New Year's Sonnet
Will New Year come to my garden with his sharp secateurs
to deadhead with zest all my brightest elflock flowers,
unfinished blooms of crimson damask, fleurs
du mal et bonheur alike, the columned hours
du mal et bonheur alike, the columned hours
clipped carelessly, tossed in a loathesome braided trug
of blades, a compost forgotten in the dryrot heat?
Or bring a plague of wasps to buzz in my mug
so each sip is a sting to a thirst so long incomplete?
But I dream that he comes, his arms overladen with days
his pale star eyes sailing lucent in a white-sickled sky;
with a quirk and puff of dawn’s breath, her seducing ways
to raise the blood wine in the flute, a kiss without goodbyes
a song on the moon, a sigh you can’t conceal
that opens the flower, feeds and makes it real.
December 2011
Optional mellowness to start out the new year:
donovan--sunny goodge street
Posted for Poetics at dVerse Poets Pub
Mark Kerstetter is hosting Endings and Beginnings on this final day of 2011, and invites reflection and speculation on the changing of the year. Come join us, and Happiest of New Years to all reading.
Mark Kerstetter is hosting Endings and Beginnings on this final day of 2011, and invites reflection and speculation on the changing of the year. Come join us, and Happiest of New Years to all reading.
Header image: Ridiculous Bird, by ~Neural Disarray on deviantArt
Shared under a Creative Commons 3.0 Non-Commercial License
FURTHER COMMENTING DISABLED ON THIS POST DUE TO SPAMBOT ACTIVITY
Shared under a Creative Commons 3.0 Non-Commercial License
i raise my flute of blood wine to that he comes, his arms overladen with days - and joy - and love - and arms and arms of flowers.. have a great start into the new year hedge!!
ReplyDeleteI hope New Years comes to your garden and brings all the besT
ReplyDeleteReally beautiful... I especially love:
ReplyDeletea song on the moon, a sigh you can’t conceal
that opens the flower, feeds and makes it real
I'm just begining to learn about the forms, but it seems you'v done a lovely sonnet : )
Happy New Year to you...
-Eva
I hope this new year is kind and leaves the wasps behind. I loved the rhyming.
ReplyDeleteWishing you a beautiful New Year, hedgewitch.
this is beautiful!!
ReplyDeletethe picture is so different!!
I absolutely agree with evavonpelt above, that is my favourite passage as well! Happy New year!!!
ReplyDeleteHaha! I put up a sonnet too and now I'm embarrassed! (Grrrrr.....)
ReplyDeleteHere are the lines I like best:
Or bring a plague of wasps to buzz in my mug
so each sip is a sting to a thirst so long incomplete?
But I dream that he comes, his arms overladen with days
his pale star eyes sailing lucent in a white-sickled sky;
Just beautiful. K.
This is exquiste, Joy... love your word choice and arrangement... I think it's a wonderful sonnet because you've made the form your own.
ReplyDeleteExcellent piece Hedge. The entire first stanza is incredible, every bit of it. Really good read. Wish you and yours a happy new years and 2012. Thanks
ReplyDeleteA Shakespearian sonnet to end the year, and to begin the year! Can't help but be inspired by the dedication to craft - and looking forward to more poetry to come.
ReplyDeleteMay the New Year render to you new wonders to amaze, new friends to embrace, new worlds to discover!
nice hedge...just got to cleveland and jumping on real quick...i hope it does not dead head the flowers but a kiss without a goodbye sounds like a rather nice thing...nice imagery of him in the coming...you know me form befuddles so it looks wonderful to me...smiles...happy new year!!!!
ReplyDeleteOldschool, the New Year King ritually murdered graybeard Old Year King -- sweep of the scythe, roll of the head! (Ditto the Green Knight) Those "sharp secateurs" sure had me sweating with the prescience of If You Thought '11 Was Bad ... thank Odin that the Paramour can sweet-talk our way off the gallows and onto an auld lange dance floor for a big muah and effervescent blessings for the year to come. Here's a bloomin' great one -- Brendan
ReplyDeleteWishing you a happy new year ... looking forward to more of your poetry in 2012.
ReplyDeleteSay Thee Well...Fairest Frau!!
ReplyDeleteIn the presence of Grandeur...
I stoop and bow.
Happy New Year Ms. Joy Joy...G
No unicorns? No smileys?!?
ReplyDeleteAll of 2011 to do it, and not one poem about unicorns from Hedgewitch. This is deeply disappointing.
If Fireblossom would read more carefully, she would notice that this piece prominently features elflock flowers which are (as everyone knows) the preferred snack of unicorns!
ReplyDeleteSeriously, this is really beautiful. I'm no purist, but it doesn't feel forced at all.
Thanks, MZ. It's nice to see someone appreciates these finer points. (Besides, the griffins ate all the unicorns--it was a slight oversight on my part, leaving them alone together.)
ReplyDelete@G: I'm loving your inner Elizabethan.
@B: I can see how a pair of secateurs could make a guy nervous. May there be much happy dancing in the new year, with no fear that old acquaintance will be forgot.
Oh ho ho..you say you can't write sonnets..yeah you can complete with a rockin' volta - I want to steal "his pale star eyes sailing lucent"--super great. Thanks for everything. Have a great 2012!
ReplyDeleteMy initial reaction: oh baby! My second: yes!
ReplyDeleteThanks, TUG. Couldn't ask for a better response. Happiest of new years to you and yours in beautiful Cantabria.
ReplyDeleteI feel rejuvenated and better make the mellowness compulsory!
ReplyDeleteWhy am I not surprised than in your vision of the year there is a garden? I love a sonnet that breaks the rules and reinvents the form from the ground up, and I love how you structured this one.
ReplyDeleteThis is one of my favorites of yours, Joy Ann. For me, form is incidental if the meaning hits me in the gut, as this one does. I didn't analyze the meter, but the overall effect is what counts.
ReplyDeleteOne of my favorite things to do in the garden is dead-heading, making way for the new. There's something mystical about it, I think.
Have a wonderful 2012!
@Kerry: Well, I wasn't trying to break the rules, or reinvent anything, but thanks and I'm glad you liked it. Do you mean the meter? Because otherwise I thought I had followed the form correctly. BTW thanks so much for reading and commenting on my Snow Thrall poem.
ReplyDeleteThanks Victoria. You, too.
ReplyDeleteI'm anything but a purist when it comes to traditional forms. Love Shakespeare (honest!), but I've only managed to write one sonnet in my life (it sucked). One reason I'm not a purist is I hate - repeat, Hate - counting beats in poetry. Music is not perfectly symmetrical for me. So, without stopping to count your beats, your music sounds very fine to me. You're an inspiration, Joy. Here's to your garden - both the flowery and the wordy kind - and have a great 2012!
ReplyDeleteGorgeous sonnet - love the reference to Baudelaire :)
ReplyDelete(Oh boo, this is the 3rd attempt! Two other comments have been eaten, grr...)
ReplyDeleteNo matter what you've stated, this is a wonderful piece that conjures such fabulous imagery. You had me at your every word once I got to the wasps... Your writing never disappoints, it flows in beauty, but is still "real" in the sharp edge of life.
Many blessings to you in 2012, especially when it comes to the pen ~
Gorgeous write, Joy. May the new year be kind to you and filled with happiness.
ReplyDeleteA wonderfully complex image, a pleasure to see it unfold and bound toward its resolution. I liked the "columned hours", how it evoked Books of Hours, accounting, columbines, and more. And somehow the loathesome braided trug reminds me of Phentex slippers, all the rage in the 1970s, inexhaustible and terrible.
ReplyDeleteHappy New! and thank you for your visits to my poems of 2011 :-)
I don't often read such creative sonnets! often with form pieces I feel they are forced in order to meet the requirements, but that is not the case here, loved - "Or bring a plague of wasps to buzz in my mug
ReplyDeleteso each sip is a sting to a thirst so long incomplete?" and the whole of the quatrain - great close too! I enjoyed reading this today Hedgewitch