Sonnet VII: Helpless

So dark within this place, what is this grey
Like velvet fire that would my hand subdue?
Can this–such sweetest pliancy as may
Command my strength to helplessness–be true?

What should I from this helplessness construe
That further took my senses night from day?
Though ne’er would I this mastery through
Any means demand, excepting I obey.

I take what is demanded and delay,
As valiantly I must, what is my due;
And all this tempest, bid me on its way,
Is great in all it promiseth anew.

Much more thou knew’st than wouldst thou ever say;
Thy sweetness grew that burned my will away.

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

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Sonnet VI: Landscape

When I have seen this place–this loveliness
That sweeps with valley as with rolling hill.
With meadowland and velvet can it bless
My hand, unfettered form, or lips but still.

Yet each would know that restless, is this place,
As Earth; as sweet, as wanton, and as cruel;
For what it gives it also takes, its face
With joyfulness, intense with warm or cooling

Passion is this vexing earth, not restful
Knowing never what it feels nor wants
And seldom what would serve its beauty best.
Not once can it be stilled; see how it daunts:

Yet even if I willed myself as much
To seek another clime, I would thee touch.

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

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Sonnet V: Whatever Thy Perfection Doth Require

I close my longing eyes; envisage thee;
Reflection manifesting not my hands;

Imprisoned lightning, countenanced with fire;
Shot through, withal, mine every wish commands’.
Extremity, thy tapered waist’s degree;

Impossible perhaps, if not sublime;
And yet, sublime, thy perfect form–admire
This hourglass that so-confoundeth time.

Nor could reflected shadowing foresee
Such helplessness within, as now I feel;
Restrained, regarding mine embraced desire

Ensnaring; captor, caught without appeal;
This weal of metaphor thy warder barred;
Imprisonment inspired such a guard.

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

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Online backups and other such things:

Strangely enough I have had a most similar experience! For me, it was something like 20 chapters–no laughing matter. It was painful, especially because I have taken measures to prevent such things. Still one cannot protect oneself entirely from ones own ineptness. However since then, I have taken a new approach with writing and saving–always saving a new and complete numbered copy of everything each time I sit down to work on an ongoing project. Writing does not take up much space, really and so having 100 copies of your manuscript on skydrive and other cloud storage as well as local, hardly makes a dent anywhere on ones 5 gigs of free storage.

Consumer level on-line backups are not something I recommend, because if one accidentally deletes a file or it disappears through some digital aberration, it will be deleted on the backup as well. Only if (as far as I know now, although it has been a while since I have checked up on this) one buys or pays for commercial grade backup is one truly safe because such services (as well as backup servers one runs oneself) really do save every version of every file.

I would use a consumer level online backup if it was very inexpensive, but only in conjunction with such as I have described above.

via Hemingway Never Did This – Charles Bukowski | WordMusing.