Sonnets

By john_silver

Collection of various sonnets, updated twice a week (for as long as I can keep it up).

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Cherry

Monday Sonnet: Sanctis

By john_silver on Mon, 15 Sep 2008

Damn lack of italics. Sanctis is meant to be italicised in the poem.
Love
Poem
Certificate U

Alcmene

By john_silver on Fri, 05 Mar 2010

I do not know you, my friend, As the one who traced the line Of my prologues like a vine, Eve to eve, and end to end. I only know you as the one Who caught my thunder while it turned
Love
Poem
Certificate U

Aphrodite

By john_silver on Thu, 09 Jul 2009

First in a new collection called Exodus. Signals a break from my previous sonnets.
Love
Poem
Certificate U

Athena

By john_silver on Wed, 05 May 2010

The pathway to my heart is tangled. And the hand that brings to me The branch to plant the olive-tree Is blocked by vines – is blocked and strangled. The chambers of dissent and conflict
Spiritual
Poem
Certificate U
Cherry

Tuesday Sonnet: Canzoniere

By john_silver on Tue, 19 Aug 2008

I want to write a sonnet to you, though I’m not that into Petrarch (his lament Can get repetitive, when its extent Exceeds 300 sonnets), and I know
Love
Poem
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Friday sonnet: Verona Song

By john_silver on Fri, 22 Aug 2008

Ok, so I’m not Romeo. I have set My canon ’gainst self-slaughter, furthermore, I can’t climb balconies (the fact your floor’s The third one doesn’t help). So yes, I’ll let
Love
Certificate U

Tuesday Sonnet: The Barbarian Thought

By john_silver on Tue, 26 Aug 2008

So here I am: stuck in this Masters' course Which only is a step in my career (A path which, more and more these days, I fear Will lead to nowhere, other than divorce
Love
Poem
Certificate U

Thursday Sonnet: Canto

By john_silver on Thu, 04 Sep 2008

Before the tree that is the root of every Story bled an apple from its boughs, The words I speak to you were made of ivory, Unsullied by my tides of Whys and Hows.
Love
Poem
Certificate U

Monday Sonnet: Pebble's Lament

By john_silver on Mon, 08 Sep 2008

If I’d been born a pebble by the shore, My life would be significantly easier. Were I in love, I wouldn’t try to please her With sonnets; I’d sleep flat; I could ignore
Love
Poem
Certificate U

Thursday Sonnet: Proverb

By john_silver on Thu, 11 Sep 2008

Whoever reads this first could you please explain to me how I'm supposed to italicize words in this format? Plus: Acknowledgement to Yatzee Croshaw for a joke.
Love
Poem
Certificate U

Friday Sonnet: Enumeration

By john_silver on Fri, 19 Sep 2008

How do I love you? Let me count the ways. I love you like a camel loves his humps, Like photos love their image, like bumpcars bumps, Like cowboys cows. I love you just like gays
Love
Certificate U
Cherry

Monday Sonnet: TS

By john_silver on Mon, 22 Sep 2008

A different kind of failure, Eliot said Of poetry – and won the Nobel prize. He preached humility, so no surprise. Hence, from under the shadow of his red
Love
Poem
Certificate U

Sunday Sonnet: Eulogy

By john_silver on Sun, 28 Sep 2008

Extraordinary being, tender light Of clemency by which my pen is writing, Hand, blessed, that guides my path out of the night, And heals this chest, and calms this spirit's fighting,
Love
Story
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Cherry

Thursday Sonnet: Song of Treasures

By john_silver on Thu, 02 Oct 2008

Acknowledgements to Neil Gaiman's Sandman issue #6 for the sentence which originally inspired this poem.
Love
Poem
Certificate U
Cherry

Monday Sonnet: Coda

By john_silver on Mon, 06 Oct 2008

That's it. There's no more sonnets. You change place. And I will be your Cyrano no more, There will be no more calling you 'Your Grace,' No speech, no other witty metaphor.
Love
Poem
Certificate U

Thursday Sonnet: Canticle of Cartago

By john_silver on Thu, 09 Oct 2008

Cartago is Latin for Carthage, in case you're wondering.
Love
Poem
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Monday Sonnet: Birds

By john_silver on Mon, 13 Oct 2008

Poe’s raven, from a tree, caws ‘Nevermore,’ While both the swans of Baudelaire and Yeats Are fighting to be monarchs of the lakes; Plus, Coleridge’s gull is seen to soar.
Love
Poem
Certificate U

Thursday Sonnet: Thames Song

By john_silver on Thu, 16 Oct 2008

It’s pretty good a place, the Thames, to sit by And think of all the ills that time repairs When, laden with young love’s modest despairs, One smooths regret under an indifferent sky.
Love
Poem
Certificate U
Cherry

Monday Sonnet: The Trial of the Mind

By john_silver on Mon, 20 Oct 2008

I do believe that I’m the only man Who’s sane upon this globe, and since we find It’s fact you’d have to have gone mad (or blind) Not to be mad in love with you, madam,
Love
Poem
Certificate U
Cherry

Thursday Sonnet: Storm

By john_silver on Thu, 23 Oct 2008

Because the storm of love is raging On a chest too young to claim It has weathered storm and rain I build a house and, in it, staging Pantomimes of rigid bliss, I tell myself and tell myself
Love
Poem
Certificate U

Thursday Sonnet: Becoming Spring (I)

By john_silver on Thu, 15 Jan 2009

This was my entry for the abctales competition, just adding it to my archive. :)
Love
Poem
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Thursday Sonnet: Becoming Spring (II)

By john_silver on Thu, 15 Jan 2009

Ditto per below, part II of the same thing
Love
Poem
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Cherry

Tuesday Sonnet: Merits

By john_silver on Tue, 20 Jan 2009

I love the way you speak of sadness as A gift that none of us deserves, like we Had not done work enough to find its tree And pluck its fruits (these our tradition has
Love
Poem
Certificate U
Cherry

Friday Sonnet: Silver

By john_silver on Fri, 23 Jan 2009

No wine these grapes of hurt set free, No coin is bartered for their taste: my lover, My friend, you do no longer look at me… The forging of my fantasies is over:
Love
Certificate U
Cherry

Tuesday Sonnet: The Wisdom of the Old

By john_silver on Tue, 03 Feb 2009

I know not of the wisdom of the old. I do not even know who called it that: Perhaps an old man, mumbling where he sat – Which means it’s vanity. Or was it told
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

Tuesday Sonnet: Theatre

By john_silver on Tue, 09 Jun 2009

It’s funny how, now they’re demolishing The theatre, it should reap such great success: There’s crowds, there’s shoves – a rally to be witness! I only walk as though abolishing
Love
Poem
Certificate U

Saturday Sonnet: Eternity

By john_silver on Sat, 13 Jun 2009

It’s true my love for you is not eternal – but then Again, you aren’t either. Would you really Want something that’s been forged so goddamn steely
Humour
Poem
Certificate 15

Monday Sonnet: A Tapestry of the Air

By john_silver on Mon, 22 Jun 2009

No, I would not believe that brazen man Whose autumn bronze now rusted by my street: He said I should not breathe your air that sung, Nor tame its winds and tend them at your feet.
Love
Poem
Certificate U

Wednesday Sonnet: The Stream (I)

By john_silver on Wed, 24 Jun 2009

Part 2 to follow in a couple of days.
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

Monday Sonnet: The Stream (II)

By john_silver on Mon, 29 Jun 2009

Direct continuation of the previous sonnet, took me slightly longer than expected.
Love
Poem
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Thursday Sonnet: Flourish

By john_silver on Thu, 02 Jul 2009

The first time that we met your eyes were lined With streaks from lights that now have turned to ash. It still was winter then; the season sighed In mists on the concrete, you were a slash
Love
Poem
Certificate U
Cherry

Sunday Sonnet: Matrimony

By john_silver on Sun, 05 Jul 2009

Before mature emotions come to plant In me their sense or blindness, I will speak This thought (no doubt condemned within a week). I write this to my wife. Although I can’t
Miscellaneous
Poem
Certificate U

Looking at your old photo

By john_silver on Thu, 16 Jul 2009

Your face is there, your smile, your ways, Those lovely eyes that you have got, But not the passion, no, and not The searing tenderness which days And days saw burnt like matchsticks in
Autobiography
Poem
Certificate U

Drunk

By john_silver on Sat, 18 Jul 2009

My head is spinning. Where are you, And where’s your sweetness now? When will I taste your fallen glow, Or kneel to kiss your hands of dew Which bear the morning light? No: never …
Autobiography
Certificate U

Rome

By john_silver on Tue, 21 Jul 2009

Dull centurion, genitor, I’m tired of your dire gates, The journeys East, the plums and dates, I can not fight your sunset war. And you, Cleopatra from New York,
Autobiography
Poem
Certificate U
Cherry

Monday Sonnet: Lindt D'Or

By john_silver on Mon, 11 Jan 2010

Monday morning rant. Take it for what it is. :P
Humour
Poem
Certificate 12

Tuesday Sonnet: The Garland

By john_silver on Tue, 12 Jan 2010

When I was young, I used to take the flowers From home, my square green garden, up your slope. But then, since I’d eroded all my hours (Which left me one by one, like bars of soap
Love
Poem
Certificate U

Trains

By john_silver on Wed, 13 Jan 2010

There’s trains that rumble like a herd That’s lying siege around the hills, They’re loaded with their tales, their thrills, And runes and legends still unheard.
Spiritual
Poem
Certificate U

Thursday Sonnet: To Mars

By john_silver on Thu, 14 Jan 2010

If by the light of Romulus and Remus You spelt revenge upon us for the sons Of dissipated Troy, burnt out like suns Before you saw their fruit of rage, then deem us
Autobiography
Poem
Certificate U
Cherry

Tuesday Sonnet: I have mingled my bread with weeping

By john_silver on Tue, 26 Jan 2010

Written when feeling very down in the dumps. Title is from the Bible, fyi.
Love
Poem
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Library

By john_silver on Wed, 27 Jan 2010

No, I shall not; I’ve had enough Of libraries as mute as moons, Of limpid autumn afternoons For sharing books and quotes and fluff. One whole season I’ve been lost
Love
Poem
Certificate U

Orpheus

By john_silver on Wed, 27 Jan 2010

It's not to leave, but to return That matters to this fallen plume. I took an echo from an urn Of empty pride to be a tune Of peace and words of friendship, and I followed it into the bottom
Autobiography
Poem
Certificate U

Helios

By john_silver on Thu, 25 Feb 2010

This is a poem that I write Because the words have failed the tongue. This is a canticle of night Because my grail has spilled the sun. I was religious, though I thought
Spiritual
Certificate U
Cherry

Saturday Sonnet: To the Nephew

By john_silver on Sat, 06 Mar 2010

I seldom write of death. I’m still too young; My pen has yet to spell of lives dispelled, And when I walked my way, the hand I held Was not the shadow I’ll hold down the long
Spiritual
Poem
Certificate U
Cherry

Sunday Sonnet: To the girl who smiled

By john_silver on Sun, 07 Mar 2010

Here in these streets of judges and police Where we unlace the textiles of our days, I used to search you in the tales from Greece Which speak across the eons, phrase by phrase,
Love
Poem
Certificate U

Monday Sonnet: Hope

By john_silver on Sun, 07 Mar 2010

I’m asked to write of hope, a subject which Resists festoons of metaphor with almost The same propriety as death. Foremost Among the skills that make a poet rich
Autobiography
Poem
Certificate U

Tuesday Sonnet: Immortality

By john_silver on Tue, 09 Mar 2010

“When I am gone, I shall not be the dust That licks your soles beneath your steps wind-borne, Nor yet the thread of ash that, shorn of lust And reason, trails the mantle of the storm;
Autobiography
Poem
Certificate U

Friday Sonnet: Monologue

By john_silver on Thu, 11 Mar 2010

Because I find a glance of yours can raze Me to the ground, as though I were the corn Or rye and you the mother of the storm, I purse my lips and turn away my gaze,
Love
Certificate U

Saturday Sonnet: Little Proverb

By john_silver on Sat, 13 Mar 2010

If there’s a name for you, it is pronounced In whispers, in a tongue we speak no more; A tongue that’s only used to write the lore Of sacred things, and books of past accounts.
Love
Poem
Certificate U

Tuesday Sonnet: Huzzah!

By john_silver on Tue, 16 Mar 2010

Scared of me? You bet! I've seen your tragic Castles and the holes beneath your cuirass. Paint me stupid – I am full of magic, Bright like stuff of dreams, as warm and true as
Autobiography
Poem
Certificate 15

Spirituality

By john_silver on Thu, 18 Mar 2010

They slide away, the days of yore, From wood to ash, from ash to flame Like pages turning in the frame Of an old book, and then no more. Look: in this question of our hour,
Spiritual
Poem
Certificate U

Thursday Sonnet: Paris

By john_silver on Fri, 19 Mar 2010

Paris, Paris, I have not come to light Or spin you, I’ve not come to sing la Senne, My throat seeks no refreshment from your night And I’m not asking where to go or when.
Autobiography
Poem
Certificate U

Pandora

By john_silver on Fri, 19 Mar 2010

O Pandora, we have lost, There can be no golden chest, The immortals don’t know best And we know less than them at most. And we will never be remembered, We will never be forgotten
Spiritual
Poem
Certificate U
Cherry

Thursday Sonnet: About Milkshakes

By john_silver on Fri, 26 Mar 2010

Let’s sum it up; I’m in a break-room, work Begins again in twenty, in which time I barely find the space (or wits) to rhyme, And I am asked to conjure from the murk
Humour
Poem
Certificate U

Iphigenia

By john_silver on Fri, 26 Mar 2010

I want to know whose war it is That I have fought without a bruise, Without a sound, without the news Of where the breach or the defeat is, I want to hear the name, the cause
Spiritual
Certificate U

Saturday Sonnet: Meditation

By john_silver on Sat, 27 Mar 2010

It’s true, I am a mess in certain ways, Unstable in my tides of joy and grief, But I am satisfied in the belief I own the grain to feed the mill of days.
Spiritual
Poem
Certificate U

Dove

By john_silver on Sun, 04 Apr 2010

You before all others I Am loving with the silence of The secret hands which hold the dove. My bells stand still before the sky; I draw a single letter in The gravel on your path of choice:
Love
Certificate U

Eagle

By john_silver on Thu, 15 Apr 2010

The storm is past. Perhaps it was Too brief. The cloud that belts the forehead Of the eagle by the shore, said To be bird of Zeus, has Become an urn of sleep; it pours
Spiritual
Certificate U

Tarot

By john_silver on Sun, 18 Apr 2010

The train is riding, rocking gently While it takes me to Bordeaux. Outside, the grasses slowly grow Beneath the mute age of each bent tree. The swelter’s melting into glue
Spiritual
Poem
Certificate U

Monday Sonnet: On clothes

By john_silver on Mon, 19 Apr 2010

Written when a friend commissioned a poem on clothes. Enjoy!
Autobiography
Poem
Certificate U

Monday Sonnet: Diversity

By john_silver on Mon, 19 Apr 2010

Some harsh language, hence I'm filling up the teaser to avoid it showing in the preview. :P
Humour
Poem
Certificate 15

The Disciple

By john_silver on Tue, 20 Apr 2010

If you let them say you’re free, And you let them, like they do, Take their guns to me and you, They will frame you, and you’ll see, All your gains will be their own,
Spiritual
Poem
Certificate U
Cherry

Wednesday Sonnet: The Actor to the Audience

By john_silver on Wed, 21 Apr 2010

When I still had the sunlight in my hair I thought the gods of theatre had misspelt My stage directions; was I Caesar’s heir? I did not feel the quiet others felt
Autobiography
Poem
Certificate U

Peace

By john_silver on Tue, 27 Apr 2010

I’m done with fighting. That is what I’m done with. Rise, o thousand words, And screech like pyrotechnic birds The chorus in my throat, Peace, not Crows or spears or medals, only
Spiritual
Poem
Certificate U

I will

By john_silver on Fri, 30 Apr 2010

There still is so much work to do, My friend and cell-mate, if our fates Not spell-bound by a state of states Will lead to valleys of the new. I watch my spirit slowly grow;
Spiritual
Certificate U

The Path

By john_silver on Sun, 02 May 2010

There is a voice that’s not of crone Nor crow’s nor rooster’s, yet recites An exegesis days and nights. It speaks to you, to you alone, It stains your every dawn, it soaks
Spiritual
Poem
Certificate U

Wednesday Sonnet: To Italy

By john_silver on Wed, 05 May 2010

There is a vine that binds us, made of rose And olive leaves, and figs and spikes of pine; It is entwined with sunlight, grain and wine, The song that is our language lets it close
Autobiography
Poem
Certificate U

Thursday Sonnet: Dreams that die

By john_silver on Thu, 06 May 2010

Written on submission by a girl (she suggested the title).
Humour
Poem
Certificate 18

Epic Song

By john_silver on Thu, 06 May 2010

I am the song of dark dark dark I am the bloody neck of lamb I am the scent that hires the shark I am the horn of dithyramb I am the scavenged breast of hope I am the flower of the war
Spiritual
Certificate U
Cherry

Odysseus

By john_silver on Mon, 10 May 2010

Dawn breaks through the window of My eyes and neurons, and my pen Can barely hold the furious shove Of light’s invaders, fierce like men. I add another to the suns In my portfolio of sky,
Spiritual
Poem
Certificate U
Poem of the week

To an ideally beautiful girl 1

By john_silver on Mon, 10 May 2010

First of two sonnets to an unbelievably beautiful (but, alas, rather stupid) girl I met some time ago.
Romance
Poem
Certificate U

To an ideally beautiful girl 2

By john_silver on Tue, 11 May 2010

Second sonnet to that impossibly beautiful, remarkably stupid girl.
Romance
Poem
Certificate U

Tuesday Sonnet: Sonnet to an attractive girl

By john_silver on Tue, 11 May 2010

In line with the previous two sonnets, though this one girl was not quite as attractive (and a great deal smarter).
Romance
Poem
Certificate U