SHADOW SONNETS

IN MEMORY OF KEATS 

I am compiling a BOOK OF SONNETS in all its timeless glory and variety right from earliest days in Italy to its present day spread across the globe. Poets have loved it, written it, often in sequences, quarreled with it in their love, flirted with it teasingly, shunned it, played with its form and shape - yet always succumbed to its mystical charm.

I, myself, a drop in that vast ocean of lyricism, have tried to dabble with its traditional form, preferring the mould that Shakespeare chose for his 'Dark Lady', and experimented by stealing the opening lines of some of the sweetest of them and creating my own form of 'Shadow Sonnets' - or often 'Echo Sonnets', in which only the idea and some phrases, and not the opening lines are taken.

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The sonnet is the most feminine of poetic forms with all the titillating traits of just the right measure of ornamentation, metrical suppleness and alluring harmony - with necessary curves, rise and fall in the right places - attributes not to be found anywhere else in any other poetic form. 

I give you a few chosen examples of my recent dalliance with the celebrated poetic form and would like your comments here - a selection of the best from them - I shall include in my forthcoming book, Kindly give your full details with the comments.

Here then are my playful creations.

1.

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.

2

 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.

3.

   Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day                    

 

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Thou art more lovely, more sultry in your looks,

With winking eyes, and lips burning like May,

Singing a love-song in murmur like the brooks.

 

The summer in your being mixes memories of the spring

With autumn filling all fruits with ‘ripeness to the core’

The splendor of all seasons in your person unveiling

The full lyricism of love in bouts of passion more.

 

The summer’s blazing sun shall hide behind the hills,

And the spring shall shut its shop of flowers soon

As autumn with its ‘twittering swallows’ the skies fills

While your radiant beauty walks past the luminous moon.

 

It will flourish and glow in these verses of mine

Eternally, as the bard said, it will continue to shine.

4. 

. How to pray       

 

Tell me how to pray, or what to pray for -

O God, Who gave me all when You sent me

Into this world, the manifestation of Your

Glory infinite, with a lighted soul to see

 

And experience Your Lovingkindness

And Your Grace with every breath I take

But slowly I became aware of the harness

Tying me in desires prompting me to make

 

Entreaties for their fulfilment through prayers

Without knowing how or what to pray for

Save me, O God, from the intriguing snares

Of desires, and only let me remember You more.

 

Rid me of all want and ‘repining restlessness’

Only grant me rest and peace in Your Holiness.

5..

Let’s kiss and part

Since there’s no help, come, let’s kiss and part;

The most delicious kiss ever our lips savoured.

This short separation can never keep us apart,

Through twenty springs our love’s persevered.

 

Separation only makes love deeper and sweeter

Unseen the bees keep the honeycomb enriching

Bringing the nectar of memories from far and near

To add to the liquid love ripening and mellowing.

 

Longing love at both ends, pining for an ultimate union

A candle burning at both ends melting to come closer

Till the two passionate souls find their communion

Defying all worldly impediments, heeding love’s prayer.

 

Against all obstacles invincible your love has ever been

Indeed, our short separation makes our love evermore keen. 

This is just a small bouquet. The stealer would never reveal  what or how much or from where he has stolen his flowers. It's for Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson, or, perhaps, Dupin to discover the 'Purloined Flowers'!

(C) Dr BSM Murty