Xerex, Coda: Here…

…will you find the first version as it had been penned originally so many decades ago.  The dotted lines have been added to indicate whence the sonnets come:

O, my sweetest love,
Share thou with me
The sweet Xerex

Which I do proclaim
As the nectar which
Returneth me to

Thee, my sweetest love.
Quiet my restless mind
With the still, sweet

Grape which is the
Blood of lovers and
Of conquerers.
—————————
Such is the stuff
That would quiet my
Mind and my heart

For thee, and ease
Thy pain easily
With a pure flavor,

And with little regret
From thyne Angels’ heart.
Remember thou, my love

That even in this
Cruel
Earth there art

Those elements which
Heal in their right
Proportions.
———————
Remember thou, my sweetest
Love, that many
Forms Are yielded

Up by the Fickle
Grape: The subjective
Grape yields

Up poison and
Medicine for the
Soul.
———————–
As Baudelaire, my
Father, my twin,
My dearest

Poet knew this drink was
Fine; so shall I
Proclaim: My sweetest

Love, As my
Devoted, As my
Servant, As my

Slave; bring thou
Me of the sweetest Xerex
Grape and I

Shall become returned
To that which
Thou most admireth.
————————–
But, that thou shouldst
Know:  Once I have To
thine arms return’d

Thou shalt be my
Wine and my
crystal.
————————–
Thou shalt be
Mine Angel–superior
To all the grape is

Able to be.
I shall thenceforth
Drink of thee,

My love and I
Should never again want
For wine.

Much has in me been yielded up by that fine grape so many long years ago.

Regarding Xerex I…

…in particular and the Xerex sequence, in general:  It has long been rhapsodized by many throughout history that wine most fine produces vision most fine.  It might appear, at first blush, that such a thing cannot possibly be the case; after all, such a notion seems to fly in the face of reason; the intoxicant in wine is ethanol; and one ethanol molecule conforms and behaves very much like any other.  Why then do dreamers, poets, writers, painters, musicians–artists of all stripes–continue to entertain this notion; or rather, why do they continue to have just such an experience, be inspired by their awe of it, and subsequently, feel compelled to recount it? Continue reading

Regarding Xerex, I did, indeed…

…let an older sonnet drop down onto September 23. I didn’t truly need to, but otherwise, I would have posted “today’s” entry at maybe 8:00 pm. I think I prefer it this way though, because now I may think about the subsequent elements of the sequence. I’m posting this entry in real time but the sonnet and its introduction will not have posted until September 24, 2012, shortly before 1:00 am.

All this for a drop Oloroso Sherry? I know, It seems like It’s a big to-do about such a subject; but some things are like that. They’re bigger than you at first thought they would be.

Follow-Up on Teaching Sonnets | Wanderings in the Labyrinth

Andrew
Aug 22, 2013 @ 10:15:42

One thing at a time. :-)

It’s been my experience that students can count syllables, and get 10 syllables into a line, far easier than they can match the iambic pentameter. The iambic pentameter only came for me after about thirty sonnets — so I think it’s less of a priority. We want students to get over three hurdles first: writing fourteen lines, writing a rhyme scheme, and writing ten syllables in a line. The iamb can come later, because it’s a “sounds like this” issue, which gets solved by kids who care about writing more than one or two.

I could have sworn that it was Dershowitz, but it’s now been at least a decade since I read the report, and the name of the lawyer has long since escaped me. It was about the time of the O.J. Simpson trial, as I recall, or before, so it may not be on the Web — given that it was 1994. It was a profile of a prominent lawyer of the era, might have been Harper’s magazine or The Atlantic…

As for your sonnet sequence, I like it. It conveys feelings of doubt and uncertainty, and solitude; but it’s very much rooted in internal feeling and abstract language, rather than in the macrocosmic world of objects and things and processes. I tend to lean more into the world of objects than you, but it may be an advantage in the poetry world these days.

via Follow-Up on Teaching Sonnets | Wanderings in the Labyrinth.

Sonnet: 101.8

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.

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