Sonnet Sonata

BSM Murty

 

Poems of any descriptions are essentially a play of words and meaning, with the poet’s tools of poetic devices adding to the fun. Currently I am experimenting with this old and wily game of syntaxed rhymes in the sonnet – the game that great poets like Shakespeare and Donne have played undeterred by the passage of centuries. My first batch of sonnets (1 to 16) had   shadows and echoes in them of some of the best sonnets ever written by the great masters of the form. I continue that game, now with some of my own sonnets along with a few of my new non-sonnet free verse poems written to dispel the pandemic despair of today.

 

21. Garden of Sonnets                          

 

In a dream one day I found myself walking

Through a garden of sonnets each like a bush

Of flowers of every hue and aroma swaying

Merrily in a singing wind, as the buds blush.

 

Treading the garden path, many statues I come across

Of Wyatt and Surrey, Sidney and Spenser and Donne,

Keats, Shelley - all bowing to Shakespeare as the boss,

Standing in majesty in the centre as the greatest one.

 

I pluck a rose near the bard’s statue, soft and pink,

And a few others nearby to make my vibrant bouquet

Of three quatrains, a couplet and seven rimes, I think,

With the fragrance of love, and radiance of sun’s ray.

 

My bouquet of sonnets, culled from this verdant garden

Will pleasure all, I hope, who care to value my pen.

 

20.Hearts Commingled                                                                                            

My true love has my heart, and I have hers

By an exchange in an impromptu moment

Of marriage of time and space in universe:

A preordained event by some divine accident.

 

The sun eclipsed in close embrace by the moon

With earth as witness of the celestial communion;

Rather than an exchange, a convergence, a boon

With the two hearts beating each to each in union.

 

More than the beating hearts it was a fusion of soul

With the flute and the tune mingled in harmony

Of a hymn to the Creator who made them a whole,

As if mixing in one vessel pure milk with honey.

 

The two hearts were blended perfectly into one;

The eclipse was total as moon dissolved into sun. 

 

 

19. Dissembler Death

 

"Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind;

 And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

 

 

Death be not proud, for you are just a charlatan,                  

A mountebank, a cheat, a hoax, a hobgoblin,          

Thief-like stealth always being your heinous plan

In a shroud-wrapped face wearing an eerie grin.

 

The poet mockingly had your skeleton by his bed

Scoffing your pride, daring your might of mortality,

As you timidly heard his immortal sonnet widely read

Over time’s submission, proclaiming its immortality.

 

Your vaunted dominion’s sovereignty trampled to dust

The poets’ shall have the stars at their elbow and foot;

Their sonnets shall shine in the sky resplendent and robust

While you shall hide in earth festering, as they play their lute.

 

Death, you are a misnomer, a dissembler, a hated sprite,

Defeated and denounced, while poetry forever shines bright.

 

[Shadow: John Donne: Holy Sonnets X]

 

In a portrait and on his tomb, English poet John Donne (1572-1631) is shown wrapped in a burial shroud. The portrait was commissioned a few months before his death by Donne, who was also an Anglican priest. [The epigraph above the sonnet is from one of his sermons.] It was intended to show him as he would appear rising from his grave at the Apocalypse, and he hung it on his wall to serve as a memento mori. 

 

18.The Sonnet Stealer

     

With a stick in his hand Shakespeare chases me

For chastising, as I write my shadow sonnets, or

Filch pollen from his poetic flowers like a bee,

To create honeyed verses in lines ten and four.

 

And his patented rhymes with a couplet at the end

After a sequence of three quatrains superbly knit

For his dark lady or his young lover boyfriend

Whose identities have never been known to wit.

 

Though I only steal the opening line, spinning out

The thirteen more from my own wooden-head.

Yet for finding the correct rhymes I run about

Among the lexicons or thesauruses instead.

 

This never ending chase of the bard will go on

Till my mischief ends or the bard’s woebegone.  

 

 

17. Where’s Shakespeare

 

Have you seen the bard of Avon anywhere near -

The one who created Much Ado About Nothing

Balancing life in equal Measure for Measure

And made such a numskull of Lear, the gentle King.

 

That April-born, who strangely also died in April

And on the same day, too; a most bewildering fact!

Equally wondrous who wrote his plays, good or ill,

And that long sequence of sonnets till date intact,

 

A sixth to the dark lady and the fair youth the rest.

In the labyrinth of the bard’s sonnets I comb around

Playing peepbo with opening lines and trying my best

But through all the quartrains he can hardly be found.

 

The magic of his touch lies often in the couplet

But the elusive bard lies beyond there, I can bet.

 

And a few of my ‘free’ poems, too.

 

Liberation Express

 

They are sitting

In the waiting room

Of a railway station

With no local name and

A doomed habitation.

 

All of them have come

To see off friends and

Relatives travelling to

The same destination

Yet no one has any idea

About its exact location

Or even the direction

In which it lies because

No one among them

Has ever been there.

 

The station has no

Booking- window and

All tickets are pre-booked

There's only a vacant platform

And only a single train comes

There by every mid-night

When there is pitch darkness

All around with no lights

And no announcements

Are ever made there.

 

Strangely enough

The mid-night train is

Called Liberation Express

And it is a direct train from

Nowhere going only there.

 

No one ever gets down

From it, everyone only

Has to entrain because

All berths are allotted and

Strictly reserved for those

Who are to be its passengers.

 

Those who are sitting

In the waiting rooms

Have come only to

See them off and some

Of them are even keen

To see their passengers

Entrain and occupy their

Berths readily and soon,

That the train departs as

Soon as possible so

That they can go home

After bidding goodbye

To their passengers

Who are travelling there

On a one-way ticket.

 

But the station is

Otherwise totally

Empty because the

Train is reported

To be indefinitely

Late though it may also

Arrive at any moment

Without any signal

Or without a whistle.

 

And that is the only

Thing that makes all

Those in the waiting

Room so restless.

 

Because no one knows

When the train will

Arrive unexpectedly.

Temple Lips

 

Your lips are

The steps of my

Temple of love

With your heart as

The sanctum sanctorum.

 

My lips be my feet

Ascending the marble

Steps of your rosy lips

Dwelling on each of them

One at a time, then the other,

Then both in a delicious press.

 

When I enter the fragrant

Interior of that temple

I get tongue-tied in awe

Speechless in a swoon

In a darkness aglow with love.

 

My senses are all atingle

With a luscious languor -

The aural silenced, and

The visual curtained

By drooping eyelashes

The tactile moist and stuck

To the marble ladder

Of passionate liplock

The aroma rippling within

And without and the temple

Aquiver, and all in a whirl

With the devotee in a faint.

 

Your Face

 

I search for you

In the changing faces

Like images forming

In the cotton clouds

Against the blue eyes

Of the unwinking skies!

 

Your beauty is

Like a mystery tale

With its secret like

The honey hidden

In the nectar of buds

In the tendrils frail.

 

I try to search your face

In the star-spangled eve

Where the wind would weave

Patterns of unheard melodies.

 

Then tired of my searches

I find it in the pool of my pupils

Behind my closed eye-lashes

Where forever my heart it fills.

 

Closing Time 

                                   

You have been working hard

Earning your knowledge and

Caring for your worldly possessions

Carefully nurturing your inter-

personal relationships, your

Friendships and family matters

Your worldly affairs of society

And everything that you have

Nourished and sustained over years.

 

Indeed, after a life so well spent

You feel you have gained your rest

A well-deserved repose to relish

A life of content and well-being

A time to share happiness

And do good to your fellow beings.

 

But by the time you have put

Everything in order, everything

In its proper place, so that

You can find them just

When you need them to

Create a new order of things

Something new out of the old

And share and give away

What you have always wanted

They say your time is up,

And there is a sharp shout:

 

HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME

Hurry up, Hurry up,

Your time is up.

You must leave.

It’s closing time!”

 

Goodnight May, Goonight

Ta Ta, Goonight

Goonight…

 

Creation

      

Sex is a passionate
Continual exploration
Of the roots of existence
A dark endless tunnel
A subterranean route
For an unending journey
Into the search of
The mystery of death;

 

A journey backwards

Of  remembrance

Through the dark forest

Of memory, into oblivion,

Into a Stonehenge

Of ancient civilization

Of wandering ovaries

And wriggling sperms

For there lies life

Wrapped in death.

 

It’s creation playing

Hide and seek with

Destruction.

The Yellow Snake

 

In my dream today

And it was a mid-day

Siesta,post-lunch

The usual hour and half

Of sleep with heavy eyes

I saw a yellow black fat

Snake with a long fork-

Tongue rolled out and in

Like a blood-red ribbon

Slithering out of a hole

In my wall and crawling

Lovingly to a sleeping

Infant wrapped in a shawl

Moving close to its milk-

Smelling lips to kiss them

And then satiated, slowly

Pulling back its shimmering

Half yellow half black body

Creeping back into its hole.

 

It was like a poem

Coming to an end.               

 

Text & photo (C) @ BSM Murty

bsmmurty@gmail.com

Railway sketch : Courtsey Google