Forks and Spades
I’m standing with a handful of white pills; the road-sign glares.
Fuck the fork is knifing me, but spades I need for freedom;
this pit, knee-deep with blood and shit, and drug-induced night-scares.
Managing to claw out, cleanse, trade spades for forks and demons:
Do you reach up, or stay half-stuck? (My conscience hard as brick) -
needing pills and dins on pins, you wanna keep that going?
A half-existence meted out online, box-bound, brain-sick?
Welcome back the sun, the smell of life, the people showing
their faces, children tying laces, buskers jamming licks.
Market day, a happy fray – a safe foray, not knowing
what’s up ahead. ‘Extempore’ is in the keynote speech.
Feeling free is getting easier, on this condition:
eschew the drugs, and choose the road you see the traffic reach;
moving on, sing just for one, a renaissance rendition.
☆
This is the Sonnet version of my form Stress Matrix Dectet/Stress Checkerboard Stanza -
14 lines, 14 syllables per line – aBaB cDc DcD eF eF
where lowercase are iambic heptameter (7 beats/stresses per line), and uppercase trochaic heptameter. This yields a perfect ‘checkerboard’ of stressed and unstressed syllables (14 x 14, equalling 196 syllables).
Depending on where the Volta arrives (the ‘turn’ – resolution, or at least, change in tone, crucial aspect to a sonnet), there are 3 different stanza layouts (the rhyme-scheme stays the same). My turn quite obviously arrives with the last two lines, as is traditional in English Sonnets, hence the layout with a couplet to end on.
If the turn comes after the first eight lines, as it does in Italian Sonnets, the layout is
aBa BcDcD cDe FeF.
If it comes after line ten (unique!), then it’s aBaB cDc DcD eFeF (same as English but ending on a quatrain rather than the two couplets).
Who’s up for writing one? :)
nice luke…digging out of the drugs is bad enough…throw in the addiction of online living (nice ref by the way) and its all the worse…choose life any day…
Love the wordplay in this piece. I did some too in mine. Great write!!!
follow the sun, it’s never lost
Sing just for one….nice Luke………
I am blown away by this– I love the hard consonants. But I put up a poem with somewhat the same message also deploying hard sounds, a kind of staccato. What’s up with the stars, hmm? As ever, this is terrific. We think we operate so alone and in futility but knowing you’re there helps me be there. Truly. xj
the choice of f’s in the road…drugs or no drugs….the pain of digging out of it..but the choice is a sure hell….thank you for the write and the lesson…on sonnet’s..i still have much to learn…bkm
For some it is a phase, for others it is a choice, that one fork in the road picked out with a clear mind. Interesting message.
I so dig this line hmmm “A half-existence meted out online, box-bound, brain-sick?” Don’t we mos somehow live that way though, just wondering…
“A half-existence meted out online, box-bound, brain-sick?”
Intensely real. Wonderful.
your choices are intense,your writing is fabulous I think I’ll follow the traffic!
ah i loved this luke – good to read one of your poems again…was on a business trip and had not much time lately. very intense and emotional writing. will come back later and check out the other version as well..
I’m with Jenne. What I love about the form is how it enables you to create texture for the feelings and the metaphors. Can feel gritty dirt, the frustration and hard boundaries of difficult choices to let go of things. And then the release of the encounter with simple pleasures. Very cool. Thanks!
Thank you Luke, not only for the poem, but the wonderful explanation as well.
Definitely something to try, when I get over cinquains. :)
Jonny
wow we all have choices in life some harder than others , well written …thank you
Wow Luke, well done.
many thanks all for your comments and taking the time to read.
@Jonny – do it! Any other takers? ;-)
Read the poem and knew there was a metric explanation for the flow, but enjoyed it just the same without knowing it. Which says to me, you did well. Combining that kind of almost stream of consciousness word use with the exigencies of a strict form is a true poetic feat, and that it spoke loud and clear the message, even more so.
Sure, but can you re-fold the map? (LOL!)
Nice piece, Luke.
Another favorite of yours and I love the way it reads aloud :-)
HedgeWitch, Eric, Di, many thanks for your comments
wow, really amazed at the fact that there is form yet it reads edgy, stream of consciousness.. esp. dig the edge of the first two stanzas, some great word pairings ~
great metaphore in this…that choice, whether to go left or to go right, will forever change the life of the one who stands at the junction. good write.
Well written, Luke. I must admit I’m intimidated by this form. I always second guess which syllables are stressed.
Angela, Tolbert, Randall, thanks for stopping by and reading/commenting. Much appreciated
TOUGH TIMES DARK DINGY
WICKED WITHDRAWS
STUCK WITH THE HOPE OF A SHOVEL
THE DIM LIGHT OF LIFE
TAKE THE FORK……………………………………….THANK YOU LUKE…THANK GOD YOU GOT FREE
Now THAT’s an unusual sonnet form. love the word flow, absolutely.
Thanks both… yes Marilynn I devised it recently. Alternating iambs with trochees.. reads smooth, a bugger to write. First time, anyway. Wanna try one? ;)
Aaaaargh! I don’t know that I’m up for this one, Luke. You are a sadist, huh? I really need help understanding meter. Like I said to someone on FE–it’s been over 50 years since I studied meter.
If they did it, so can you… it took some three days the first time and help on the board, but they git there and can now write them pretty easily. Once you get your head around alternating iambs with trochees, you’re good. But don’t start with the sonnet – start with the Dectet. Same principle, but only ten lines and pentameter rather than heptameter.
Luke, Help!
I have written only two sonnets in as many years; both Shakespearean in structure, but I know and have heard it even from the mouth of an established published poet, that really good sonnets are hard to write, in whatever form, be they Shakespearean, Petrarchan or your own invented very clever structure. My first sonnet was rubbish but the latest I think is good. However, I have read the sonnets of many others and keep seeing what I think are ‘errors’, particularly in the meter. This is to the point where I am now questioning my own understanding of the structural elements. Line 2 above seems to me to be Trochaic, yes, but the metre is in octometer not heptameter, please tell me I’m wrong; line five appears to be iambic, not trochaic as described; ditto.
Help!
Addendum: For “octometer” please read “octameter”… I think <:-|
@Poetjanstie Line five is indeed iambic, but it should be (even numbers are all iambic 1,3,5 etc). Well spotted on the octameter! I altered that line not long ago and messed up without thinking by inserting an extra metrical foot. Thanks for spotting that. It looks like you have a good eye for iambic meter, which is what you need for traditional sonnets (in pentameter). If you click my tag ‘sonnet’ in the Tag Cloud on my side bar you’ll see several. Many of them are in traditional forms such as Shakespearean and Italian/Petrarchan.
Thanks Luke. One thing still to resolve for me, if you don’t mind a request for one more dose of help on this!
Line five, you say, is iambic, but starts with an upper case letter and it is an odd numbered line; in your instructions below the poem it says upper case should be trochaic…? Sorry to be a pedant :-).
@Poetjanstie Ah, I see where you’re getting caught. The uppercase/lowercase distinction to signify iamb/trochees is only in the form description – aBaB cDc DcD eF eF. It bears no relation to whether the actual line begins with an uppercase or lowercase letter (that’s dictated by where I am in the sentence); what is important is starting the line with an unstressed/stressed syllable. So line five looks like this, if I break it down into syllables/feet –
do YOU | reach UP | or STAY | half-STUCK? | (my CON | science HARD | as BRICK) -
Okay, so I came to check out this last form of yours that I have to tackle, (we’ll see how long it takes me). Just have to say while I’m here that I love the poem (mostly because I can identify with the struggle you’ve mapped out here) reading it is freakishly like reliving my twenties step by step…whoa