Share Poetry Critiques Poetry       Forums       Freewrite       Store      

Sonnet # 2

Immersed as I am in this gray daydrop
with autumn trees an ever darker green,
and the sun blotted out with charcoal chalk,
floating here in this impressionist’s dream.
Yes, the clouds scour the sky like raw steel wool,
scratching, scrubbing, rubbing out last summer’s
stain and leaving it gathered in rusty pools.
Our sighing green whispers bleed in drumming
rain and run gurgling dark down the drain.
Your name fades out like the firefly’s light,
your memory just a mud print of pain
made by rolling like satyrs in the night.
This storm, my friend, has killed the myth of us,
left rattling forlorn in the chill, wet gust.

Please tell me what you think

Sorry, you cannot respond to an archived poem

Reviews

  • Dun
    October 5, 2007

    Edit | Reply

    You think it's forced

    because you tried to rhyme. Don't you know that rhyming is for simple hacks as I? This is beneath you, Brandon. Repent at once from this dereliction of poetic duty and return to the somber tones of conformity. Rhyming in a sonnet??? Pish...what are you thinking? Keep it up and soon you may just not give a shit and have fun doing it. Like me. Ignorance is bliss, Brandon, ignorance is bliss...

    Now, that aside, you have some kick-ass imagery and ideas that coalesce nicely here. I can see the day you describe and I couldn't have described it better myself. Well, actually if I tried I could, but I'm poetically lazy and so I won't. So, nice imagery. I like the giant SOS pads scouring the sky. Nifty. The only exception I take to this poem is that the metaphorical implications are so damn depressing. This poem's a downer, old man. I am your age but I don't "feel old". All your work seems to revolve around the bitch of getting older(cantoloupes wilting on the vine and such). Me, maybe I can't jump as high or run as fast, but to my kids I'm frickin' Superman and I still got quite a bit left in me. This poem seems a resignation to losing, losing what it good. And it depresses the Hell outta me. Life's only a bitch if you bitch about it. Maybe it's just the eternal optimist in me, but I'm gonna be kicking ass until my heart stops.

    But, this was a great poem and very descriptive, and a downer. I think I'm gonna go do something irresponsible and forget this ever happened. Smile, Brandon. Growing old does not suck. I'm ok with it. Be well, brandon. We're not old, we're middle-aged.


  • Lad silver member
    October 13, 2007

    Edit | Reply

    This, for me, is skillful, Brandon...

    ...and both its melancholic tone and poetic form appeal to me, as I'm partial to gray feelings, especially when pulled and internalized from Autumn, my favorite season. I guess I'm saying that, weirdly, I don't mind loss, I'm ok with it - just my nature I suppose. So this sonnet speaks to me pretty clearly about losing, because of a "storm", a love whose "memory (is) just a mud print of pain / made by rolling like satyrs in the night" - terrific lines.

    The whole sonnet is like an impressionist painting to me; I can see this one as well as feel it, its sadness. Nice brushwork.

    It might seem forced to you because it does seem to stretch out what might have been imaged in fewer lines. But, if that's what your hesitation is for this one, I don't mind it. Sometimes feelings need time to get expressed, to get layed out with all their nuances. Besides, to my mind there's absolutely nothing wrong with simply enjoying deliciously written images. Some feelings need that expansion; they need lots of lines.

    I'm certain you know that the sonnet form's linear beats can be 4 or 5, even 6, although 5-iambic is traditional. So, my only neg crit is that, while most of your lines are quatrameter, three are pentameter - no big thing, but consistency would strengthen this piece. Here are my suggestions about those lines, trimming their beats to 4 (using Hopkins's sprung rhythm):

    Yes, clouds scour skies like raw steel wool...

    stain and leaving it in rusty pools...

    This storm, my friend, killed myths of us...

    Also, the first four lines aren't a full sentence. My suggestion to correct that would be a simple adjustment of the poem's first three words to:

    I am immersed...

    All up to you, of course, Brandon. Despite your reservations, I like this poem a lot.

    Lad