Sonnet #22
On the illusive hunt for the muse, she appears romantically, and as poets we often create a world of deeper pain, tragedy, joy, and victory than really exists. We are all Walter Mittys chasing some Platonic ideal we believe to be more real than reality itself.
O raven-haired with pouty smiling eyes
I saw you in the foyer well disguised
and you became my meter and my foot
but when you left I limped as best I could
And with this stilted mem-o-ry I work
to run, to leap, to fall, to snap, to jerk
I stroke this gray matter until it hurts
My satisfaction comes because I flirt
with life and death, but I have only lurked
like Thurber’s hero, I am more the clerk
Your raven hair is now like Pompeii’s soot
Hypomnemata is not what I should
have practiced, and so now i’ve only spied
by my brief glimpse into your smiling eyes
Rhyme scheme: aabb ccdd ccbbaa – designed in this manner simulating the attempt to rediscover our initial passion, which begins the creative process, but so often fails to remain with us throughout a work in progress – so the rhyme moves away and returns to the same word.
Phil Wyman: Dim Saesneg 