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.