soundofmanywaters

This poem had to be in sonnet form because it is about the mysterious "Dark Lady" who is said to have inspired some of Shakespeare's Sonnets. For convenience I have printed below four of his Sonnets which I particularly had in mind. Please note I don't imagine for a moment that there is any comparison between my scribblings and the work of the Master! Dark Lady Is that you, peering out between the lines, The fourteen bars he conjured for your cage? He lured you where eternal summer shines And promised to set you free from mortal rage. We know a bit – he swore that you were fair – Your lips, your breasts, the black wires on your head – He told us how he loves your voice, but where Does he record a single word you said? So did he break your bondage to decay? We neither see nor hear you. He’s to blame. One word our greatest wordsmith didn’t say, He didn’t even bother with your name. What strangely lifeless immortality. There’s only one Word speaks eternity.        ...

 On Beauty Since no pulchron has ever blundered  Into our particle detectors or been smashed Up in our accelerators, experts insist She’s been Nietzsche’d into nothingness, like God. But I have made her acquaintance as the host Who shows me round the Garden. She doesn’t say much, but when she finds A momentary fragility Or immutable massivity A sudden twist of melody Or deep resolving harmony Consonants dancing lightly Through a moving ground of vowels - “Ah!” she cries. She shimmers like the water Whose ripples flicker with light’s liquid flame. She is teaching me to turn from the foolish sheep And from my forty years of disappointment And turn to where she stands on holy ground For she is a mighty messenger of awe  Burning but not consumed in living fire. Ah! Let me walk with you across the water Your golden path that leads me to the sun.