Regarding my music,
My sweetheart wrote me a poem;
And so beautiful.
I fear it was lost,
forever lost or taken;
lost to both of us.
I recall some lines;
I remember its structure;
But not perfectly.
And I very well
recall how it made me feel,
long ago, in spring.
So I give my love
All that I now remember,
Within this sonnet:
At rest she lieth down within her bed,
Doth close long lidded eyes, though not to sleep
In her repose for soft, round limbs to rest;
And then, in longing yet, her thoughts toward him:
Of words so closely shared, or left unsaid;
Such secrets, told or not, as cause to weep;
With his remembrance tight against her prest,
Though now, so tattered, once yet thought a whim,
Her tears to calm, his favour held instead,
That holdeth now her heart in safety’s keep,
To lull, so sweet her countenance, to rest–
Then close her eyes again, as night grew dim.
And once we wed, doth dream my love now deep,
As blest, our lives entwined, as any hymn.
This sonnet is part of a short sequence: click here to read it all:
I wrote the following in response to RL King (Lady Day) , not intended it to be poetry, but with the intention of subverting my penchant for wordiness:
Anyone can write.
Anyone can show reality.
Or even bend it to the surreal.
Or to the abstract.
Even bend it to the romantic with your will.
Not everyone can see like this.
Not everyone can see
The romantic in reality.
Not everyone understands.
That to be romantic.
You do not have to bend reality.
You only have to see what is there.
And not ignore the romantic in it.
Just remember–
Just not forget to remember–
Remember not to forget–
Or pretend not to see–
Or pretend you don’t know–
Or deliberately deny–
Or malevolently distort–
What is actually there.
This is what you do when you write.
You see.
You see how it is all there.
If you are not sure it is real.
Because you do not know it directly.
If you simply are sure.
Like there is an instinct telling you.
An intuition.
You believe it.
Sometimes shyly
Sometimes boldly.
When you do this.
Others will see.
They will step forward.
Some will deny it.
But more will say:
“Yes. I see that too.
“I was afraid to tell anyone.
“How beautiful I thought it was.”
About me all reality doth spin,
The ground beneath my feet doth buck and twist,
My eyes alight on anything herein,
And will perceive its panic-worthy list.
And panic is the most confused of sound
Which swells and whirls around my pounding ears,
Confusing and directionless: its sound,
Exacerbating measureless: my fears.
Perceive I not the matter I may touch,
As whether hard or soft, or hot or cold.
Although such nature hardly matters much,
such things are all completely uncontrolled.
My digits, my appendages feel thick
I think I am most positively sick.
This strikes me somewhat
As a bit too Majorcan.
I must be slipping.
Ode to my virus?
Am I now losing my touch?
I dearly hope not!
Doth, sylphidine, my poet walk the night.
Her nature, sybaritic; every wish
As spritely, and as sensuous a whim,
That, sibilant, depriveth of her sight;
The magic of her grace, her subtle flight.
Of flowery gifts, she writeth, she hath won;
Of sunsets, singeth she, luxuriant, warm;
And downy-cool, her mountaintops of white.
We shall, as loveth she, so never love;
Nor built we paradise, as hath she done.
Doth sleep our kingdom not upon the clouds,
Nor fortress, on such billows, dream above.
So vanquished she, as many, though but one;
She triumphed clear; yet had we only shrouds.
I spoke once of her
Away, on a winter’s night
Not so long ago….
Long ago, I heard,
Chanced by some unlikely place,
Hauntingly, her voice.
David Emeron: Sonnets 