA. AABBCCDDEEFFGG is only arguably a sonnet; interlocking of rhymes is highly prized within the form, as it forces the poem's lines out of hermetically sealed little rhyme boxes into a larger poem-as-a-whole form. If one does flout that convention, enjambment is a practical necessity; seven heroic couplets do not a sonnet make. Finally, repetition of rhyme sounds is perfectly fine (as an "English" sonnet going ABABCDCDEAEADD) so long as it does not turn into long strings of the same sound (once more, no AAAA). Within these rules there is great flexibility, as I hope is demonstrated by at least some of the sonnets I post here.

Worldslip

Warm next to you, I sigh the world away
Contentedly, and let it wander by.
I do not moan, I do not wonder why
At least, not too much. We consume the day
In quiet joy, which works well to allay
The cares and common worries that suck dry
Too-busy moments. As I sit and sigh
There's no impatience. I feel no delay
In any other business; it all falls
Behind me, unimportant. You are there,
Contented by my side, and all is well.
My phone is off, and I'll receive no calls,
The internet is resting for a spell
And you are all my joy, and all my care.

Being Bygones

Do you remember how it used to be
When everything was wonderful and new,
And everything was filtered through the view
Of youthful happiness, which we could see
Seeming to stretch into infinity?
I can recall, when I was next to you
Feeling like one invented out of two,
A sense of some immense serenity
That loomed within us both. Where did that go?
When did we stop? We used to be so mad
For one another, wrapped in either's eyes,
But now we rove, and wander to and fro
In search of those delights I know we had
Once, in a world of bygone lovers' sighs.

Demonology

And if I had, what would you give me then?
Applause or adulation, trust or love
Will not assist me. I have heard of men
As nimble as the ape, light as the dove,
And valiant as the lion who received
As much or more than you have offered me
(By implication only) and believed
That such was all they needed. I would be
A massive fool to think as they have thought.
I know the dangers, and have counted them;
I know what sort of demon you have brought
Out of the nether hells. I hold the gem.
Trifle not with me. Seek not control.
I hold the very innards of your soul.

Pictured

The trunk is dark; there is no light around
To light the leaves, yet there they glow. Alive,
Though on the edge of death, they self-surround
With soft, despondent light, so as they dive
Down to the pavement, to rejoin their friends,
They may be seen. And yet they still remain,
Unwilling to complete their threatened ends,
To wash in common down to clog the drain,
Visible only in the overflow
Proceeding from them. Still they stand erect
And glory for a moment in their glow,
Perfect and proud. Too soon they'll be abject
Sorry and forgotten; now they stand
Unfallen, and, for one brief moment, grand.

State

I understate emotions so damn much
You can't imagine. Everything I say
Should be turned up; I use it as a crutch
Saying "I could be," or "I might," "I may,"
Where I am certain, making nothing out
Of what is everything. I cannot seem
To speak definitively, without doubt
Even when I am. Desires teem
Within me, but they will not be expressed;
I'm almost silent when called on to speak
About myself. If I have overstressed
This tendency, to make myself seem weak
That's merely evidence of what I've said;
Emotions stay locked up inside my head.

Notes

I thought one day that you might know the score
And understand it, note by note. You know
I cannot read the music, so before
I sing my way around it I must go
To those who can; and so I went to you.
You messed about a bit, and spoke to me
Of intervals and octaves, what to do
When I was flat, which I would often be,
How to correct a false note to a true,
And how the pauses in the lyrics fit
Into the music; when I was ready to
We sang together, and we mastered it.
It was a shock, on top of everything
To later on discover you can't sing.

Sea-change

Serene I was, but calm I am no more;
Self-satisfied, but now made ill at ease.
I once sat quietly and would ignore
All outer influence, but by degrees
That inner peace has worn itself to bits
And what was once a calm composure turns
To wild excitement and ecstatic fits;
The cold dispassion now with madness burns.
What once was simple, plain, wholly aloof
Is all unmade, and sanity is lost;
I need adduce to this no further proof
Of what has changed, and at how high a cost
Than to declare, before, I saw this view
And scenery appeared: now, only you.

Generic

O, if you only knew how much I feel!
But is the quantity all that will serve
To recommend me? Am I such a heel
That I cannot pretend to well deserve
The love that I would beg from you until
The volume of my love has been explained?
Can I imagine that love ever will
Be truly worth it if it has been gained
By mere excess of exhibition? No.
I do not wish to think so. Rather I
Desire to explain because I know
The greatness of my feeling may imply
The quality as well as quantity
Of what I feel: and that's as it should be.

Autumns

The long grey afternoons that stretch out wide
Before the blackness of the frightened night,
When flattened shadows emphasize the light
That floats, directionless, almost implied
Rather than seen, inside the sky, and slide
Around the lampposts, not quite bright
And not quite totally turned off: they might,
In some alternative strange underside
To our own universe, be turbulent
Rolling with forked lightning, wild, extreme;
But as it is, their languor will prevent
The excess of imagination's dream
And curtail pure invention. They seem meant
To make extravagance blow off like steam.

Where

Insistent worrying will trouble me
As long as I do not know where you are.
I know, of course, where I think you should be
But when I look, I find you must be far
From there, or else you would be seen. I know
You are your own, but wherefore should you go?
Did I do something that drove you away?
If so it was an unintended fault.
If not, I beg you, please return and stay.
But if you must depart, and cannot halt,
At least declare why you have gone and where;
Allow me so much knowledge, so I might
At least wish for your joy while you are there
And I alone must spend this frigid night.

Best

The best are boring. Usually, that is.
They always know what they are doing next,
Write perfect papers, ace the daily quiz,
Understand the world, are never vexed,
And dance across the world as in a dream.
Sometimes those people make me want to scream,
But then I wonder: what must it be like
To never worry, never have a doubt,
To see disaster coming down the pike
And know it's not for you? To only shout
Because of joy, not sorrow or despair?
Does happiness become monotony?
It must be hard to joy and never share
Because you worry about others' jealousy.

Pronunciation

Hearing you wrongly pronounce a word,
Or laugh, the way you always used to laugh,
High, in a pealing burble, like a bird
Cooing to an unseen better half
As yet not fully wooed, or seeing you
Rustle with an urgent sense of need
For something hardly worth a big to-do
Like that same bird exploring for birdseed
Upon an empty pavement, wondering
If you could see me laugh (my own strange way)
At you and your delightful blundering,
And if you did, what nonsense I would say
To interest you; doing this I recall
The reason that I love you after all.

Saccharine

There could be times, within the years
That spread perspectively before
My weary eye, when ceaseless tears
Devour all of me, and more,
When silence lonely as the grave
Describes itself within my breast
And everything seems useless save
The hope for undetermined rest
Which will not come, no matter how
Assiduous I am to seek
The end of all. I will not now
Believe, however, in such bleak
Imaginations. I am sure
Despite it all, we will endure.

From Yeats

Passive suffering is not a theme
For poetry. Is, then, passivity
A useless pose, mere emptiness extreme,
No more, and unavailing, pointlessly
Positioning itself (if one can say
An inactivity can place itself at all)
Within the void, refusing every ray
Of light that promises a likely fall
In favor of a dark infinity
Unlit and motionless? Can we accept
(Unpassively, somehow) that there can be
No virtue in such suffering except
What action may accrue? Not so. I will
Write poetry upon that subject still.

Procrastinate

I swear I'll finish at some point soon.
It's just a bother now. I promise you
That whether by the twinkling of the moon
Or underneath the sun, I will not do
What I have done before: procrastinate,
Put off and then excusing my putting off,
Be hesitant and tardy, stop and wait,
And, being questioned, with a little scoff
Demean my questioner. I will endeavour
To finish, and, when I have reached my goal,
To take it as a model to persever
And not allow my late-arriving soul
To dawdle any longer. Do not laugh;
I'm really almost done. Well, OK, half.

Snowy

There should be snow. At wintertime at least
It ought to be there, invitingly white,
Pure and serene, flowingly uncreased
By wind or footprints, glowing in the night
With some almost internal ambience
Scattering the small rays of the moon
As of they were its own (and in a sense
They are, for moonlight and the upswept dune
Of never-melted snow are closeknit kin).
Without the snow the asphalt and the dirt
Are naked and exposed; bring snowfall in
And let it dress them in its blouse and skirt
And all is bright and beautiful. Let fall
The snow, and let the winter cover all.

Thanks

I likely should discuss thanksgiving here
And fellowship, and joy to all mankind.
I should revile those who are resigned
To parsimony, enmity and fear,
While lauding those who, far away and near,
Spread love and happiness where they can find
Occasion. I should love the good and kind
And sing their praises so that they can hear.
But wherefore should I be predictable
And choose my sides by what others affect?
I know it may not be traditional
But I choose for myself, and I elect
To say, despite thanksgiving, I am full
Of angst and ire, and therefore imperfect.

Seeking

Where are the eyes whose meeting mine enflamed
My senses and made me, as if insane
(Which I would not deny if it were claimed)
Start all about in mimicry of pain
Despite being unhurt - well, bodily.
Where is the face that I would contemplate
As if my eyes would strike, and cease to see,
Should I have looked away. Why must I wait
For heaven? Or if heaven will not come,
And I, poor soul, can't seek it on my own,
Must I perforce remain blind, deaf, and dumb,
(For if I am without you, and alone,
Those sense have no purpose)? If I must,
Tell me why I should not call you unjust?

Asensual

Desire is stronger than weak principle
Which close behind it, scoldingly,
But never can restrain it. Risible,
Pathetic and downtrodden heavily
Poor principle must trail behind its foe
Forever crying out against excess
But never being able to say no
Effectively. Despondent sans success
It seems as if the principle must sink
Into oblivion. Yet it cannot
For without principles to make a stink
How could desire joy in what it got?
This symbiosis might in turn suggest
A lack of both is possible, and best.

Telling

Why I can smile, and cry behind the smile,
Though none but I will ever see the tears.
I can be jolly, dying all the while
Or hum a happy tune while trouble nears.
A brilliant grin can quite conceal my mind
Which fills with fears instead of happiness,
Concealing heartache in a face unlined
Or even seeming joyous in excess.
I will not lie, but need not be too clear;
When I remain unasked, no one can tell.
I have the necessaries to appear
When most uneasy, as if I were well.
And yet I know behind the smile and grin
You can decipher what true state I'm in.

Adjustments

How would happiness appear in verse?
When wistfulness and sadness are at bay,
And darkness breaks to sunshine and full day,
When everything insists I should rehearse
My blessings, and no longer look to curse,
What should I write? What do I have to say
In happiness, accustomed to defray
My sadness in my poetry? The worse
My view of life, the better poetry
Has run itself through me; how to adjust
To sounds of joy? Yet change my tune I must,
For I am happy. I will have to see
What comes of this, and practicing, I trust,
Will let me write good poems happily.

Advisors

It's far too simple to ask what to do
Without investigating it myself.
The unasked part is whom to listen to
And whose advice to leave up on the shelf
Unread, unnoticed, totally ignored.
I ought to listen (though I often don't)
To whether my own thoughts with one accord
Suggest a path; since indecision won't
Allow that option, then I ought to ask
If those whom I demand my answers of
Know me, and know my problems or my task
As well as I do, if they truly love
The same things as myself. Instead I flail
And, asking the wrong questions, often fail.

How

I'm good at pining. That is what I do:
I pick somebody unattainable
Assume them perfect, lovely, beautiful,
And set about impossibly to woo.
I do not properly attempt to sue
For their goodwill; that isn't possible
Because for reasons I don't choose to mull
I chose them to be so, and therefore knew
My hopes, such as they were, were doomed before
I started. Now how can I, knowing this,
Accept a world in which I might adore
A person whose affections might return
My own and thereby grant me some small bliss
And some deliverance from how I yearn?

The Last Castle

I do not keep a phane, nor do I wish
To have a mek produce my work for me.
If I desire food, then I will fish,
Or farm, or hunt to gain it usefully.
The height of art can be achieved outside;
High castle walls but stifle up the will,
Encourage pointless enmity and pride
And bore the honest spirit. I can fill
My heart with song and happiness enough
Here in the plains, among my fellow man;
To live like this is better, although rough,
Than cultured nothingness. And if I can
I'll raise a functioning community
Outside the walls in peace and harmony.

Overserious

I talk, but don't say anything at all
So often I've forgotten what it takes
To have real content. I lower the stakes
By blathering about coming snowfall,
The quality of warmth within a shawl,
Geography surrounding the Great Lakes,
And such light things; my courage almost breaks
When called upon to cease this lengthy stall
And speak directly to the point. Can I
Remember how to talk of how I feel,
The details of desires and decisions,
The causes of my errors and misprisions,
Or anything important, vital, real?
I cannot tell, but I will swear to try.

Several Songs

I wrote a thousand sonnets ere I wrote
A single one for you; a thousand more
Will very likely from my fingers pour
After, for you, I sing my final note.
You did not teach me to sing, or emote,
Nor even to admire or adore,
My songs to you are but a mild encore
Of what has passed before out of my throat.
But mere priority or termination
Is not the point of anything I do;
To be first, last, or of longest duration
Is then to take too giant of a view.
You should not so discount the pure elation
That energized what I composed for you.

Advice

Everything is going to be OK
It really is. I wouldn't lie to you.
I know that's just the sort of thing I'd say
To make you feel good if I wanted to
Which I do, but it's the truth as well;
You know what you are doing, what to do,
And though right now you feel like you're in hell
What I said stands, and you should know it's true:
It's going to be OK. It looks bad now,
But things have looked that way before. You're still
Capable of doing this. Somehow
(And in your heart you know that how) you will
Succeed. It's going to be OK. Chill out.
It's normal to have troubles and to doubt.

Ice

I should have left before, when it was better;
I'd hoped it would stay warmer, more inviting,
The wind somewhat less shrill, somewhat less biting,
The overall effect, which now is wetter,
A wee bit drier, and the icy fetter
Of darkness outrageous; fear-exciting
Blasts from the Arctic would not be alighting
On my frail shoulders. All this, to the letter,
Is what I hoped would not be but is brewing
While others who were wiser, faster, smarter
Have fled the area and stand in sweet
Delightful places. I should now be ruing
My choice; but that was always a two-parter:
By staying here I made sure that we'd meet.

Dreaming

Dreams have no substance, though we, half-awake,
Imagine them to be more than they are.
The part of us that thinks we ought to take
Advice and understanding from such far-
Fetched bits of nothingness is just as wild
As that which wonders if the sky will fall
Or plans according to the zodiac.
There is no sin in dreaming; any child
Who does not dream and listen to the call
Of rambling invention feels the lack
Of true humanity. We grow, however,
And should know better than our youthful selves.
Why then is it that my own heart could never
Put aside dreams of wizards, dwarves, and elves?

Dallas

I wasn't there. I couldn't have been, yet
Something about it makes me want to weep.
I don't remember where I was, or set
A minute as memorial to keep
That memory alive. I did not live
The agony or anguish of that day
Nor did I know the hope that he could give;
Therefore I did not feel it torn away.
I think I understand what, in his time,
He did, and what it meant, in concrete terms,
But I did not experience the crime
Nor feel potential turn to food for worms.
He was a symbol; symbols, when they fall,
Can only be known partly, if at all.

Palimpsest

So much of what was written has been lost
And yet we think so much of what remains.
Time marches on at an enormous cost
But it cannot be stopped. What it retains
Is not the best, the holiest, the high,
But rather that which happened to be placed
By lucky chance in caches that stayed dry
While all around their fellows were erased
By time's great flood of minutes and of hours
Devastating all it touched. Do not
Imagine there are undiscovered powers
Or mighty secrets hidden in the thought
That we have lost; what's lost are hopes and dreams
We keep the knowledge sans the human themes.

Merlin

Old men forget, and I was born too old
To feel, or to remember what was felt
In younger days I never had. The cold
Blood flowing in my veins would never melt,
Nor did I recollect a time it could.
I live, and lived, in age beyond my years
Counting the longer vision always good
And shorter joys ephemeral. My fears
Were ever of a life untimely wasted,
Not of the joys still covered and untasted;
I lived in knowledge of mortality
And constant search of comfort and of rest.
I do not mellow toward maturity
But from it, and toward energy and zest.

The Big Front Yard

No, sir, you can't come in. It's my house, buddy.
So what if my front door leads far away?
That doesn't make it yours. Your shoes are muddy;
Get them off my porch. They came to say
They'll trade ideas. They didn't come to you.
It's my front door, and where it opens ain't
Your business. It's my property. My view
Might look on other worlds, but that can't taint
My right of property. I say it's mine,
And you can't enter it if I say no.
I like these newcomers, I like them fine,
But unlike you they know when they should go.
I'll talk to 'em, and dicker. It's not hard.
But you won't ever see my big front yard.

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Shapeshifter

The instant transformation of a man
Into a thousand images of God
A minstrel in a busy caravan
Clad all in motley, or, in armor odd
Armed with a weapon yet unknown, unmade,
Almost unthought, a honest officer
Of some dishonest empire, or, frayed
And dirt-caked, with a stomacher
Ripped and disheveled, some new party guest
Arriving unexpected, undesired:
Any of these, or more, whatever's best
To imitate a past that once transpired
Or futures yet to come, he is, and yet is not
A son no mother knows if she begot.

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Parlez Bas

Excusez-moi, monsieur; parlez anglais?
Oh, that's much better. Thanks. The French out here...
Bonjour monsieur...they're uppity, I say,
They think we ought to...well, it's kinda queer.
Non, s'il vous plaît, c'est le votre...they tell
Us what to do, they think they own the place
When just a little while ago - oh hell,
A month ago, I'd say it to his face
Their leader was a...non, non, pas le mien...
A no-account, a busybody. Now?
He's everything, and we must...bien, bien...
We must obey him, as if he somehow
Were made a god. And we'll be sent away
If anyone knows we parlez anglais.

Cycles

I keep too tight control in many ways;
I will not falter and I cannot bend.
Upon occasion this possession frays
But in the main I find my problems tend
To follow from a surplus of distinct
Intentionality, an overplan.
I do not run amock with wild instinct
But hold in place my better part of man
Which, running riot over my intent,
Exceeds itself and causes what it cures:
What I control is what I must lament
And lamentation of itself ensures
Further control, and onward, ever on...
Would I be safe if my control were gone?

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Torturer

The mind is heavy with its discontent
And therefore hangs the head upon the floor.
The arms are aching and the feet are sore
From violent exertion, which was meant
To thrust away the truth, and to prevent
The realization tugging evermore
Upon the senses. For a grim encore
After this exhaustion has been spent
Both mind and body will again attempt
To throw the pain onto another's heart
(Sad ritual) and, failing, fall again;
Unpitied, it cannot itself exempt
From those it tortures, and must play a part
In what it used to cause in other men.

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Chills

I could insist I did not feel the cold
Or argue, though I did, I didn't care;
It's possible that I might say the air
Was bright inside the darkness, or unfold
A legend of how stars of burnished gold
Floated before me. I, perhaps, may dare
To claim that there was music everywhere
And dancing in the streets; I am that bold.
But none of it is true. The wind still freezes
The forecast, though it does not call for rain,
Prepares me for a drop in temperature.
The combination of the chill and breezes
Is harsh indeed. But I can bear the pain
Because I know at last that I'm with her.

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The Run

A little humour goes a long, long way
Or so experience will teach us soon.
I do not mean, and this is not to say,
That I want nothing but heavy tune,
A deep discussion of the day's events
Or serious considerations of
The dark and dank things that the mind invents
Within the grips of unrequited love.
No, no, I long to hear the fiddle scream,
Hear dancing feet and laughter in the air;
To be forever happy is my dream
And I have no intent to die from care.
But leaven time with humour - do not spend
Too much on it, for it is means, not end.

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Pentameter

Pentameter pentameter (a line)
Pentameter pentameter (one more)
Pentameters pentameters define
Pentameter (another as before)
Pentameter pentameter iamb
Pentameter pentameter again
Pentameter pentameter enjamb
-Ment makes pentameters, but then
Pentameter pentameter (and on)
Pentameters pentameters (an end)
Pentameter pentameter (they're gone)
Pentameter pentameter (they lend
A bit of music: but repeat too much
And they'll become too obvious a crutch).

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Wanting

I wonder: do I want to be myself?
Or would I rather be some fantasy,
A paladin, a wood-nymph, or an elf
Wrapped in the mantle of eternity,
Ready for all, yet overlooking Earth
With a dispassion born of endless years,
Observing its inhabitants (no dearth
Of fools among them), their fears,
Their loves, their interests, with an honest eye,
Appraising them and truly knowing them
Better than they know themselves? No, I
Would rather sit at home, and haw and hem
And wander darkling in my own small mind
Sitting by you, and by your love defined.

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Harvest

It's easier to let things pass you by
Than take a stand and choose to intervene;
It's hard to stand up, say "That's what I mean,
And I won't take it anymore." To shy
Away from conflict, not to even try
To change a thing, to never show a lean
One way or another - that's the clean
And easy way to do things. Don't ask why
Or get too interested - that way lies
A danger you don't know, or want to know.
It's simpler, when a friend whimpers or cries
To say "it's not my business" and just go.
But that's unfair; to reap good you must sow,
So dry the teardrops from their crying eyes.

Seance II

This afternoon was quite productive. You
Weren't there, but then you might as well have been.
Without your presence constantly in view
I would have no idea where to begin,
Much less where to proceed, having begun.
Your spirit hovered over what was done,
And there was no one, no, not even me
Had quite so much to do with what occurred;
I wonder if you, telepathically,
Were present, and if so, whether you heard
The words I spoke alone, while you were there
Only in spirit; if you did, then good.
But if, as I suspect, you're unaware
Then I will tell you, as I said I would.

Dispositions

I'm almost scared to whisper what I think
Although, for once, this time it's positive,
For fear that speech will all to quickly sink
Into a statement that's dispositive
Declaring what I want and what I need
(Strange concept that) and thus allowing you
The total plummet of my heart, indeed,
My soul as well, all open to your view.
Why should I fear? Because the past remains
A blot upon my openness and trust;
it's not your fault: you did not cause those pains
But they existed, and therefore they encrust
My present wishes. Yet I'm sure someday
I'll break through them and say what I should say.

Sights

There's something in her makes me want to smile
Just looking at her - even in my mind.
Perhaps its our congruency of style,
The way that when I look at her I find
Her looking at me, crinkling her eyes
Into a twinkle of amusement, or
The way she'll, without effort, analyze
What makes me happy and provide it for
Us both - because the point I ought to seize
Is that my pleasure always seems to please
Her equally, and therefore when she's glad
It conjures up a kind of empathy
Inside of me. I can hardly be sad
When she is near - nor can she be with me.

Quotidian

The darkness had already fallen when
I walked out of the office right on time.
I fumbled in my pocket for a pen
To sign the timecard, found it and a dime,
An old receipt, a lozenge...as I signed
I muttered a good-evening to the man
Sadder than I was, rigidly confined
Inside the office longer. I began
To walk out to the bus, only because
My car was in the shop, then had to wait
Cooling my heels out in the air, which was
More frigid than expected. It was late.
After much longer than I had desired
I arrived home, not happily, but tired.

Commute

Twin points of red illuminate our path
Beyond the far horizon, endlessly
They pair off in the distance. Do the math:
A pair for every vehicle (to be
Repaired if either fails, on penalty
Of law) and see how many others come
To spend their minutes almost wantonly
Amid the stinking air and loathsome hum
Of engines coughing in futility,
Not just to bar our way, but to procede
Along their own, into mortality
Polluted breath by breath, until they see
As I do now, a break within the press
Permitted (for a moment) our egress.

Dun

Perfection is too dull. I do not mean
That I pretend that I have ever been
Perfect, unblemished, holy, without sin,
But rather that I'm trying now to wean
Myself off of perfection as ideal.
It's easy to, in raptures, write the praise
Of perfect sunsets, women, moments, days,
But harder to engage with how we feel
In those more common (not to say more real)
Experiences that are not prepared to blaze
Across our senses in perfection. Haze
Imperfect as it is, will often steal
Across a sunset. Let perfection be
To find the good in mediocrity.

Matters

I wonder if it matters anymore
What I decide to write. Should I compose
A breathless melody in haunting prose
Or trashy poetry that you abhor,
Disfigured or discordant scribblings, or
A flight of fancy which, delightful, grows
Only in my mind, but which still throws
Stray beams of beauty towards you, would your
Opinion of me change? It will, of course,
But not because of anything I write.
The ravages of time, to my despite
Will overwhelm our friendship with such force
That though we see it coming, our foresight,
Much like my writing, won't stop our divorce.

The Quest for Saint Aquin

Retrome Satanas! Oh, that's right
I need to teach you Latin. It's a more
Logical language anyway, and might
Appeal to you. But get thee back before
You tempt me more. I need no more advice,
No monotonic whispering deceit
Intended to slide in my heart and slice
The bonds of honesty. Now go! Retreat!
I do not need you now. I, for my sins,
Have been confronted with a miracle
But not the one I thought that I might see.
His body, surely incorruptible
Mere imitation of humanity
What shall I do? Don't answer me. Alas
That ever I was given this robass.

P.I.

Am I right to think this way?
Is it just because her arm
Is so comfortable and warm,
Countering the chill today
That she seemed to quite allay
All the doubts that in me swarm?
Is it all her words, her charm,
How she hears the things I say
And appreciates them all?
Is it kindness? Is it beauty?
Is it just a search for booty?
Is it angst paying a call?
All I know is it's my duty
To investigate my fall.

Superiority

We had it all; a thousand ships and more
Advantage over you, a massive fleet
Well-stocked and well-prepared to wage a war
Of utter devastation. Our elite
Task forces would have killed you. But we tried
On Norden's technological advice
To upgrade all our systems, so inside
Our now much smaller fleet, from his device,
Were better weapons, better shields, indeed
So much we did not doubt our victory.
Again, on Norden's word, we did proceed
To upgrade; but compatability
Was lost, as was the war to you as well.
Please remove Norden from my prison cell.

Arena

If I'm unconscious I can cross the line.
The fevered murmur of an unsound brain.
The lizard did it; he seems to be fine.
A mind afflicted by such constant pain
Cannot be trusted. Look, he's moving now;
We haven't any choice, we have to try.
Did I ever imagine this was how
My life would end? Now, do you want to die,
Or do you want to live, and win this fight?
Of course not; but it looks like this is it.
If not for reason, do it just for spite;
We cannot let him win. It's all just shit,
I might as well; no better way to go.
It worked? I won? He was a worthy foe.

First Contact

I swear, they're just like us. Of course, I know
They like more oxygen than we prefer,
And their home sun's radiative glow
Is somewhat different, but I'm very sure,
Despite the altered chemistry and sight,
Their lack of hearing and telepathy,
The way they seem to almost, but not quite
Be more experienced at this than we,
The differences in the paths we took
To reach this place, the reasons that we came,
And (of course) the damn strange way they look
Beneath it all, we two must be the same.
Why am I certain they're just normal folks?
We spent our downtime telling dirty jokes.

Question

The question is "can I get over you?"
I wish that I could wave a magic wand
And call it done, but nothing I can do
Is quite that simple. I am far too fond
Of listening to you, watching your smile
Spread suddenly across your face, touching
Your sense of humor, to so quickly dial
My feelings back to zero. If I cling
A little, by an instinct, to that warm
Feeling you inspire, is that wrong?
I hope by now I'm clinging to the form
And not the real thing. It's been too long
If it's the other, and I must contend
That I am strong enough to make this end.

Sonnet Analysis: Spenser I

For all that my sonnet analyses have primarily come from my own work or the nineteenth century, the modern period and even the eighteenth-nineteenth century sonnet revival are merely reflections of the first major period of sonnet writing in English, the Renaissance, and particularly the sixteenth century. Therefore it is high time I analyze poetry from that period, and not just Shakespeare either (Shakespeare's sonnets were actually relatively late to the game). So for that reason I present a sonnet by Edmund Spenser, from his famous sequence "Amoretti."

One day I wrote her name upon the strand,
But came the waves and washed it away:
Again I wrote it with a second hand,
But came the tide, and made my pains his prey.
Vain man, said she, that dost in vain assay
A mortal thing so to immortalize!
For I myself shall like to this decay,
And eek my name be wiped out likewise.
Not so (quoth I), let baser things devise
To die in dust, but you shall live by fame:
My verse your virtues rare shall eternize,
And in the heavens write your glorious name;
Where, whenas death shall all the world subdue,
Our love shall live, and later life renew.

Triumphs:
The rhythms of this sonnet are admirably prepared. I would be tempted to say they ebb and flow like the tide mentioned in the sonnet, but that's probably a stretch. Suffice to say they are extremely regular, pleasingly so, and the end-stopping contributes significantly to the effect. The speech within the sonnet is well-integrated, without confusion or disruption of the meter. The conceit is also, in my humble opinion, a pretty one, particularly the way it subtly draws a distinction between the fame of a name and the fame of the verse. And I happen to love the two lines "One day I wrote her name upon the strand,/But came the waves and washed it away:" because I have a soft spot for lines that seem like they could actually have been said (remembering this is slightly archaic due to the time of composition, not due to intentional archaism).

Imperfections:
Despite what I have said about the conceit, it's a little strange that it is her name that disappears in the sand, and therefore which implicitly is a "baser thing" which will "die in dust" (although of course given the anonymity of the "her", one could argue that this is simply accurate). The final couplet is also slightly confusing: how exactly will the poem bring them back to life, as implied by the final word "renew"? Far be it from me to suggest commonplaces are superior to invention, but the commonplace (as alluded to in Spenser's "eternize") of the time was that poetry could provide perpetual life, not resurrection. It may be that I am reading too much into Spenser's line, but the implication seems to be that the "love shall live" on despite death and that will somehow "later life renew." I also find the contrast of the literal writing of the name in the sand, the literal writing of the poem, and the figurative writing in the heavens a little strange, as the third term seems to unnecessarily complicate the first two. But still, I find very little wrong with this sonnet, particularly on a technical level; my only quibbles are with the ways in which the conceit is worked out - as is indeed typical of my quibbles with Spenser.

Another Year

Will I be old, contented, comfortable,
Leaning over to enjoy a loving kiss,
Cooking together, snuggling under wool
Blankets, waiting for the kettle's hiss,
Listening to problems calmly, patiently,
Always prepared to brew another cup
And talk it out? Or will I, desperately,
Cling to my failing youth, not giving up
The image of myself I now possess,
Unwilling to accept the honest truth,
Adapt to age and live in somewhat less
Extravagance than I did in said youth?
I cannot tell. And yet I'd hope to be
The comforter and not the comfortee.

Tetrametric

I am quite taken with the charms
Of tantric tetrametric verse
It wriggles in and quite disarms
The issues with it I rehearse
The lilting almost comic meter,
With its tinge of witchery
The way it seems so rush by, fleeter
Than a poem ought to be;
How its careful steps and stutters
Sneak themselves past all defenses
Is no matter - that it flutters
Is a pleasure to my senses.
So somehow it quite beguiles
All objections into smiles.

Life

A smooth and even flow of light
Transformed from sunbeams through a screen
That makes it seem as if it might
Be anytime outside. A green
Blanket on the bed, a small
White pillow underneath the head,
An empty shelf against the wall
No evidence that I'm not dead,
Except the insect skittering
Across the dullness of the floor
In search of food, and chittering
About what he has found. Therefore
I cannot squash him, since I'm sure he
's proof I'm not in purgatory.

Mars is Heaven!

Why is my mother here? My father too?
My little brother? Is this place my past?
And if it is, if this can all be true,
If somehow I am coming home at last
When I should be as far as can be from
The place this seems to be, why are my friends
All greeted by their families? Is this some
Strange afterlife, where everything that ends
On Earth is recreated here, whether
In mockery or homage? Or is it
Something more sinister: is this a lure?
Why is it that my brother chose to sit
Inside my room? The funeral of men
Was held, and we resumed our shapes again.

A Rose for Ecclesiastes

They say that all is vanity, all waste,
All useless; life is done, though time is not.
They say that nothing matters, they erased
All hope for change or future from their thought.
They listened to their god, and he said no,
There is no hope, and nothing ever changes;
I tried my best, my very best, to show
That that is wrong; that hoping rearranges
The world around us; men have thought before
That all was vanity, but men moved on
And thrived despite those thoughts, and so therefore
Might they. A sunset always brings a dawn.
They heard and they said no - let it not be,
Let us live on: but she did not love me.

That Kid

I didn't mean to piss off everyone
Or dominate the conversation; no,
I only meant to start the discussion,
And share opinions. Once I'd started, though
Not one of you would talk, and the professor
Was staring right at me. What could I do?
There's no good option, but I thought the lesser
Of my two evil choices would be to
Answer him, and keep on talking. I
Would dearly love to have been quiet, but
I hate the silence which, I don't know why,
You always let stretch on, no matter what
We have been asked. If you would speak, I could
Shut up as you have asked; trust me, I would.

Sonnet Analysis: Horace Smith

I here present analysis of a historical oddity. The poem below was written by Horace Smith at the same time, and under the same title, as the infinitely more famous poem "Ozymandias" composed by his friend Percy Bysshe Shelley. The poems were written on a single theme and published in the same publication (albeit a few weeks apart). I do not at this time feel prepared to present analysis of Shelley's "Ozymandias," which for purposes of full disclosure I should admit I consider to be my favorite of all the sonnets I have ever read, but Mr. Smith's poem (originally titled "Ozymandias" as well, but later published as "On A Stupendous Leg of Granite, Discovered Standing by Itself in the Deserts of Egypt, with the Inscription Inserted Below") is I believe unduly unrecognized, and therefore I present it for your pleasure and my analysis below:

In Egypt's sandy silence, all alone,
Stands a gigantic Leg, which far off throws
The only shadow that the Desert knows.
"I am great Ozymandias," saith the stone,
"The King of kings: this mighty city shows
The wonders of my hand." The city's gone!
Naught but the leg remaining to disclose
The sight of that forgotten Babylon.
We wonder, and some hunter may express
Wonder like ours, when through the wilderness
Where London stood, holding the wolf in chase,
He meets some fragment huge, and stops to guess
What wonderful, but unrecorded, race
Once dwelt in that annihilated place.

Triumphs:
Smith may not be Shelley (and who else was?) but he has a gift for individual phrases that lilt perfectly into the meter and reinforce the sense of loss and emptiness in the poem. "The sight of that forgotten Babylon" and "Once dwelt in that annihilated place" are both very strong, particularly in the last two words (apparently Smith liked two word, six syllable endings to his lines, or they liked him). The execution of the octave/sestet division is handled very well, with the classic Italianate turn and end-stopping of the last line of the octave. The rhythm is extremely strong, particularly in the sestet - the line "Where London stood, holding the wolf in chase" has a delightful trochaic substitution in "holding" that launches into the "chase." A similar effect comes from the trochaic substitution of "Wonder" in "Wonder like ours, when through the wilderness," as the hiccup in the line seems to correspond to the stupefying effect of the wonder.

Imperfections:
It is perhaps unfair to attempt to gauge the imperfections of a poem whose greatest imperfection may be said to be "not to have been Shelley's 'Ozymandias'," but I shall do my best without reference to Shelley's poem. Schematically, I find the greatest imperfection to be Smith's choice to describe the leg as "all alone" in the first line: it rather spoils the reveal of "the city's gone!/Naught but the leg remaining," because we already know that it is there solus. The grotesqueness of the "gigantic Leg," while possibly an intentional effect to alienate the reader, is regrettably rather off-putting towards the poem as well, and also rather distracting: why does the leg have an inscription? This is somewhat ameliorated by Smith's alternate title, but it is still somewhat nagging. There is also a bit of a cough in the line ""I am great Ozymandias," saith the stone," which seems to want to have twelve syllables (Ozymandias must be only four and saith only one to make it scan as pentameter, but each seems to want to have one more). In that same line the "great" seems almost unnecessary, since its insertion actually makes it more difficult to throw the stress in the first foot on the "I," which seems like it should have it instead of the "am;" without the "great," the line scans as iambic pentameter with an omitted first unstressed syllable, but with it one is forced into a trochaic substitution to get the stress onto the "I," leading to two consecutive unstressed syllables, but not ones that can be slid over smoothly (especially since "great," as a monosyllable that is not an article, preposition, or conjunction, wants to take emphasis itself).

Contrast to Shelley:
While I do not intend to fully analyze Shelley's poem here, it seems worthwhile to point out to the casual reader a couple of points where Smith's poem seems weak only in contrast to Shelley's, as explanation for why it has been so disregarded. First, Shelley does not locate Ozymandias in any specific place, unlike Smith's "Egypt," which gives it a more haunting, unlocalizable feel, which allows Shelley to also dispense with Smith's explicit "This could be London" moral, because Shelley's poem already presents the statue as something that could be anywhere. Second, Shelley words the statue's inscription more simply and yet more impressively than Smith: "My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings/Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair" seems both more dignified and more elevated than Smith's inscription. And finally, possibly because of the space saved by avoiding an explicit moral, Shelley is able to spend much more time on the statue itself and its implications for the world it inhabited before its destruction, which paradoxically allows the poem to have more impact than Smith's explicit declaration can. None of this is Smith's particular fault - as mentioned above, his greatest failing in this regard is simply not to have been Shelley, and who is? - which is why I have not placed these points above in the list of imperfections of this poem as it stands on its own. But given the poem's unique place in relation to Shelley's poem, it is reasonable to give some consideration to why the one has survived so strongly and the other has not.

Authorship

I told you I write sonnets. Now you know,
But, like the rest of them, you don't know why.
It isn't just that in my studies I
Am called upon to read such things; oh no.
I write because it causes a warm glow
Inside of me, and nothing else I try
Has that effect. I used to be quite shy
About this, but I let the shyness go
Because it had no point. I write enough
That not admitting it became a chore,
And who has time for those? I'd rather be
Open and honest. I write all this stuff
I'm often proud of it, and what is more
It's rather central to my being me.

Self-Contained

I like to help my friends push boundaries
I never touch myself. I dare not go
Beyond myself, yet I push them to seize
The opportunity to finally know
Their depths and inner powers. I am there
To prod, assist, and wrangle for their good
Their own resistances, but do not share
The same desire for adventure. Could
I reach into myself and find it? I
Am never sure, not do I seek to find
The truth. I do not wish to tell a lie
And therefore do not ask. I am confined
By my own choice within myself, and will
Only help others seeking for a thrill.

The Cold Equations

There's only so much fuel. I never did
Anything. And fuel translates to thrust.
I didn't. All I did was that I hid
Myself and stowed away. I just
Wanted to see my brother. If a mass
Is moved by so much thrust it moves so far.
I don't deserve to die. With so much gas
And so much thrust, the masses involved are
Very precise. I'm on my way to him,
But spaceships move so slowly. It can take
A pilot and a ship. Then on a whim
I stowed away. With more it cannot make
Planetfall. I have to say goodbye.
The extra mass would mean that we both die.

Apologia

I claimed to find you sonnets, but you knew
So quickly they were mine, and not by chance.
My whole design was obvious to you
But knowledge was but kindling to romance
And we rejoiced in what was understood.
I wrote you more, the pretense now foregone
And you who saw them then pronounced them good.
You read, and as you read it seemed a dawn
Perpetual, a new-beginning love
That never reached a middle or an end;
My sonnets fit your eye like hand in glove,
And you devoured everything I'd send.
I find, therefore, I must apologize
For all that took my sonnets from your eyes.

On Aesthetics and Fictional Poetry

I have mentioned before the difficulty in writing fictional sonnets. At that time I suggested that aesthetics might present an acceptable reason and model for deviating from reality. I will now expound on this subject at slightly greater length.

A sonnet - or any poem - can be understood on more levels than I wish to engage with at the moment. But for the present discussion it is important to pay attention to two of these ways: aesthetically and narratively. Both of these ways affect the ultimate goal of our understanding here, namely the emotional pull of the poem on the reader.

To understand a poem narratively is to enter into it through the path presented, unsurprisingly, by its narrative: what does the poem say, what does it say happened, how does it feel about what happened? The poem is interpreted through these questions, and the emotional impact of the poem relies on the interaction between the narrator, the narrative, and the reader. A sad tale will (hopefully) produce sadness in the reader, a happy one happiness, an eerie one a sense of eeriness; and the poem is sad, happy, or eerie depending on how the narrator presents the narrative to the reader. This is a useful, valuable, and important method of interpretation, and, in a broad sense, my own primary one. Under this method, a fictional poem can easily fall flat because the poet has difficulty negotiating the narrator/narrative interaction due to the distance set up between the poet and the narrator. This will not necessarily happen, and most of the other methods of writing fictional poetry mentioned earlier attempt to finesse this difficulty.

But an aesthetic understanding of the poem can avoid this difficulty entirely. Aesthetic interpretation enters the poem not through the narrative, but through the feel, sound, and appearance of the words. This does not mean that aesthetic poetry ignores the creation of a narrative any more than a narrative interpretation requires the abandonment of good aesthetics. But, aesthetically understood, poetry cares not about how the poet negotiates his relationship with the narrator or narrative, only about how the music, the taste, and the beauty of the words come across; effects that may even be made easier by the use of invention, as the possible ideal of accuracy is no longer present as a bar to aesthetic word choice.

I think it is clear from the foregoing that understanding poetry through aesthetics removes, or at least lowers, a potential barrier to the creation of fictional poetry. A poet may easily range beyond his or her own experience and emotions when the focus is on the beauty of the poem rather than the relatability of the narrative. Poetry understood as fine art in the sense of music or the visual arts rather than drama is substantially freer from the chains of reality - and such an understanding can lead to delightful, beautiful poetry.

The Nine Billion Names of God

The stars were going out. Just quietly
Disappearing from the firmament
Which soaked itself in black. I could not see
What took their place, if anything. They went
As if relieved, as if they knew this night
Would come, as if, their duty done,
They could retire satisfied. No light,
No anything remained. The sky was one
Immense black sheet, against which everything
Was tinier, somehow than it had been.
And then it happened - no use worrying,
The earth itself, without ruckus or din,
As silently as had the stars, winked out
The end of joy, and happiness - and doubt.

Microcosmic God

He was a god. Well, not a god per se,
Creator, yes, but not at all divine.
No man would ever think to kneel or pray
To him, but that, I know, would suit him fine.
A deity in miniature he was,
A god not made for any of his peers;
He built his worshippers, as each god does,
But for a different reason. It appears
He wanted knowledge - not grown on a tree,
But rather cultivated in the minds
Of his creations. With that he could be
Content. And so it is his story finds
No cataclysm, for he found a way
To hide his world within a wall of gray.

Nightfall

The stars came out. The thousand million stars,
So, so, so many, bright and yet not bright
Enough to stop the desperate need for light.
Stars, little stars, so different and unknown
So strange and terrible. No culture bars
Destruction anymore, no mind, no sense
Can overwhelm the need suddenly grown
To find or make a light. In ages hence
Wise men may smile, as indeed we did,
At folly, sudden as a catching spark
In our dark-maddened minds - but let them grin
For with the suns all gone, all sunlight hid
And nothing but the starlight streaming in
We cry for light, and see only the dark.

A Fare-Thee-Well

You seem to linger, every step is slow,
Half-sidling, half-walking, watching me
As if you wanted to...oh, I don't know,
I'd say you wanted...that's a fantasy.
But when you brighten as I speak, it seems
Like something more. You do not leave
As if you wanted to, and something gleams
Inside your eyes. I wish I could believe
It meant something, but no, the time is past
When I could think of that. It must have been
My stale imagination that recast
A nothing into something. To begin
All that again - it cannot be. I might
Wish it were so, but I must say goodnight.

Discomfort

Discomfort is a commonplace for me.
The awkwardness that flows from being here
With no idea, at least not one that's clear
Of why I am, or why I ought to be,
Is almost calming, paradoxically,
Because it is familiar. When you're near
I cannot be at ease, and yet I fear
I'm driven to be with you constantly
And therefore there's discomfort. If I try
To make myself relax, I find instead
My mind takes the unease my body had,
Leaving me a choice that seems to lie
Between two pains: external and inbred
Each too familiar and each almost sad.

Reading

The minutes seem to pass so slowly by
But every time I raise my head to look
They're racing past. I do not wonder why
I simply drop back down into my book
And let the minutes, hours, even days
Go by exactly as they wish to do.
To read is worth this strange temporal haze;
Besides, I'm stuck inside this book like glue.
I could not stop myself from reading here
If I smelled gas or fire in the air,
And since I wouldn't stop, I think it's clear
The time can go to hell, since I don't care.
I'll read until the book I have is done
And once it's finished, find another one.

On the Crap/Quality Ratio

This blog receives poetry as I write it - I mentioned in an earlier post that I often write the sonnets like a text message on my phone - without further editing than what I do while composing the first draft. That means that the sonnets on this blog are irregular (as you have probably noticed if you read it) in their themes, style, form, and, most importantly for this post, their quality. This raises the obvious question of how the production of good pieces and bad pieces relate to each other, and particularly the measurement I am interested in here, which deserves a better name than the crap/quality ratio.

In the production of any art there are going to be duds as well as successes. Without the fearlessness that allows duds to be created and shown to the world, successful art is unlikely to be produced; and certainly it would not be without the desire to create art, which can, perhaps regrettably, produce bad art as well as good. The question then is not whether crap will come out, but how much crap, and how much quality will be created as its byproduct.

Personally, I am willing to accept a very high ratio of crap to quality; I am not sure if I am a fundamentalist of the sort who believes that a single piece of quality art justifies infinite crap, but I might be, and I'm certainly close. Total duds can be ignored; quality is rare enough that it should be prized. The only hesitation I have in this regard is the context in which the art is being presented; if anyone is being required to engage with the art, subjecting people to an endless stream of unavoidable crap becomes more questionable. In any medium - including this blog - in which there is choice involved in the consumption of the art, I think it is clear that breadth of room for art to develop is to be preferred to a low crap/quality ratio.

Besides, there are two allied concerns with any attempt to restrict what art is presented: subjectivity, and flawed art. Art appreciation is subjective, so any great restriction of its dissemination based entirely on the quality of the art involved may be an unfair imposition of one party's subjective values on another party (I do not here include not passing art on to others because you did not enjoy it; I mean institutionalized or universal barriers to dissemination based on quality - the crucial distinction, I think, is between being not required to disseminate and being not permitted to do so).

But art can also fall between a total dud piece of crap and a high-quality masterpiece. Art with flaws but also with quality must be allowed, and too great of a restriction on non-masterpiece production is, in my opinion, a mistake. If there is any cutoff at all, it should be as close to total dud level as possible.

To turn back to this blog and the question of editing with which we began, I do not intend to say I do not believe in editing. It can improve art; it can be crucially important to art. But equally I do not believe that art should be presented only in an edited or polished form. There are distinctly rough drafts here, and some which seem more polished; at some point in the future I may even present edited versions of sonnets which have appeared before. But part of the purpose of this blog, and a major part of my writing process, is the presentation of poetry immediately upon its conception and production; and I would appreciate any and all comments that might help me identify where I fall on the continuum of the crap/quality ratio.

Quantity

A thousand sonnets used to teem in me
But they are spent; unless a thousand more
Should rise behind them to conveniently
Allow me to feign inspiration for
A longer period, I must now cease
And come to silence. What will follow that
I cannot say; I cannot find release
Without the poetry. I have grown fat
Upon the ease with which it let me speak
The pains I felt, but now must come the squeeze;
For in a world without it I must leak
Emotions out in terrible disease
Or bottle them and die. Or maybe I
Will find another way to mope and sigh.

Interactions

I thought that you might listen at long last
But then I saw the earbud in your ear;
At least you're being honest; in the past
Your ear was open, but you didn't hear.
You might have seen, but when I looked, your eyes
Were glued to something else - but then again
It's better than it had been otherwise
When you looked through me. I remember when
I tried to touch you and you pulled away,
But still at least you showed displeasure, for
There have been times you let my fingers stay
But never noticed them. I could show more
But then, to whom? I'll take your honesty
And leave so you can have your privacy.

Corners

It's best to be in darkness. In the light
Someone might see you; someone might be there
Who you can't see (the light will burn your eyes).
I like the corners at this time of night,
The double shadows from the lesser glare
That almost half a moonlight shines, which dies
Before it hits the ground. I like the sight
Of those within the light turning to stare
At some not-quite-imagined ghost, who sighs
Inaudibly behind them. If I might,
I would be one of those - but I don't dare;
Some shadows are too deep. The darkness lies
In wait - and though I said it's better here
Don't think it's safe. Do not abandon fear.

Golden Age

I used to write so unselfconsciously
Emotions flowing, fictional or real
As if out of the very heart of me
A record not of thought, only of feel
An univestigated stream of words
Abandoning my soul to leap onto
The page, a little like the songs of birds,
Which, though rehearsed, are sung anew
Each morning with an ease unthought and clear;
Those days are gone - else why would I lament
Their passing? Now the effort is most dear
To hammer words, no longer instinct-sent
Into the page. But in exchange, now I
Have some control of whom they're written by.

Going on Seventeen

Define sixteen by how it ought to feel:
Unnecessary angst, hormonal change,
The sense that even minor things are real
In massive, urgent ways, all passions strange
In their intensity, the wavering
Between ecstatic bliss and dumb despair,
The constant certainty, yet wondering
If anybody notices you're there,
The shudder in the heart - and in the guts
Whenever someone special wanders by,
The constant stream of ifs and ands and buts
That crowd around your thought and multiply
Your doubts; consider this, and after all
I've been sixteen more than is natural.

L is for

It first manifests as fondness, just a sense
My father used to call "kid gloves" - I want
What's best for her, without more recompense
Then just her happiness, which seems to haunt
My own. But this does not always expand
Into the full-fledged article; but if
I find my tongue grows weak, and feel my hand
Uncertain what to do, if I am stiff
Where I relaxed before, if I discover
That I'm impatient to do more for her,
But patient when she's late, if I will hover
To try to catch her eye, then I am sure
That I am gone. I see the symptoms now;
I'd try to stop them, but I don't know how.

Mumbletypeg

With you I'm awkward, don't know where to put
My hands, or how to look you in the eye.
I laugh - I always laugh - and only sigh
When you are gone. I shift from foot to foot
And try to seem at ease; I want to stare,
So much, but only find a way to glance
Under my eyelids; so much for romance
If I can't even, when you're standing there
Manage to indulge my instincts. When
You've left the room and I can breathe again,
I wonder if you've noticed how I feel;
I hope you have, but cannot speak, and so
I seem destined to dream but never know
If you have listened to my mute appeal.

Selfishness

O, please give me your problems! Let me feel
The pain you have within you, listen to
The words that you have bottled up inside.
I'm here to make you better, help you heal
Do anything you might want me to do
To make the problem go away, to override
Whatever's causing pain, or else to soothe
The angst inside your soul. Just let me in,
And let me listen, ponder, and advise;
I'll always be there to make rough things smooth,
Remind you of the person you have been
(A valued friend to me) and to devise
A plan to help. Just let me help, so I
Can treat your problems, so my own can die.

Sonnet Analysis: My Old Sonnets IX

This is a sonnet I go back and forth on, regarding how good I think it is; and therefore I thought it would be a good topic for an analysis. When I originally wrote it, the gender of the subject kept switching back and forth, although I think it has now settled on a "he." For now; who knows what tomorrow might bring. But here it is in any case:

He'll never leave her. You should realize that
Before it hurts you. Don't be stupid, let
Me advise you. Watch from where I sat
And see his head rest on her shoulder. Yet
That's not the worst - his hand is on her knee
And hers on his. He's resting in her love
Because he is secure in it. You see?
I know they may not be the model of
A perfect couple, but they're happy, and
They will not split apart. Accept it. You
Might be important to him, but you stand
Between them, and that simply will not do.
He'll say goodbye someday - and you will grieve.
Prevent that now - I'm telling you, just leave.

What Went Wrong:
So one of the reasons I sometimes think I don't like this sonnet is the way it constantly runs into itself and sticks emphases in odd places. The lonely "Yet" and the lonely "let" in lines four and two respectively feel weak; the same might be said of the "you" ending line ten or the "and" ending line nine; even the internal emphases can feel off, as in line nine as a whole. It feels almost like a prose monologue slightly shifted in order to make it fit the sonnet form. The enjambment is probably too heavy, and the internal pauses ("Accept it" in the middle of a line, the dashes and the interjections) are overmarked. Yet for something that sounds like a prose monologue, the sentences are awfully poor: "Watch from where I sat/and see his head rest on her shoulder," "He's resting in her love/Because he is secure in it," and "I know they may not be the model of/A perfect couple, but they're happy, and/They will not split apart" all seem extremely stilted when written out. The bad side of this poem is that it gets caught up in the urgency and desperation of the emotion it is trying to convey and ends up tripping heavily over the formal aspects of the sonnet.

Not Too Shabby:
The flip side of that perspective is that the emotion is strong; the enjambment in particular shows the urgency - almost no line is willing to let the reader pause. The couplet is strong, although perhaps the dashes should be a comma in the one case and a period in the second. The short, punctuated feeling of many of the sentences reinforces the urgency shown by the enjambment and sets up that final couplet for maximum force; as does the enjambment which gives way to two of the few end-stopped lines in lines twelve and thirteen (line seven is end-stopped, but only with the two-word phrase "You see?" rather than as the end of a larger buildup). The incessant repetition of the third person pronouns at the start seems effective to me, as it draws "her" and "his" (and their other forms obviously) closer and closer through rhetoric alone even as the narrative draws them closer as well; it gives way to a "they"/"you" contrast in the second half of the poem, which seems equally effective, and the separation of the "he" and "you" in line thirteen is made the more poignant by those patterns. Finally, the rhymes seem almost accidental at times, at least to me, which I find to be powerful; this effect is bolstered by the enjambment which place the rhyme words not at the (obviously premeditated) ends of sentences, but in the chaotic middle where they seem more effortless. This is the counterbalance to the occasional stretch for a rhyme: even the stretches look like they occurred as the result of muddled thinking by the narrator rather than a reach by the author because of the hurried internal reality of the poem.

Thesauri

Thesauruses will tell you that I love
Is synonymical with "I adore."
I find the latter signifies far more
And yet in some ways less. When thinking of
The way that I adored you so before
I know I idolized you far above
The bounds of reason; but a shove
Of disbelief can topple idols, for
They are unstable, overcertain things.
A love instead accepts the minor faults
That everybody has, and also knows
The bigger problems everybody brings
Along with them. Where adoration halts
Love, in awareness of its meaning, goes.

Dave Neihaus, 1935-2010

My oh my. I don't believe it. No
I don't. It isn't possible he's gone
The voice I've listened to for such a long
Beloved time, first voluble and strong
Then still prolific, but starting to go
At last so conversational, but wan
Yet not ready to leave - no, not at all.
How could the batter step up to the plate,
The pitcher pitch, the fielders stand and wait,
The double down the line roll toward the wall,
The runner turn at third before the ball
Is fielded, and the throw at last be late,
The mob at home begin to ululate
Without him there to mark it with his call?

Willow Cabin

Riding past the place you used to live
Seems useless, and destructive of my soul.
I thought the memory of you might give
A little comfort, but instead it stole
The last remaining vestiges of peace.
I cannot think or speak, except of you,
And such obsession cannot bring release.
I know no easy method thereunto,
Which by some incantation, chant, or spell
Might free me from the pain that I have nursed
In my own foolishness. I might as well
Pray for a desert rainstorm. I have cursed
And screamed, and come to nothing. So I sit
Here by an old door, and I weep at it.

Spiced Ham

We get too many emails, don't you think?
I don't mean "Please increase your penis size"
Or "Send your bank account so I can sink
A billion dollars in it as a prize."
I mean real email that we ought to read
And theoretically should care about.
A listserv or a website that we need
Will still send emails we could do without,
And in that stream of almost-not-quite spam
A message may so easily get lost;
We're overwhelmed (at least I know I am)
And though the email's free, there's still a cost
To our attentiveness. Therefore we flail
Within the deluge of unread email.

Tech

A little hint of sawdust in the air,
Mixed with the aftersmells of paint and glue
Which cling together to the clothes you wear
Like cheap cologne; the screaming of a screw
Tearing into not-quite-yielding wood;
Pneumatic puffs, electric motor yells,
The hooting of a handsaw; good is good
But done is better; how a paint stain tells
A story that no novel could improve;
The constant motion, everything in sync;
A new piece fitting in a precut groove;
The way you improvise; the way you think-
It all intoxicatingly feels like
A home - at least until we come to strike.

Once

I could have said I loved you, once. Would that
Have made a difference? Would you understand?
Or would you have, much as before, laughed at
The honesty? I know you think it's grand
To act like only cynicism counts,
But once, at least, I thought you realized
That disbelief, heaped up in such amounts
Is toxic. If not, then in the end I much misprised
Your virtue, which of course is possible.
I hoped then I was wrong; I hope so still.
For I still feel the slow, magnetic pull
That urges me to love against my will.
I might give in, if I thought I could see
Such an admission not mocked viciously.

Holmes

A cricket bat propped up against the door,
A few stray papers, and a glass of wine
Sitting untouched down on the wooden floor,
Some clothing hanging from a laundry line
Not quite dry yet, two books, bookmarked but closed,
And three spent matchsticks. Clearly these display
The symptoms of disorder, all composed
In disarray - composed in it, I say,
Because there is intention in the mess.
That glass is poisoned, but not touched at all;
The clothes - a pair of trousers and a dress -
Do not belong here, and the bat should fall
Were it not fixed in place. It's all a ruse
I know who did it, and I will accuse.

Romcom

My life is no romantic comedy:
That means you'll never turn to me and say
"I've realized this is the place to be,
With you, and this is where I want to stay."
You'll never, just before the credits roll
(Conveniently, not on a deathbed scene)
Decide that I'm the one to make you whole.
If you are sad, or lonely, even mean,
It isn't so that fortune can reveal
The depths of your affection - it just is.
You won't discover "how you really feel"
Based on your answers to a simple quiz
Or anything like that. I might love you
But I'm not followed by a camera crew.

Caretaker

It was a dark and stormy night, I heard
(But not from you); the windowpanes all cracked,
The sea air entered (And yet not one word
From you), the waves and thunder both attacked
The stillness of your slumber (Not a sound,
An inkling, an indication), all
The lightbulbs flickered endlessly; the doors
Creaked like damned souls; a waterfall
Sprang up inside the library; the roars
Of raindrops sluicing off the roof were stilled
Only by it giving way (And to compound
All this, your silence. It's as if you willed
My anger.) What was high is thrown to ground
And ruined (Have no doubt, you will be billed.)

Time

There's never really time. Not even when,
In countless dreamscapes I have walked with you
Where hours did not matter, still I knew
There was no time for me. I could think, then,
That it was much the same for other men
And women with them, but as I review
All I have seen and heard, I see they do
Have time I cannot have. When, once again,
We wander slowly through the moonlight, I
Can only turn away, because I know
That if I took the time, the eastern sky
Would suddenly reveal its morning glow
Because this cannot be. I only sigh
And bless the time before you choose to go.

Pasts

I wish that I could share with you the smiles,
The sounds, the senses of my younger days;
The happiness that showed a million ways,
The ever-present gambols and dogpiles
Of misbegotten, well-remembered whiles
That ate up youth with gusto, in a haze
Of sheer exuberance. It was a phase
Of blissfulness made pure, which still beguiles
The older me you know. If I could share
Those moments, and their jubilance, with you,
Perhaps you'd understand, then, what I mean.
But now, because you've neither felt nor seen
That life, you cannot know, and I despair
Because I know you would have loved it too.

In Somnia

The clock ticks slowly on the bedroom wall;
There's nothing else to see or hear but that.
The seconds stretch; the moment seems to stall
Between each tick, for me to wonder at
The density of time, how much a second teems
With endless possibilities and dreams
That in another second will be sent
Flying from my head, to be replaced
With equally fantastic thoughts. I went
Insane one moment, which was then erased
And turned again to sanity within
The timing of a tick. I linger on
Within the moments, where I've always been
And where I shall remain until I'm gone.

The Browning Option

A while back I promised to speak more about different modes of fiction within poetry. I will now begin slowly to redeem that promise, beginning with my own personal favorite method of writing fictional poetry, what I have called the Browning option.

The irony of having named this method after Robert Browning in a blog about sonnets, given that his wife, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, was by far the more famous sonnet-writer in the family, is not lost on me. However, even if Robert Browning did not write (or at any rate publish) as many sonnets as his wife - or even many sonnets at all - the method I am about to discuss is highly associated with him, and may certainly be applied to sonnets as well as other forms of poetry. Robert Browning wrote dramatic monologues in verse; he created characters who spoke his poems for him. Browning never had a duchess, much less a "My Last Duchess" painted on a wall; nor did he ever have need to utter a "Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister;" nor was he named "Andrea del Sarto." But he wrote all three poems from the perspective of others, named or unnamed, purely fictional or real but with invented words. These monologues are characteristic of Browning - not that he did not write anything else - and to emulate their style is a distinct option when attempting to write sonnets divorced from one's own perspective and feelings. Here I will discourse a little more generally on this style; due to the substantial different in length between a typical Browning dramatic monologue and a sonnet, I will not present any of Browning's poetry in full, but rather by reference. I strongly recommend his work, which is easily accessible (being out of copyright), but it lies a little beyond the scope of this specific blog.

Browning's monologues are, as one would expect from the name, poems that seem ready to be delivered by a speaker - who is not the poet. That means that they are usually in the first person, always with a clearly defined speaker, rather than impersonal or in the omniscient third person. They speak directly to whatever that speaker wishes to say, so you will not see any strains of "To Autumn" or "Ode to a Lump of Green Putty I Found in My Armpit One Midsummer Morning." The priority is on establishing personality - the insanity of "Porphyria's Lover," or the detachment of the duke in "My Last Duchess" - and telling a little slice of that personality's experience of the world. This can be very hard to discern in the fourteen-line space of a sonnet: this is part of why it was difficult to find an example from Browning's work that was clearly a dramatic monologue but also of such short length. This emphatically does not mean that such a poem could not exist, nor indeed that Browning did not write one; rather, it means that length permits much more certainty about the fictional nature of a poem.

One of the crucial ways in which Browning creates his characters is by the use of asides, parentheticals, and self-interruption to simulate speech patterns. Most poems present an uninterrupted whole without these effects, and the introduction of them causes the reader to think about the personality behind them. A similar effect can be created by the strong "I" of the poem that Browning uses; although a monologue need not be self-centered, many of Browning's best are, and the repeated assertion of the ego of the narrator is highly effective. This is the crucial effect; the introduction of the narrator as a character is central to the dramatic monologue, and any useful tool should be employed.

Another aspect of Browning's monologues that would indeed suit them for the sonnet form is the existence of a little change at the end. The revelations in "Porphyria's Lover" and "My Last Duchess" are reserved for late moments of the poems, perfectly suited for the turn of a sonnet. Although there is substantial compression of space in a sonnet, the pattern of establishing a character at the start of the poem and then using that established character in an unexpected way at the end is perfectly suited to the form.

In summary, although the small size of a sonnet can be a hindrance, the dramatic monologue form typified by Robert Browning allows a substantial amount of freedom in the creation of fictional poetry. By establishing a narrative personality and then modulating that personality for effect, the poet can distance himself or herself from the poem itself while still providing a microcosm of a personality for the reader to interact with. If the effect can be navigated within the space of fourteen lines, the final twist characteristic of Browning's dramatic monologues is perfectly suited to the turn at the end of the sonnet form.

Friendship

A friendship's worth a poem, don't you think?
Of course, it's awkward to immortalize
Platonic friendship in a world of sighs,
Or eulogize the fundamental link
Between two minds that, though they often sink
To the exact same depths, are in no wise
Romantically engaged. I must devise
Another mode of praise. I would not blink
To speak of how you're tethered to my soul
If it were understood how that was meant;
Indeed, I could well call you heaven-sent,
But in the sense that heaven wants us whole,
For which I need your friendship. Let me praise
That part of you; let us be friends always.

Sonnet Analysis: My Old Sonnets VIII

Because I have a lengthy back list of sonnets, I think it's time to move through them a little more quickly than I have been. Particularly, since I'm trying to move randomly through various periods of my previous work, rather than simply chronologically, I think it's valuable to put sonnets from different periods up close to each other. So without further ado:

Sometimes you want a friend, sometimes you don't;
I never quite know what you need from me.
Sometimes you'll open up, sometimes you won't;
I try to help you, be there patiently,
But also let you have your space. I know
Enough about you that I want to be
Your friend, however you want me to show
That friendship. I admit I cannot see
The future, and I don't know if someday
We will lose touch; or if you, finally
Will realize you don't need me and say
You'd rather we were friendly distantly.
But I'll say this; as this year nears its end
I'm very glad that you have been my friend.

What Went Wrong:
I am not quite sure where to put this observation, so I'll front it: this poem has a lot of enjambment (that itself is not a problem). But it specifically has a couple lines that fall into a trap I often fall into, which I cannot decide whether I like or not, which is that I tend to make either the first or last foot completely distinct from the other four. So there are lines like "But also let you have your space. I know" or "Your friend, however you want me to show," with strong breaks after the first or before the last foot. I'm not really sure how effective that style is; on the one hand it represents strong enjambment, which can be a very positive thing because it ties lines closely together, but on the other hand it breaks the fundamental unit of the line at an awkward place, and when they are run together it can look like the entire poem is simply two syllables off from where it naturally wants to be (which of course could be a desired effect, but honestly usually isn't in my sonnets). I'm also unsure here about the mirror between the first and third lines; it gets the (cheap) don't/won't rhyme and hammers it home, the lines are good meter, and the sentiment is crucial to the poem, but it feels like a cop-out. The couplet also feels a little flat; I don't think most of the syllables in this poem are wasted, but those that are are in phrases like "this year nears its end/I'm very glad that you have been my friend." Finally, the reuse of the -ee rhyme (me/patiently, be/see, and finally/distantly) seems a little sloppy; although its appearance in every quatrain does do some good work tying the poem's first twelve lines together.

Not Too Shabby:
Overall I think this poem fits the label directly above pretty spot on: not my best poem, but not too shabby. As noted above, before the couplet I'm actually very happy with the syllable usage, as not much seems wasted. It could almost read like prose, except that it happens to hit the meter and rhyme very well as well, and the line breaks are, I think effective. I really like the wording "you'd rather we were friendly distantly," and whatever may be said about the wording of the couplet (as above), the slight turn it effects is one I really both enjoy and think works in the context of the poem. I'm also happy with the caesuras, which fall irregularly within the line but are fairly strong, an effect I don't usually manage to create, but one which here I think emphasizes the way the narrator is describing being pulled in two directions at once. Other than the couplet, I have very few actual problems with this sonnet, and it manages to convey exactly what it wants to (or at least I think it does), so I would call it, as above, not too shabby on the whole.