© 2016 Steve King
All rights reserved
Impossible it seems to find a way
that measures what so subtly resides
within the conscience and the patient heart.
I hoped these written findings would endow
new meaning for the questions sleeping there,
would plumb the riddles in those hidden parts,
the motives that still linger and appease,
that stoke false pride and obfuscate old cares.
I know I’ll never satisfy what’s true
with those tendentious spirits as my guides:
they burnish all illusion and remand
the record that I hoped would since abide.
That easy road is ever on the rise,
and I must seek a pathway otherwise.
A new poem for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads
http://withrealtoads.blogspot.com/
http://withrealtoads.blogspot.com/
Hey Steve, first I love your picture. It is just beautiful in its combination of starkness and love.
ReplyDeleteSecond, I love the sonnet. It feels to me like that fight against the trick of art--we want to be honest and then, getting caught in the artifice, we want to be praised (or at least acknowledged), when it was always about something far deeper than that. At any rate, this is how I read the poem--anything uttered what's for its response--be it echo or call back. Oh dear. So well done. Thanks. And thanks also for your kindness towards my weird offering. This has been really a very hard month. Take care. k.
Thanks, Karin. You've captured what I intended--as always. I appreciate the visit very much.
DeleteSteve--re pic--I meant to say combination of starkness and lushness! But there is a lot of love there too. Just love the poem--it is so thoughtful and thought-provoking--and so happy to revisit. k.
Delete"I know I’ll never satisfy what’s true.."
ReplyDeleteyet on we write. Your vocabulary here is particularly rich, Steve, and it adds so much to the mood of the poem, which to me is both rueful and reflective. These thoughts and feelings that come with age are harrowing, but also, we are stronger for finally looking at and knowing their faces. You are really excelling at the form, as well--very satisfying to read such perfect rhyme and meter, a strong frame under the bodywork, as it were.
Thanks much for the visit and and generous comment, Joy. I've found I enjoy piecing sonnets together. They do force you to focus.
DeleteI too love the picture, and I think the sonnet form is very well suited to these reflections. It reads as if you have thought things through very thoroughly and honestly. Luck on the 'otherwise' path!
ReplyDeleteYour last phrase made me think of Frost's Road Not Taken poem...yes, we take the path of artists -- searching for meaning, and as you say here "plumbing for riddles." Your sonnet is full of the contemplation that goes along with having a writer's heart. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteI admire your approach to the sonnet with four strong statements, set out as argument and conclusion. Your use of language is stellar - the perfect blend of classic and modern.
ReplyDeleteWriting can help us sort out what we really are feeling - unless of course it doesn't. :) There are so many times I've tried to express a notion only to look at what I've written, only to see that didn't come out anywhere near my initial expectations. Or written something I thought was just an idle exercise, and become stunned at the emotions it brought out. Both scenarios leaving me wondering how the heck it happened, but as Hedgewitch said, on we write.
ReplyDeleteBeing a person presented with otherwise paths and dead ends I dream of an easy road:) Skillful execution of the sonnet form.
ReplyDelete