Or should you?
Lately, I’ve been wondering if I should destroy one short humorous poem in particular. If anything I’ve written ever becomes of any concern to anyone, eventually someone will get around to digging up that damned thing. Continue reading
I don’t write free verse these days. Free verse is just prose. Prose with poetic bent, to be sure, but still prose. Less form? Less function. Continue reading
There is no question but that the act of writing sonnets forces one to advance one’s education. Continue reading
Lately, I have taken to writing sonnets based upon works in other forms that I have written over the years. For the time being, I have, here and there, been doing this from memory; however, I’ll probably dig some of them up in due course.
…as seen from my own point of view…
This sequence is posting at present is a celebration of The Male Form. I believe it is complete as of this date–though one never really knows. Its mirror image will post some time in the future. As of this date, I still feel it to be an ongoing work, not having been rounded out, brought to cadence, &c. There are possibly four more sonnets, give or take, in this distaff sequence.
One of the problems that I encounter with the writing of either sequence is that I can write endlessly on the subject of sensuality. It is a subject on which I have thought in great detail and one which seems to me to possess an infinite number of facets.
I feel I would like to write more about the nature of such content, but I fear I would be misconstrued regardless. I may do so at a later date at any case. If I had more of an active readership, I could better compose such an essay as a reflection of whatever misconceptions crop up in the comment section–particularly in the members of the male sequence. At this date, there are probably enough comments that it would be fairly easy to do this. I am sure I would bore anyone to tears waxing infinite on such a subject.
Just take a good look at Greece. Modern, and ancient, for that matter.
In any event… this is the face of insomnia, and partly why the sonnet project began in the first place. I spend so much time awake while everyone else is asleep.
Since I have recently pushed out a humble sequel: The Knights of the Copybook Headings, I proudly offer up Rudyard Kipling’s Original:
AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.
We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.
We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.
With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.
When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “Stick to the Devil you know.”
On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “The Wages of Sin is Death.”
In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don’t work you die.”
Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.
As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!
via The Gods of the Copybook Headings | David Emeron: Sonnets.
David Emeron: Sonnets 