Avenue of Poplars in Autumn (Van Gogh), Sonnet #322

The faintest chitter of leaves in the Fall,
The slant auroras beneath the branches,
The blue-gray clouds that are not clouds at all,
But cloudless sky the fading light blanches,
The warmth and the chill I feel on my cheeks
As sunned and unsunned breezes alternate,
Each gust not finding what the other seeks,
And not one beast seeking to find a mate.
Today I walk this ordered avenue
Until the moon tops the furthest poplar.
It's so bright I can't see a single star,
A Milky Way I cannot know, but knew.
I reach home as the shadows slip away.
Only the moon's been moved enough to stay.

The Sonnet Form

As my Literature grad friends know, there are a number of different kinds of sonnets — Shakespearian, Petrarchan, etc. My sonnets don’t follow any strict rhyme or metrical scheme. Rather, I have a few basic principles I follow and never (hardly ever) violate.

First, any kind of rhyme scheme is okay as long as no rhyme is more than 3 lines apart. For example, ABC ABC is okay: ABC CBA is not, because the “A” rhyme is five lines apart. My theory is that a rhyme ceases to be a rhyme if the two rhyming words are too far apart.

Second, any sonnet can have any mix of rhyme patterns. A single sonnet's scheme can be, for example, ABC ABC DD EE FGGF (or FGFG), or any variation of those. Some sonnets can be all couplets, some three quatrains and a couplet.

I work in three metrical schemes, composed of “feet.” A foot is two beats. Dada dada dada dada dada is five feet. Any poem can be tetrameter (four feet), pentameter (five feet), or six feet (hexameter).

I am not fussy about where the accent lies. Most feet are daDA daDa daDA, with the accent on the second syllable, but I play fast and loose with accents and in almost every instance I have my own reason for doing so, having to do with the meaning or music of the poem.

Finally, I never, never, never (almost hardly ever!) distort syntax in order to rhyme. This is the cardinal sin. For centuries it was okay to back into a rhyme or distort syntax in formal poetry. In other words, it was considered a proper tool of poetry to write not necessarily in the same manner in which we naturally speak. I believe that distorting syntax is the main reason the sonnet, and most formal poetry, fell out of favor in the last century.

I would never back into a rhyme, as Shelley does here in the second and third lines from his "Ode to the West Wind," because that’s not how we talk:

O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being,
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing...

The poet Rita Dove has written that formal poetry — such as the sonnet — is “a bejeweled casket.” That’s like saying the novel, or the play, or the short story is dead. The sonnet is just one of many, still valid, ways in which to write poetry. If you agree or disagree, I invite your comments.

The Ghost of a Flea (William Blake), Sonnet #321

The ghost of a flea is a flea of a ghost.
He haunts my dog with whispered itches
As he has a thousand other bitches.
Every beast is his unconscious host.
I have seen only ghostly human beings,
Not past corporeality, but through them,
Ill motive they're certain I'm not seeing
That sticks from their heads like an apple stem.
At midnight on a beach I saw a cult
Dance in self-abasement around their pastor.
He had power to bring their minds to a halt --
Red hair, white gown, their daemon and master.
I rose and warned them so they trudged away.
Am I their ghost of legend to this day?

The Poor Devil by the Fire (Hugo Simberg), Sonnet #320

We caught a silver devil stealing soup.
Naked, sooty, his mouth painted crimson,
He sniffed our dinner's heady steam and sighed.
I pulled my belt and tried to throw a hoop
Over his horn-crowned brow and roped just one.
I yanked him down and soon had him hogtied.
He wriggled and whimpered, then spat and died.
We buried his carcass somewhere outside.
We don't remember where, though we have tried.
Twenty years later we found him at last,
At our soup again, now with thin blue lips,
Tipping the pot and taking little sips.
"Oh, Devil, why have you come back?" we asked.

He said, "I brought you with me from the past."

Juniper Praising The Moon (D'Arcy Guerin Gue), Sonnet #319

Desiccation praising desolation.
How can things be more beautiful when dead?
Pretty Guinevere in adoration
Of her knight almost lost her pretty head.
Now she reaches for her sad, betrayed king,
As if she'd kiss his dusty lips and sing.
The moon looks down upon the juniper
And sees only petrified conifer.
I once climbed a not unsimilar tree
On a cloudy, starless night in a gale.
The branches cracked and broke and I fell free.
The moon appeared like a ship under sail.
The world is perfect, unbroken, and pure
(Though sad things happen), of this I am sure.

Note: Juniper is a derivation of the Welsh name Guinevere.

Gare Montparnasse, The Melancholy of Departure (Giorgio de Chirico), Sonnet #318

The second hand always departs.
The minute hand always arrives.
The hour hand claps at our lives
With one hand that stops and starts.
We climb the red stone clock tower,
Stare out slits in its white faces.
Its hands are minute and hour,
No second, which just erases,
Like the one on my mantelpiece,
Always threatening my decease.
We need a hand for time to come,
One that whirls while always slowing,
That tells us (since the hour's dumb),
When we'll be without our knowing.

King Hobgoblin Sleeping (Hugo Simberg), Sonnet #317

I found a hobgoblin in my back yard,
With a possum pillow under his head,
Asleep, surrounded by a thousand kin
Standing in ranks, his imperial guard.
A cricket on a string droned by his bed
Of crepe tucked under his majesty's chin.
His crown (a fool's cap) and truncheon scepter
Were all he owned that made him emperor.
They cast his grandeur and his power spells.
His minions, one by one, exhausted, fell,
Near death, and groaning hauled each other up.
I shouted, "Wake thee! Or you'll interrupt
Your sire's sleep!" Then they all disappeared,
Leaving possum to chew the dead hob's beard.