Idly stationed in the bucolic hills,
sits a stone well; unknown when abandoned.
Though her people foregone, water yet fills
as much as you can want for. In tandem,
are high trees less old than she; occluding
the view from pathless and naive strangers.
As their wish in well is to keep obtuse,
those that siren would otherwise capture.
Her drink, one thinks they'll constantly receive.
In reality, they'll only be taken.
Youth will fade as the heart minutely bleeds.
Their hollow, dried corpse will be forsaken.
And though her hole but a tall dark crevice,
I see my reflection on the surface.

Fair rose, now that thou art picked in the prime
Of thy breathtaking splendour to go bloom
By strands of pearl of very far a clime,
Upon roads of life I deserve no room
But as the wind bids adieu unto hills,
The lonely woods, the indignant still cloud,
The silent vales, the gently rolling rills,
As such, I must vade to another world;
But hark! Fair star, though snowy angels fair
In countless numbers bedeck heaven's shore,
Eternal flames of brightest love so rare
By my soul shalt blaze for thee evermore.
  So, until then when we shall meet again,
  My love for thee as fresh as summer rain.

© Kikodinho Edward Alexandros, Kampala, Uganda. 13th.July.2018.


#attempt at a Shakespearean sonnet
#decasyllabic
#iambic pentameter

LOVE is intangible, it has no taste,
You cannot touch it, hold it, let it go —
It does not spoil, nor ever go to waste —
It does not float, nor sink, nor ebb and flow —

Love cannot be sleight conjured from the air —
It is not sold in bottles, nor in jars —
Love has no weight the bearer has to bear
And cannot be constrained in any vase —

Yet all who loved have bent beneath Love's weight —
Know well its touch and taste, and bear its scar —
And know Love cannot die, but dissipate
As light escapes the clutches of a star —

LOVE is intangible, a force unseen —
As wild as wind, as lucid as a dream.

A sea, you are,  regrets that wash ashore
Incessant waves of mem'ries stinging salt
Each rush assails her heart forevermore
Envaulting swells that fill her lungs with fault

A woman's love assaulted by her sea
Thus born to bear what men on boats deny
compassion deep that weeps eternally
Thus born to grieve, reproached by men who lie

Lo' billows raised by wind unbraids her hair
On wings of prayer that fearless love foresees
She lifts to lofty realms all men who dare
to rescue fools who sail on wormwood seas

Her love doth foam with swirling discontent
as countless souls to ocean's graves are sent


gv feb.19.17

A Shakespearian sonnet. Iambic pentameter
I

As late I rambled in the happy fields,
What time the skylark shakes the tremulous dew
From his lush clover covert;—when anew
Adventurous knights take up their dinted shields;
I saw the sweetest flower wild nature yields,
A fresh-blown musk-rose; 'twas the first that threw
Its sweets upon the summer: graceful it grew
As is the wand that Queen Titania wields.
And, as I feasted on its fragrancy,
I thought the garden-rose it far excelled;
But when, O Wells! thy roses came to me,
My sense with their deliciousness was spelled:
Soft voices had they, that with tender plea
Whispered of peace, and truth, and friendliness unquelled.

I knelt in the sepulcher of a man;
His broken coffer wrought of rough-hewed stone
Stood sentinel betwixt a polished span
Of granite, laid bereft and all alone,
And of his name no dint nor breach began,
No epitaph, no garments and no bone,
So that I gazed upon that ancient plan
In askance if he ever called it home?
Above, the twilight stars he might have seen
Look down upon the miracle he made,
And of the earth and sky and all between
No rival kingly stone has yet been laid
To match the beauty of his desert queen,
Wherein still still may rest his mortal shade.

I wander trails that are shaded by trees
until I reach the first steep rock scramble.
Walking steadily on old, crunchy leaves
I believe it's the mountains' preamble

I scale these rocks with eager hands and feet
my yearning heart pumps blood through my blue veins.
This mountain will not hand me my defeat
muscles strain and the rocks help break my chains.

Sturdy rocks and sacred trees surround me
their presence strengthens my weak, depressed bones.
My muscles burn with effort, but I'm free
to become one with the trees and the stones.

Though there are times where my mind may plummet.
I'll survive the fall, I've reached the summit.

Leaves fall from trees and land softly on me
my head tipped back, I catch them on my face
their death anointing me delicately
I absorb their own kind of fall from grace

The woods are red from autumnal disease
my bones are like leaves, so weak, so brittle
leaves rustle and wind howls, those sounds don't cease
dark clouds overhead are not so little

The weather is neither just calm or cruel
it changes, wet one day, the other, dry
I stand tall in this emotional duel
that shows one day i'm fine, the next, I cry

I fall like the autumn leaves and the rain
I can not live a life free from this pain

What is that which looms on the horizon?
My own response so carefully crafted.
Designs that I have embroidered eyes in
to see my own hand-sewn chaos drafted.

Your stitch-in, flowery language lacks work
and your seams seem to lack proper binding.
My dear, I can't accept mangled patchwork,
it's clear that you needle more reminding.

It's funny how you tailored your response,
yet you didn't know of the fabric's face
that laughed as you fabricate and ensconce
yourself in lies as delicate as lace.

You have barely weaved a good running stitch
Don't curse the seamstress who seems less stressed, witch.