Sonnet Written Upon a Tim Tam

As requested by my friend Jim 

Yesterday I posted on facebook my pleasure

at eating Tim Tams and reading sonnets 

simultaneously, whilst also sitting in the sun

with my sweet cat. This post got a lot of likes. 

Then one friend asked, intending jocularity, 

'When will you publish "Sonnet Written 

Upon a Tim Tam"?' Why not? I thought, 

and replied, 'Tomorrow' – which is now today.

The taste is something between chocolate

and honey, a blend, and the texture also mixed:

creamy soft outside, the centre crisp yet melting. 

It takes six bites – or sometimes only four –

to savour and devour one whole, from the first

burst of joy in the mouth to the last lingering lick.

Linked to Meeting the Bar: Neruda and the free verse sonnet 
at dVerse Poets Pub.

Also linking to dVerse's 2019 Sonnet Challenge.

I felt proud of myself in writing this one, both for rising to my friend's challenge and because I had some glee in using the sonnet form for such non-exalted subject matter. (I used to be intimidated by the idea of attempting a sonnet, but Samuel Peralta cured me of that when he was on the dVerse team of presenters. He taught us a variety of sonnet forms and made them all seem delightfully easy.)

Brain Dysfunctions

Going off alone into other worlds

among dreams and shadows, she seeks

light-bearing clouds, warmth, and the feeling

of feet touching earth squarely, firmly.

Reality is itself too ephemeral

for her, with her several illnesses, her lack

of power and autonomy. But she persists

and gradually makes a way, here and there.

No-one on earth can help, she decides. 

Elsewhere encounters the dark ones who promise

to lend their strength to her will. She permits.

Now she can make things happen, despite

limitations she was born with. Fails to see

she is in their power: not using, being used.

Linked to dVerse Meeting the Bar: Neruda and the free verse sonnet.

Perspectives

closing the doors 

from house to garden –

smell of new paint

nervous cat

under my chair –

saws whining

radio next door

cheerful loud voices –

advertisement

my prick-eared cat sits alert –

I fall asleep in the sun


Linking this to Poets United's Poetry Pantry #323

Walking Around Town

burly boys
jitter and fidget  –

testosterone 

old man totters

hurrying to the bench 

almost falls

she stops to rest

drinks from her thermos 

lightens the load

strong smell

outside the library –

smoker

rain starts in big splashy drops 

small mosquitos come inside

Another haiku sonnet – or senryu sonnet – for Poetic Asides.

Also linking to Poets United's Poetry Pantry #320, and to the 2019 dVerse Sonnet Challenge.

This one was placed in the Top 10 for the Poetic Asides challenge, which not only delighted but surprised me, as it is more senryu than haiku. 

I loved the opportunity to combine two classic forms into something new, yet still recognisably true to both.

Uncertain Weather

on next door's roof

tarp and sandbags for leaks –

Housing Department

used for rain

silver tarpaulin shines

in the sun

Spring colours –

pink and white sandbags

suddenly

wrinkles

in the tarpaulin –

new clouds

still air –

a slight breeze rustles

tips of leaves

on an early Spring morning –
will it rain will it not rain?

Another haiku sonnet for Poetic Asides.  (Expect more.)

The Garden Microcosm

pink blooms

fully open turn white

then brown

my cat twists

on her blanket –

mosquito

agile cat

captures baby lizard 
loses it

old rose-bush

well-pruned doesn’t bloom
not a bud

Spring – new lives may be short lives
and some lives never begin

A haiku sonnet for Poetic Asides form challenge. I prefer short/long/short haiku lines to 5/7/5 syllables – but we were asked to make the final couplet lines of 7 syllables, so I did.

Also linking to Poets United's Midweek Motif: Blooms (noun)

Construction

It wasn't an option whether to go or stay

(bodily). And so she sits

with her toys, or in the garden, pretending to play.

Secretly, she matches wits

with the adults around her, fits

herself into their inscrutable comedy

to all outward appearances, while her inner soul flits

easily away on the ether. She is building her own tragedy,

invisible to the naked eye

of the world or its denizens. They are not so smart

as she is – yet she will find a hard cost later. She will cry

then, from her old broken heart

for the soul that could only fly inwards. Now, no moan

nor sigh nor any sign must reveal the walls of stone.

Written for dVerse Meeting the Bar: Bouts Rimés Revisited, using the end words, in order:  stay, sits, play, wits, fits, comedy, flits, tragedy, eye, smart, cry, heart, moan, stone.

I chose to do a free verse sonnet – a contradiction in terms? That is, the 14 lines and the rhyme scheme are fixed; the line lengths are not and there is no metre.

The photo is of me and was taken by my Dad when I was four. It is my property and must not be copied or used in any way without my permission.

Asked to Write on Gravity, I Find Myself Unable

It's Spring in Northern Rivers

and the jacaranda's out.

The sky is wide light blue,

the ocean's warming up.

The boys are in their singlets,

displaying their tattoos.

The girls are in their pretties

with short and floaty skirts.

The breeze is fresh and playful.

I'm eating fish and chips.

The only kind of gravity

I'm conscious of today

is that which holds me to this ground

where I am glad to be.

The Midweek Motif at Poets United this week is Gravity.

(I'm calling this a 'sonnet variant' because, while it's not one of the recognised sonnet forms, neither is it free verse exactly – and it does have some sonnet features.)

The Music of Light

The music of light is caught

in his eyes. Don't tell him

a song has been hunted and got

and imprisoned there — not dim

even when his lids make shade,

but shining ahead wherever he goes.

Whether he wanders in some glade

or follows the river where it flows,

there is still that radiant music. It lies

behind his own vision, it might be stone

for all it displays to him. But it never dies

to our perception. In colour and tone

it is a unique thing, delicate as finest lawn

or a rippling echo: not quite here, never gone.

That phrase, 'the music of light', has been presenting itself to me for some time, with no context. The Bout-Rimés challenge at 'imaginary garden with real toads' gave me a chance to explore it and see where it led — to a further mystery. 

The end words of these lines come from another poem. We were invited to identify it. I feel that I should and do know it, but can't place it. It's pretty obviously a sonnet, and might be Shakespearian ('glade' is not a word much used today; and 'got' in an older sense — of begotten — is more likely to end a line than the contemporary use I give it). However....

My poem could be seen as a free verse sonnet — having no regular metre, but a sonnet's rhyme scheme and some (unplanned) shifts of focus as it moves into the last six lines and then the last two — or just a 14-line poem. (I wasn't setting out to write a sonnet, but only to follow my imagination.)

I'm also linking to Poets United's Poetry Pantry #254

An Imperfect Love Poem

I like tall, dark and handsome — Errol Flynn

when I was a young girl: that wicked grin

as Robin or pirate, his sword flashing.

For also, of course, they must be dashing.

Until, my love, I met you, when older.

True, in your own way there was none bolder,

but in manner less dashing than abrupt.

And your height had suffered an interrupt

to be on the same level as my own.

White-haired and blue-eyed — still, how those eyes shone.

With our matching heights just right for kissing,

I soon decided nothing was missing.

By now, sweet soul, though you've left me in death,

your beauty sustains me to my last breath.

Prompt 22 for 'Poems in April' at 'imaginary garden with live toads' is to write a perfect love poem, hopefully in formal verse.  Mine is an imperfect Clarian sonnet, with 10-syllable lines rather than strict iambic pentameter. The title also refers to the imperfections of the beloved against 'tall, dark and handsome' standards. Lastly, I've written so many serious love poems, there wasn't much left to me now except to go a bit against the grain. The photo is from my 60th birthday party, five years after we married.

If I Told You

If I told you how cold I felt last night,

if I told you that I and the night grew old

from not holding you, helpless to press you

against my breast, helpless to fight against

endless regrets for the blessing of you

being over and gone, being past and done,

so I’m left here endlessly alone …

If I told you all that, would you, could you, come back

to hold and enfold me and make me feel whole?

No, I know that you won't: you’re really a soul

and the old ways are over and you have evolved.

So I turn to remembrance, the semblance of real,

and I feel still the love that we did have, and will
in the cycles of birth and rebirth, forever …

31 Poems in 31 Days (from Poewar /Writer's Resource Center). Prompt: Use various kinds of repetition.

Linking, a year later, to the Tuesday Platform for 27 Oct. 2015 at 'imaginary garden with real toads'.

Settled

We settle down on the bed again after breakfast, 

we three, the cats and me, all of us elderly now 

and free to indulge — though they are freer than me, 

and can stay here all day if they will, and in fact they will

until I give them their lunch (the small dry biscuits 

that keep their teeth clean and strong) after which 

they'll wander outdoors awhile, now that the weather's autumnal: 

cooler than the worst heat of summer and not yet chilly winter 

whereas I, when I finish the coffee I brought back to bed, 

and finish this morning's poem, shall rise at once 

to go out into the world — where, too, I am settled, 

into my familiar lifestyle: the small town, 

the old and new friends, the little cafés, 

the trees and the nearby river.  

April Poem A Day 2014, day 28: a settled poem

Based on the “Stretching the Sentence” exercise by William Wenthe in Wingbeats: Exercises & Practice in Poetry (Dos Gatos Press, 2011)

Young Love

He had red hair one year; another, black.

He had a beard; he had a smooth, clean chin.

A fair-skinned blonde; no, olive-skinned and dark.

Broad-shouldered, muscular — or tall and thin.

We snuggled when we hugged, being of a height.

I loved to stand on tiptoe when we kissed.

Brown eyes, you say? Ah, truly, black as night.

That bright blue gaze became most sorely missed.

The loves of youth — how varied, how intense!

I loved a pretty face, a handsome form.

It took a while to learn this common sense:

what makes you hot won’t always keep you warm.

But, growing up at last, I got it right

in finding one who shone with inner light.

Submitted for Poets United's Mid-Week Motif ~ Love

(Choose an age, we are asked. What was love like then? And perhaps try a sonnet.)

Crying His Tears

Love and heroism touched his heart.

He was a man who could be moved to tears.

His death caused me to think that we must part

for many years — oh, far too many years.

'He leaves an essence with you,' said a friend.

My smile was wry. 'That's not how it appears.

He's gone, and our communion's at an end.'

But then I read a military tale

of courage under fire, and I found

my heart expanding. Soon my eyes were full,

though I'm a pacifist. I recognised

this was an emotion he would feel.

His essence is still here, I realised.

He's with me as they say, within my heart.

(A disguised Terza Rima sonnet)

Missed linking this to the Form ForAll prompt at dVerse, 
so submitting instead to their Open Link Night #96

Cat Routine

Her sixth sense is working well.

Whenever my varying bedtime 

happens, every night, she's there

suddenly, from outside.

She leaps lightly, lands

at the foot of the bed

and marches up to the top

to lie close and purr.

She is adjusting now

to the absence of the man

who used to be here too;

makes do with me.

In fact, insists on more cuddles,

more fervent — as we both need.

Poetic Asides April Poem A Day Challenge 2013, 14: a sonnet.

(This is a free verse sonnet — no set rhyme or metre — which, in other respects, follows the Shakespearian model. Well, except for the verse breaks.)

Roses from Ondine

When Ondine gave me roses in the street,

she found me loading shopping in my car

and said my name. I looked up, and a star

was shining in her smile, that we should meet

so unexpectedly. I went to greet

(the usual hug) and then she said, 'Aha!

So now I know — it's you these flowers are for,

that I was just presented with.' How sweet —

she'd wandered in to see the flower show

and some strange man had thrust them in her hand,

these fully blooming roses, palest pink.

She felt they were for someone else, and lo!

her widowed friend (that's me, you understand).
I sink my face in scent and colour; drink.

A Miltonian sonnet submitted for dVerse Form For All #28

On 6 June 2016 submitted for Prompt Nights: Roses

Dead

Oh, I am ice inside, remembering

our love's now merely sad remembering.

My times with you are ghosts. They waver, fade,

although I crave the hard remembering.

I can't retain the past, though I have tried.

Yet what is left beside remembering?

Our warm and melting love now frozen solid,

it's time to put aside remembering.

Everything we said and all we did

is nothing now, mere dead remembering.

It's time. I must accept that you have died —

ah, must I? — nor abide remembering.

That cold word, dead, is loud inside my head.

Remembrance drives me mad ... remembering ...

Note: It is traditional in a ghazal to use one's own name, pseudonym, or some derivation of the name in the last line. So I'm there, slightly disguised unless you know your Shakespeare.

Submitted for dVerse FormForAll: Ghazal sonnet

and Poets United's Verse First — Icy

Also submitted in May 2019 for dVerse's Poetry form: Ghazal

High Care

I try to recreate a homely feel

within the nursing home. It isn’t real

and their new schedules take you when I leave.

It is the very contrast makes us grieve —

this isn’t home. Nor is the old home now

without you. I would bring you back — but how?

I must surrender you to better care

than I can give, although it seems unfair

and you believe I have abandoned you.

In fact it was the only thing to do.

I want to smile, not weep when I am here

visiting you. Let’s find some new joy, dear

for still we’re never one whole day apart,

and surely home is in the other’s heart?

A response to the dVerse FormForAll prompt: Clarian Sonnets, 
though written too late to be included in the line-up there.

Also linking to the dVerse 2019 Sonnet Challenge.

The Clarian Sonnet is my favourite kind of sonnet – though the Neruda-style free verse sonnet runs it close. (Which is interesting, as the one is so modern, the other so classic.) The Clarian seems to me somehow less of a virtuoso performance than the Shakespearian, Petrarchan or Spenserian, so that the reader's focus is hopefully more on what is said than how it is said. In the others, even the very best of them, my attention is split equally between both. I love playing with form, but I like it to be in the service of – even subservient to – meaning.

Money Blues

Prompt: Write a blues sonnet

Money’s getting scarcer by the day
money’s getting scarcer ev’ry day
I’m juggling bills, there’s always more to pay.

I think this week I’ll manage and we’ll eat
this week I think I’ll manage, we will eat
but then they raise the rent, we’re on the street.

We don’t know where the next cent’s coming from
we don’t know where the next meal’s coming from
we don’t know where to find another home.

I used to have a cat I couldn’t feed
I used to have a cat I didn’t need
I gave him to a friend who could afford

such luxuries as roof and food and pet.
I don’t know how much lower I can get.

(Slightly exaggerated, don't worry - I would NEVER give away my two beautiful cats!)