Category Archives: Sonnets

Sonnets, or anything I call by that name. Sometimes an invented sonnet-like form.

Sonnet IX: Trapped

Posted by David Emeron on

No choice for me to sanctity refuse
Nor hesitate to tenderness adore;
Too long had I such reticence before
My failing-fast reluctance to excuse.

No choice to make; regard the choiceless muse–
That love to which in helplessness I swore.
No choice to take, no helpless choice, the lore
Whose wonderment would grant me solace, whose

Enthral would thrall me with her soft caprice,
Whose warming shield would warn me then into
Whose fate and fatelessness I would pursue.

But now, to cease the hold its hold would cease,
And nary muse nor swear an oath to peace,
My heart will sing its praises to be true!

This sonnet is part of a short sequence; click here to read it all:

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Sonnet VIII: Hope

Posted by David Emeron on

For one, who sometimes wished or feared to die
Unknown; for one, who grieved or sought to leave
Alone; for one, who would not say goodbye;
Whose mercy then would mercilessly try;

For what shall mercy take ’til mercy’s gone
Awry; for what deceiving took to grieve
To cry; for whom, should hope be ‘stowed upon
Whose ardour then would ardent live anon;

And who, in ardour’s happiness had felled
His fate; and who, naive, could earn reprieve
As late; and who, in clarity was held
As sanctified as sanctity dispelled:

Who held enthral, and mercied to deceive;
Who grieved to call his folly or his fall.

This sonnet is part of a short sequence; click here to read it all:

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Sonnet VII: Despair

Posted by David Emeron on

Beyond too joyous hope to hope to fall
From grace, beyond the reach Thy creeping call
Would trace, beyond the eve that would deceive
Our life and love to misery’s enthral:

Away, we run and hide from Thy dispelled
Enchant, a way to slip away Thy held
Incant, away! ’til we’ve some scant reprieve
Some innocence of that our lives were felled.

Depart our path! so might we live anon
Past night; depart! or join us now upon
Our flight; for we perceive that Thou wouldst grieve
Would we depart without Thee, and were gone.

But still… our love would try… to still goodbye,
To stay our leave… and hesitate to die.

This sonnet is part of a short sequence; click here to read it all:

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Sonnet VI: Aftermath

Posted by David Emeron on

What did I gain; what medal did I earn
That showed I gave–and nothing but my best–
When what would die in battle was a dream,
Such dreams as fade away when once confessed?

What did I profit; what was left to learn
When fighting for a dream had left me vexed
And reeling from this death in the extreme
Rapidity of my defence?  What next

Would fade; when hence, what of my heart’s concern
Forbade continuance; what prayer could
I speak, or beg, or wrest of my esteem?
And who would answer me when next I stood?

Yet I return to war–still feinting, deft–
This battle to redeem, with nothing left.

This sonnet is part of a short sequence; click here to read it all:

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Sonnet V: Redoubt

Posted by David Emeron on

All was given, everything was left,
And every hope would swell that I redeem
With nothing taken out; and when I deftly
Built up my redoubt, I felt returning

All that gifted, everything that stood
To gain and give me gain in my esteem
In every way in which such profit could
So bolster my redoubt, my feared concern

That some were not as they appeared; that next
To me–so closely held to my extreme—
So close my sense of safety had been vexed
To lay such siege, my hasty need to learn

How best to live within a fading dream
When once confessed, received, but did not earn.

This sonnet is part of a short sequence; click here to read it all:

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Sonnet IV: Hour Lives

Posted by David Emeron on

All life with thee is given me, alive
Withal, for each, by each, to our increase;
An hour, and our lives as do we strive
A second’s brief eternity to lease.

And seconds lived eternally to gift
Us aeons whereupon, should we survive
As aeons of eternity adrift,
Not one brief second ever shall deprive

Our joy, as joy to both of us so strives.
And years as seconds nightly pass as swift
As all the teeming joy that nightly thrives;
As all the seeming seconds briefly lift.

Then cease our fleeting aeons; each survives
Release, yet fleets the seconds of our lives.  Then…

This sonnet is part of a short sequence; click here to read it all:

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Sonnet III: Name Us

Posted by David Emeron on

Shall profit grant me mere upon release,
A living testament to living lives;
Shall profit take me even when they cease;
For living life as living life survives?

As second over living second, thrives
The lift of life as only life could lift;
Each passing hour, every second strives,
As second, hour, and year, would pass as swift.

So do we drift through time as time would drift,
Depriving all of what it may deprive:
So lacking lustre as privation’s gift–
The merest that the merest would survive.

Then strive we only now to own life’s lease,
Alive until our living would increase!

This sonnet is part of a short sequence; click here to read it all:

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