I - Awakening
If life is just evasion of the dark,
acceptance is the road to verity,
and light against the dawn is way too stark
to hide a nightmare's fear in midnight's lee.
It's only when I break my sight's design
to focus on the gaps we slip among
and train myself to know I'm not benign
the truth can rise; the peg from which we're hung
like tattered frocks clutched feebly to the chest
of victims wrought by devastating pain
as puppets of a violence home to nest
in doubt our creed will tell us to abstain.
A shuffle of the feet is all we need
to kick the desperate detritus aside
and clear the path to sow the future's seed
with deferential dreams we can't divide
by culture, creed or crass divinity --
in inspiration's hopeful tapestry.
II -- Lights On
In inspiration's hopeful tapestry
we weave a vision driving us to hope
there's more than just a paper parody
we act in cliche, double-Dutch and trope.
Our brushes soar across a great expanse --
a canvas brought to life in colours' verve
while ink describes the classical romance,
alive upon the passion of its curve.
Creation is the dawn upon the sky,
horizon's purpose blooming into light --
the sun aloft like butter for the eye,
the hopeful lubrication for our sight.
To see the purpose lurking in the shade,
enlightened by the artist's insights met
with understanding -- art is but a spade
unearthing thoughts we otherwise forget.
But no illumination can be seen,
without the darkness keeping our sight keen.
III - Lights off
Without the darkness keeping our sight keen,
we cannot see the spark to feed the flame --
the blackness of a void so dark it's clean,
a backdrop for the stars we like to blame
for every ill we visit on ourselves
and every pain to grace a teardrop's fall,
a hell exists for masochistic delves
into the blackness holding us in thrall.
For only in the darkest realm of thought,
debilitating desperation's tone
becomes the confidant we never sought
to whisper urges never to condone
or paint as friends we hide in silhouette
for fear their faces beckon evil deeds.
Indeed, we sometimes seek the will to vet
our driving lusts and hate's repellent seeds
by quaking in the blackest of our fire,
reminding us the things we most admire.
IV - Eyes open
Reminding us the things we most admire,
the nightmares are the bed that dissipates
as dawn encroaches, wetting our desire
to banish fear with life that compensates
for every darkness hampering our dreams
with dogged doubt and fey disharmony.
By waking to the beauty of the beams
we steal away the nightmare's hegemony.
We spread our arms and welcome in the sun,
suffusing every pore with bright-eyed joys,
until we are ablaze with hope and fun --
the very building blocks we stack like toys
to build a tower soaring to the sky,
a ladder to the stars we wish to join
with visions of a life where we can fly
and flit amongst the heavens we purloin.
Until the dusk comes, beckoning with shade,
we are the masters, proud of what we made.
V - Eyes closed
We are the masters, proud of what we made
but fearful of the slumber of the mind
where rampant hordes of demons can invade
the palaces our weak minds have designed
with violence borne on wings of our own spite
like angels spawned to wield the swords of hate
we sling around our daily lives with might
we borrowed from the night to devastate
our enemies and foes of our desires --
frustrating crooks to steal ambition's plaques.
But when our eyes are closed we see the pyres
impaling those who fell between the cracks --
the innocents with purpose in their gaze
but naught to fight with, come the acid time
when in we strode to blast away the maze
of life, and rend their hopes to never climb
from deepest pits we fill, or be remiss,
with kisses wrought in flames of the abyss.
VI - Blue is the day
With kisses wrought in flames of the abyss,
we love each day as if it were the last.
These deferential pastiches of bliss
like blankets spread across an ocean vast
enough to drown all champions of man
are paper cups we use beyond their means.
We smile through doubt like only monsters can,
ignoring humble lessons learnt as teens.
We sparkle with an eye for beauty's shine
like magpies, value lust above a home,
and fumble our fat fingers at divine
assumptions gleaned from studying a tome.
Existence is a tool we use for blight
and justifying truth as we see fit --
to demonstrate our transcendental right
to designate the world on which we sit
a dig, to be investigated free --
without any responsibility.
VII - Black is the night
Without any responsibility,
we dance the day away and call it fun,
but when our feet approach the midnight's lee,
our payment is the process we've begun.
Our nightmares are accounting for the mind,
investigating what a thought denies -
the reparations driving us to bind
ourselves to seek a way to loose the ties.
For only in the deepest tenor's voice
can our soprano soar upon the wing,
and only with inspired freedom's choice
does anybody have the chance to sing
of contrasts nature's beauty can create,
the facets gleaming, perfect diamond's blink.
With every breath, we must appreciate
the elegance of opposition's link,
because a death is meaninglessly stark
if life is just evasion of the dark.
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Author Notes
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My thanks to Yelena for sponsoring this most challenging of contests. I've written several of these over the years and they're always interesting to undertake.
In case you're baffled, a heroic sonnet is similar to an English sonnet, but for the addition of a 'heroic' quatrain before the couplet, resulting in 18 lines rather than 14. A crown of sonnets is a set of 7 linked poems, connected by the repetition of each one's last line as the first of the next, and brought full circle by ending with the very first line.
I hope you enjoyed the read.
Mike
See below a link to the song that helped me write this, by Thea Gilmore. "You're shouting, but you're shouting softly, so no one can hear you."
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