It's Sonnet Sunday, and I did blast this one off this morning. It comes, I think, from a drive in the countryside yesterday. I've never sen so many dead creatures in one journey - hedgehogs, pheasants, foxes - name the animal, I probably saw one. It's the only explanation I can think of for why the mood seems so dark in this sonnet.
Room with a View
This window is not for you to see outside,
only to look within. The rattle, when
wind shakes the pane, stays rippling under skin.
The smear of road-kill can be understood
by shadows on the lung, by blurs of blood
that keep shifting. Your body has a twin
that will outlive you, in the view. The scene
portrays the lives, or deaths, still to be tried.
A bird floats by from right to left and leaves
you to an empty sky. A shadow waves
from a flickering void, then turns the television
off and on. Then off. A widow grieves
with curtains closed for months; so many graves
to choose from, you can’t come to a decision.
6 comments:
Crikey it sure is dark, rather spooky I must say but you've certainly captured something as I keep coming back to re-read it.
I've just noticed the internal rhyming in the 1st stanza which especially contributes to the reading and the mood, well written for 1st thing this morning!
I like the conceit of the reflected twin outliving the subject. The poem just gets darker and darker until the end, where we are left with a very minor decision-- since death is already dominant.
This poem makes me feel like road kill. And I'm depressed already!
The two initial anapests of l. 11 grate, especially given that everything else is metrically regular. But I'm persnickety about such things.
How do you do? I've started my blog about Japanese culture arts. I appriciate if you link to my site since I would like many people to know Japanese culture. Thank you!
Thanks everyone. I appreciate this poem is a bit of a downer. It's also a bit rough. But it's good to know it might be worth working on.
Ichiro - I don't mind linking to your site, but if you ask me to link to yours, you should link to mine first. That's how I understand blogger etiquette.
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