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A collaboration over too much coffee.
coffee and pen

07 September, 2006

"The poem resembles a bottle" [sonnet, semi-Petrarchan]

You can't insist   that others enjoy your poetry!
who could compel the mist   to applaud the flowers?
I wouldn't suppose   another perceives what penury
lately rims the brocaded yardage of swaddling hours

the poem resembles a bottle cast on the brine
containing the tale of a consciousness gone aground
one's private isle!   green glass is washed supine
by currents whose key strange destiny may've found

the very form of the poem achieves the seal
to keep the text contained   so when it's read
this opens the bottle   if reading might reveal

what letter an islander stowed   what has he said?
he broods at palmtrees   and an old worsted keel
while God alone knows   how an alien life he's led!

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[This is my first contribution to the Caferati blog. I dub the form "semi-Peetrarchan" merely on account of its particular rhyme scheme (which affixes a Shakespearean head on a Petrarchan tail, so to speak)]

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5 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

"the poem resembles a bottle cast on the brine
containing the tale of a consciousness gone aground
one's private isle!"


Nice imagery!

08 September, 2006 08:40  
Blogger Russell CJ Duffy said...

i haven't the faintest notion what you are speaking of BUT...

double BUT...

but i really enjoyed reading this

08 September, 2006 17:32  
Blogger david raphael israel said...

thanks GM and CJ, obliged

09 September, 2006 11:24  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The poem reminds me a fine pantoum by Austin Dobson called In Town where he uses the word 'pottle'. I am interested in your search for 'why poetry'? and 'why poet'? 'poetry what'? To me it is the ultimate Absurd question (in the sense Camus uses)

cheers/ mahendra

06 October, 2006 00:39  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

David, I realised my comment doesn't add up. I mentioned Dobson to say that your Petrarchan is a fine poem and one someone will pull out one day from memory and say, Hey I know someone who wrote a poem I liked, and admired the thought.

cheers/mahendra

07 October, 2006 15:06  

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