Tuesday, February 26, 2013

This Year of Fire



Michael demanded a rhyming poem before he went to bed - citing only rhyming poetry was proper poetry and the rest was just prose and far too easy.  Yeah right - cue the Tui billboard.  In any case, I have worked hard tonight to comply with his "request" - but even so this almost sonnet, almost certainly needs a little work...or at least the cold light of day.  Or should I say the far too hot light of day? 
 

This Year of Fire
by A.J. Ponder


This year is sorrow as the flowers bloom
the blush of petals flawed with pockmark trails
clutch withered seedpods and fade all too soon
before they fall into the wailing wind -

tears blown against the murky sky, the year
bruised dull grey and faded in its sorrow 
as the sun beats down in heated fear
past all boiling point, sublimed snow and fire -

an endless rage against an endless year.
Now we must bring a cool change, a frost bite,
a deadly drowning lest we persevere
with hope.  Lest we dare fight the raging tide

and fall not with the solar wind and searing rain,
but hold an icy compress against this pain.


Fav's this week are Helen Rickerby's choice of Incident by Fleur Adcock, thanks Mary McCallum for putting me on to Alice Spider, by Janis Freegard,  Harvey Molloy's The Schoolboy by William Blake, and Robert Sullivan's New Eclipse, for Ralph Hotere.

cheers,
A.J. Ponder

P.S. If you love sonnets and want to read some more "Running Away with a Christmas Sonnet"  and "Sonnet to the Muse" are fun, and if you want to learn how to write a sonnet The The Poetically Incorrect English Sonnet is there to help (watch out for the bad language though! 

A.J. Ponder's books are available through Rona Gallery, Amazon, Paper Plus and good Wellington bookstores.


2 comments:

  1. For something you say needs polishing up I think well done you! It's dark isn't it. But seems to fit this month of February which should be all delight but often seems weighed down with human expectations.

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    1. Cheers Helen, really appreciate your comments - so that's what it is about Feb - Terrible month. Still, I'm not sure about tweaking yet - it's just not often you write something and don't hate it the next day...

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