Some sonnets, and icing on top

As I'm sure many people can relate to, it is not my greatest desire that people should read any poetry that I've written, since it is naturally such a personal thing. But because I was asked by the good doctor himself, I have posted my first few sonnets here just to provide some reference material for anyone who wants to write a sonnet, but doesn't want to be intimidated by Shakespeare. These sonnets are labeled with respect to the order in which I wrote them (which seems natural, when apposed to numbering them arbitrarily) so please excuse the shaky lift-off, as Sonnet 1 was the first sonnet that I have ever "completed" (though I am a firm believer in the Leonardo Da Vinci quote "l'arte non e' mai finita solo abbandonata [art is never finished, only abandoned]"). I may, by spring break, have a more advanced piece to send, but if not, it can be assumed that I mailed sonnet 5 if anyone were particularly curious.

Sonnet 1-  (not perfect iambic pentameter in line 3 [ending on what would be an unstressed syllable] and not, perhaps, my most eloquent effort)

So those who call to question of my love

may know the depths from which I draw them hence,

I'll sing them as a fountain's flowing of

the sweetest water ev'r upon their sense.

But never ceasing 'til they all but sink,

all so that then they cannot question more

the love I have which none shall dare to think

would fail to fill the seas from shore to shore,

and full as this would soon forsake their tides

for turning back when still they'd fill it more,

until at last the mountains love would hide

and prove this world a most unworthy store.

Let no man dare to think my mortal heart

could love you so without some deathless part

Sonnet 2 (this sonnet is what some might consider "unconventional")

Oh yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes.

What errant words are mine so often mean.

So nothing holding, faction fiction, dressed

to make the part listen just to glean

some right decision that does not exist,

so all I say is all my saying seems

just yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes.

What points I've missed have sharpened other dreams

which nothing are, so nothing also hold,

dissolve upon my tongue like sugar cubes

and so I drink the thoughts I've never told

and drink away the drowning drunkard blues.

This love of dreams has often lead me toward

a hope of happy ships I'll never board.

Sonnet 3 (This one I was unable to finish, so the last few lines are simply improvised)

When next you ask me why I love you so,

I'll start by humming songs in winter wind.

The whistle high, the beating cold and low, 

and little wasps of snow that sting within.

and why the wind, the cracked and whispered song?

because these are my thoughts when I'm alone

and promises are carried on them long,

and you have kept them, ev'n as winter's gone.

So finishing my hymn to earthly woes

I'd pick the song up with a chirp and charm

to give you just a sense of how I go

from stone to song-bird with you on my arm.

I let the breeze of spring restore me to

the me you've come to know as just for you.

Sonnet 4 (The iambic pentameter in this sonnet is contingent on the pronunciation of "natural" which I pronounce with two syllables [nat'ral] instead of three [na-tu-ral] and as Dr. Sexson might notice, this is a very revised version of the fourth sonnet I sent to him. I hope he finds it improved.)

To know my face might make this hard to read.

You do not know my mouth to birth such thoughts.

I'm not a natural poem in body breathed,

but purpose bent against my nature's lot.

My voice will lack a lyric's steady course.

It waivers with tremendous things to tell

when nothing yet important begs its force,

the anxious boy untimely tolls his bell.

But sickened having held so long my tongue,

against what reason fools like me posses,

and even though this bell be best un-rung

I'm speaking now, despite what might seem best.  

I love you, truly, swear by life I do.

no truer thing could any say to you.

Sonnet 5 (Which I just completed as I arrived home, working with the original line and sentiment from the 2nd 3rd and 4th)

Come, and let's on grassy hilltops meet,

and let me tell you things that make no sense,

so you can laugh at me and run your sweet

young fingers, dipped in polish, 'long the fence.

I would that I could ever make you smile

and dance within your'n eyes as you do now,

but well I know that after aging while

you'll grow too tired for games and straining vows.

But even then I'll love you just as much.

Of all my dreams you're still the only one

that, ere I gave it breath of life, as such

sweet air, like sugar, melted on my tongue.

So often I have wished us both to be

but figures in a dream of you and me.

Sonnet 6 (Which I have added so that Dr. Sexson also has something entirely new to read, and because I told him about one of the lines in this previously unfinished sonnet [which is, much like sonnet 3, not exactly finished, but meets the structural requirements])

The beat of painted wings is in my chest;
The tremble of the troubled heart in bass;
the thrumming threads of thought have come to rest
while sounds from deeper recess take their place.
I wish that poems could give my love a score;
the beat of skipping feat that drum the grass,
But nobody reads sonnets anymore.
The more I write, the more I play the ass.
I'd like to sing to you and you alone
but one is too much audience to ask
when all I have to offer is a poem
and I've been told you have no time for that. 
Instead, much as I'd like my poems to speak,
they often linger stagnant in my cheek.


Let us remove the second sonnet for a second, since it is not about love. The remaining sonnets all seem very different, clearly, but they don't actually represent any difference in feeling. It is less accurate to say that I feel all of these different takes on one emotion at various times than to say that I generally feel them all at once, from the lighter 5th sonnet, to the more self conscious 4th, and all the way across the spectrum to the somewhat violent 1st, I feel the same, but it is necessary for me to view the same feeling through different lenses. Perhaps it is more accurate to use the analogy of a brain, since each part or regioin represents a different sub-function of one entity which must necessarily function as a whole. But I don't like analyzing myself much more than I like other people analyzing me, so I'm going to stop there. I hope somebody enjoyed something of it.