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.

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)

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.)