I Won't Be The One To Leave

[drummondo]

I Won't Be The One To Leave: Part I

 

He takes his pen;

His name, engraved in gold upon the side,

Catches the light

Of interrupted glimpses from the moon

Through clouds so white

And pure, (But only for the night's illum-

-inating glow), and then

He writes a saddened letter to his bride;

 

"I love you not, we cannot be,

We live our lives without the 'v'

Of virtue or valour, for love relies

On truth, and it should come as no surprise;

Our lives are lies."

 

He makes a seal;

A tear falls and lands beside his name

Signed at the base,

And, finished now, he scans his means of murder

As his face

Contorts in realised disgust, and further-

More, he does reveal

That worried look of doubt; A sign of shame.

 

He strikes a match

To signify the partnership between

Husband and wife,

And, holding flame to paper at the base,

He takes the life

Of murderous thoughts; instead he does replace

Them with a patch

Of charred, black words, which now resolve to mean;

 

"I love you,

We live

for love"

 

He notes the play

Of flames upon his desk, and can't believe

He ever thought

To question love. Reflected in his eye

The fire is caught

By wind, and slowly now the passion dies,

As if to say;

"My darling, I won't be the one to leave."

 

~

 

I Won't Be The One To Leave: Part II

 

I take your hand, and lead you past a stream,

And note the glint of sunlight in your eyes,

Yet as I plunge the knife in, you still scream,

And leave a look of terror and surprise.

I grasp your locks of auburn as you fall,

And give you a slight push, so that you'll land

Right in the water. You don't even call

For help, you simply smile and hold my hand.

 

And then I wake, a knife upon my bed,

And remnants of a doll, sliced, on the floor,

Her hair, due to the draught, is fairly spread.

I take the knife and lock it in a drawer,

And thread the key upon a golden chain;

A gift to you, to show we shall remain.

 

 

Thanks to all who take the time to read it fully. Comments appreciated

Edited October 14, 2004 by drummondo

[drummondo]

I figured I'd bump this with a sonnet I've been working on.

 

For I'm A Simple Poet

 

I feel a father's joy when watching words

Awaken, crawl and walk to form a song;

A different glee, to spot a flock of birds

In angular formation; is it wrong

To look at separate beauty with such rare

Intent to capture nature in its glory?

And do the swans themselves resolve to stare

At frozen trees, and spare thought for their story?

 

They say that writing's much like life, for I'm

A simple poet, trying to make his way

Through many a twisted plot or storyline,

And, dealing with emotions every day,

Still nature leaves me speechless, full of awe;

The whiteness of the ice in words; so pure.

[Alaeha]

Of the two sonnets, I'd have to say I liked the first one (Part 2) better. It was, on the whole, better done. It adhered to the form of a Shakespearean sonnet more closely, though I have to admit that when I first scanned it, I was expecting a Petrarchan/Italian sonnet, based on the formatting. The third quatrain in it was definitely my favorite part of it, though I'm not sure whether that makes me a disturbed person or not?

 

For the second poem, I've got a couple of suggestions... In the second line of your second stanza (A simple poet) "trying" throws the rhythm off a bit (it puts an extra unstressed syllable into the line) You could avoid that by either chopping the extra syllable there somehow (choosing a monosyllable to replace it) or by altering "to make" in that way. I'd give a couple of examples, but the best I'm coming up with right now is "struggling through" to replace "trying to make".

 

I like what I'm reading here, for the most part... but the rhythmical difficulties and the imperfect rhymes (I'm-Line, and awe-pure) distract a bit. Any time you change the form you're using, it draws the reader out of the text and makes them look at the form of the text for a minute, and you don't often want that.

 

Keep working at it, though. You're off to a good start.