Sonnet Challenge #6.

This challenge is another one from Pia in Denmark.  “Current events with a humorous twist.”  I wrote it as things start to get a little heated in North Korea, US has closed two Russian embassies after US embassy staff was reduced in Russia, who are about to conduct battle practices, Syria has become so much of a bar fight I’ve stopped trying to follow who’s fighting whom, and Vladimir Putin and Elon Musk are both predicting world war III will be done by artificial intelligence.  Oy vey and that’s just the stuff I’m paying attention to.

The reference to grayness, by the way is for the dissolution of the tidy black and white of the chess board.  When I wrote this sonnet, I initially did this on paper.  When I went to type it up, I typoed the original ‘Boys will be boys’ and I think it’s one of life’s better typos…..

I’m hoping that the sense of humor that I’ve used doesn’t mean I need to seek political asylum on Alpha Centauri.  (Anyone have the phone # for their embassy just in case?)

Chess
The board of international politics

is getting so much grayer than before.

The pawn, castle and king – war or not war?

What difference does this make to us mere hicks?

We hate our neighbors, but we need to trade,

and then won’t trade because we don’t approve

of how they live and hate.  Our knights outmove

and bishops all expelled, and weapons made

for what? Fists are not how you make a friend!

Boys will be bots, and this is getting dumb!

Is this the “sense” we will base AI on –

the hope and fear that this whole thing will end?

The politics these days are such a mess,

I wish they’d settle it with a game of chess.

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Sonnet Challenge #5.

This one came from my good friend Adrian in France (Petitbricoleur).  He has a wry sense of humor, and made one naughty suggestion I rejected – but this is the one that was quite an easy mark for me.   I’ve been wanting to use the last line for a while.  Google “split infinitive examples” to see why.  (Yes, I’m a recovering Trekkie.)

Infinity
The finite minds, our life’s reality.

The bony skulls – within, the brain so soft

dives us in atoms, and the skies aloft

yet cannot comprehend infinity.

We promise we will love forevermore –

infinity of time that’s also lost

to understanding.  We don’t feel the cost

of setting sail when there’s no further shore

to land on.  Is this all there is?  This sea?

This sky? This light?  This wind that blows us on

and on and no release from what has gone?

We must be, and cannot choose not to be.

And when at last my immortal soul is free,

I’ll smile, and boldly split infinity.

Sonnet Challenge #4.

I’m putting these up in approximately the order that they’re being typed up in.  The other week when I was typing up the sonnets I wrote while I was in Flagstaff, I discovered a couple that I’d written in Monterey in July and had never typed up.

This is another of Darrin’s suggestions.  (His topics infer that he is inspired by frustrations in life.)  “Letter to a brusque cashier at the retail store”.

The Cashier.
(read from a guy’s perspective).
The line is long, progress we make is slow,

then I catch a glimpse of the cashier’s pretty face.

If I ask to take her with me, perhaps she’ll go,

Like me, can’t wait to get out of this place.

She doesn’t make eye contact, doesn’t smile

at customers, the way she talks is flat.

The workload that she has is half a mile.

Each problem is resolved matter of fact,

each question answered blunt like they were dumb.

She’s gorgeous but her attitude’s a wreck,

stuff thrown in bags as if her heart were numb

and all she thinks of is the next paycheck.

I thank her, smile and wish her a nice day;

I turn.  She shoots a happy grin my way.

Sonnet Challenge #3

This one was from Darrin’s challenge:  “The advantages and hidden disadvantages of hot showers”.  As you can see, I’ve used poetic license in the interpretation.  Please try though, to imagine yourself in the shower, and not me.

Hot Water
I turn the motel shower faucet on –

a test!  It’s up and down, or left and right?

At last, a stream, then, leaving it to warm

for a quick shower, I tie my braids up tight.

I step in, barely warm for a quick sluice.

I’d like some heat to help tired muscles unfold.

So left a notch, soap up, sweet scented juice

but suddenly this rainfall starts to scald

my skin.  I wince and dodge and nudge it right,

but now it’s ice!  I shudder, try to turn

it back to middle, but I lose this fight,

rinse, alternating between freeze and burn.

So maybe next time I will be more bold,

Decide to simply have the shower cold.

The Sonnet Challenge, #2.

This is the second of the sonnets created from the responses to the challenge put out in this month’s newsletter.   Of course you will notice as we go through that topics aren’t always interpreted directly, sometimes I pretzel things around before I start.  This one was from Eric in Ventura and his suggestion was “Last Words”.

The Last Word.
By phone she needs to have the final text,

another word when none’s left to be said;

a conversation done but not yet dead,

a period that always has a next….

In person it’s the same, just one more “bye”

when we’ve already “bye’d” and turned away,

she always has to have the ending say,

she never can be done and let it lie.

I’m not trying to upstage her end,

my last response just trying to ensure

I’m with her and I did not just ignore

the message of someone I’d keep a friend.

And when I saw the battle was absurd

I gave up and let her have the last word.

 

The sonnet challenge, #1

In case you missed my monthly mailing, I put out a challenge for subjects on which to write sonnets.  I had four respondents who came up with a number of different ideas, some of which I can/will do, some of which I likely can’t, but as I was able to be creative during some of the lulls at the Flagstaff Art in the Park on the weekend, I thought I would start posting these.

The first challenge I took up is from Pia, whose challenges included ‘Blue’.

Blue

 

The cloudless skies from sunset to sunset

are actually a hundred shades of blue,

most delicate of Wedgwoods never set

Against Ultramarine shade’s deepest hue.

But blue we think of as a tone of pain

for heart downcast, when those eyes should look up

and breathe sky in, and face the world again

beneath the colors of the sky’s great cup.

Cerulean, Wedgwood’s neighbor, stretches high

to Cobalt at the summit of the dome,

then Turquoise fades to Prussian as the sky

returns to night and shows our starry home.

From there we’ll see earth as the aliens do –

A planet mostly oceans, mostly blue.

Challenges

Please enjoy my monthly mailing for September – and don’t hesitate to respond to some of the challenges!