Monthly Archives: December 2006

Sonnets, Who can categorise everything?

A kink in the tail

Tyrannosaurus Rex comes thumping in,
At least an acre’s worth of latex on.
His dom, a Microraptor with a grin,
Is eyeing up that cute Iguanadon.
Triceratops is green with envy for
Velociraptor’s corsetry and tights,
While cosplay Stegasaurus at the door
Keeps riff-raff out. Our Mesozoic nights
Begin like this, but often end in pairs
Among the club-ferns, just two dino guys,
The costumes off, no longer after stares,
Embracing till the sun begins to rise.
You mammals look surprised? You know there’s none
So strange as love, or new beneath the sun.

Originally posted on Making Light.

Personal, Sonnets

Ironic perihelion

Since, I live in the Northern Hemisphere,
The planet, in its orbit round the sun
Is at ironic perihelion:
I have no comfort, though the sun is near.
Instead, half-starved for any natural light,
I take what refuge in the sunlit days
I can, before the angled and anemic rays
Are smothered by another heavy night.
Rejoice! Rejoice! The turning of the year
That heralds a return to warmth and cheer –
And most of all, the light – the day is here!.
Rejoice, they say, for better times are near!
I know the light will come, and do me good.
But I’m too tired to care. I wish I could.

Originally posted on Making Light.

Family, Sonnets

Sonnets

4 Comments

For a number of reasons, I’ve been writing a lot of sonnets lately. Most of them are heavily context-dependent, and I’m not going to get into the context here. But there was one, just dashed off, that I thought would be good to post.

Bedtime

It’s hard to pry the schoolboy from the Wii
Or his admiring sister from the couch
(She likes to watch him play). For me,
To make them move means being Mama Grouch.
But up the stairs and out of clothes they go
Then run and hide, one giggler per bed,
Until the bath is full. It’s then, they know,
I’ll come and pull the duvet off each head.
The bath is soothing, time to settle down,
Then brushing teeth and choosing one book each.
He fidgets, but she listens with a frown
And wants the book left close within her reach.
A kiss, two kisses, and two hugs goodnight
A last shared smile, and I turn out the light.

Soppy, I know, but that’s what I get to do half the evenings of the week.

Villanelles

Straw into golden villanelle

A child at risk leads to a hopeless trade.
And now I need your help. Please PayPal me
To spare the innocent, lest all hope fade.

My dying father had no wealth, and prayed
For any suitor who would marry me.
A child at risk leads to a hopeless trade.

He claimed that gold from straw I made.
I never told him how they threatened me,
To spare the innocent, lest all hope fade

A stranger came to spin if he’d be paid.
I was too young to choose responsibly
A child at risk leads to a hopeless trade.

And now the baby’s born, and I’m afraid.
I need the spinner’s name. Then I’ll be free
To spare the innocent, lest all hope fade.

I’ll buy a list of names, if I am paid.
So stranger, can you send some cash to me?
A child at risk leads to a hopeless trade

Originally posted on Making Light, as an attempt to write fairy tale 419 spam.

Sonnets

Sonnet from platitude spam

A preaching fox, as Wymond lets us see,
Distracts us from our geese… Hieronimus
Says forced kindness must then thankless be…
When kindness is advice, and forced on us,
Distracting from the pleasure we find here,
I take their platitudinous links ill.
But blocking comments would, I greatly fear,
Be burning down the house, the mouse to kill….
(And thank you, Dorothy, I won’t forget.)
The best fish swim, George tells us, bottomward…
But Laura warns us that the gifts we get
From enemies have dangers… So I’ve heard.
I wrote this verse from Lawrence‘s kind thought :
That nothing is so bad it’s good for naught…

Originally posted on Making Light, following a flood of spam disguised as platitude posts.