If only I could
In this bottle fourteen lines,
Send away to thee;
To be understood,
What words, within these confines,
Only, should they be?
Category Archives: Sonnets with Introductions
Sonnet I: Thou Wilt
Wilt thou again experience this vain,
Delectable, self-referential ache–
This self-indulgence once again allow?
To thine shalt thou thy paradox awake
From sleep when hast thou found and felt this pain?
What timely melody, or importune,
Might interruption beg thee disavow?
But wake! Shout thy day! Though thy Words impugn
Themselves when once They leave thy lips; profane
Shall They be made by whips thou canst not quell;
The base shall scourge profane, an They endow
Them with thy Pearls, when swine, as swine, retell.
Though long remains the day thy Words to fade,
Sleep now, brief vigilance, not yet unmade.
This sonnet is part of a short sequence; click here to read it all:
Intro 1: You Heard Me
I watched you grow strong
I reached out; with my right hand,
Felt your left shoulder.
I felt you touch me,
Take hold of my left shoulder.
I still feel you there.
I heard what you said,
And watched your words fly away.
I knew you heard me.
Now my words have gone,
Wrapped in the words of others,
But not completely.
Sonnet: This
Withal such love within our worlds may be:
So must it live within our mind’s frontier?
Or might it dwell within our heart–sincere
Within our soul–wherein we may not see?
Can this I feel, though cannot touch in thee?
May such as this, made manifest, appear?
Or when such love perceivest thou, revere?
Dost this thou feel, though canst not touch in mee?
Yet of this unseen thing are we aware,
As much we would this phantom to possess;
For all its joys impart or its despair
Doth bring to us when once this thing profess.
So dangerous a thing should we declare,
That oft might curse, as well as it might bless.
Intro: Love….
Sonnet: Dust
When all my time on God’s green earth is done,
This unrelenting march shall make me whole.
For dust is but the only worthy goal
For which all mortal men may strive as one.
What Death, what vast poetic end may come
To Thy reluctant servant? Death from gold?
Or from a love as fervent and as old
As Death from flesh, from opium, or rum?
O God Almighty give me pristine dust
That pray, I may obtain my perfect form.
Thy worn, reluctant, sword desires to rust,
And thence return to nature safe and warm.
And though I know that this can never be;
I dream a mortal’s immortality.
Intro: Days
Fitting for the end
Of a year–of all those days
Now behinds us. Gone.
David Emeron: Sonnets 