I have gone through periods of serious addiction to sonnets.  They're so tidy, so satisfying, and such a good size for working out some idea.  Poets have written them for hundreds of years, from Petrarch and Shakespeare to Merrill Moore and his quirky Case Record from a Sonnetorium. 

 

Starting back in high school, I have filled notebooks with my own, from excruciatingly personal ones to comments on world events (which somehow turn out to be personal too).   I have written sonnets with a "secret message" readable down the side by taking the first letter of every linee.  I have also used a more complicated code with the 1st letter of the 1st line, the 2nd of the 2nd, and so on to get the 14-letter message.

 

Examples:

 

I'll live on love and grapefruit for a week-- No, maybe just on grapefruit would be best. It would be better for me, so to speak, More peaceful, too--I do enjoy a rest-- And love is such a bother, quite a strain; One's health and nerve are shattered--and for what? To learn the joys of self-inflicted pain, To learn that nothing ever is clear-cut.   Besides, for grapefruit, seven days supply Is something one can count into a heap. But love will not refrigerate (don't try); You never know how long your store will keep.   Besides, it is the grapefruit season here, And love had been a failing crop all year.	A sonnet from my graduate student days.
This sonnet was finished around Valentine's Day of 1997, playing off the fairly recent news of the cloning of Dolly the sheep.	A scientist in Scotland cloned a sheep, And science fiction suddenly is real. This lamb just like her mother drags us deep In ethics questions as techniques reveal How DNA extracted from a cell Could be enticed to clone a human too. These methodologies would work as well To make a baby me as baby ewe.   And though I wish for no immortal strand Of cellular identity, it's nice To have a second chance.  And, oh, how grand If you and I could know each other twice.   In cloning, true, no character endures-- And yet, at least my body could know yours.
The little mermaid traded tail for feet, Then felt a cutting pain each time she stepped. While hope sustained her, agony was sweet, And love let her endure--indeed accept. She'd made a bargain, wishing for a soul, To have her chance at some indifferent prince. In love, in pain, in silence, in her role As lovesick human, walking with a wince.   But I have drunk no sea-witch potion vile, Accepting pain in trade for other things. I do not crave a prince's tender smile, And in my hair, no smell of seaweed clings.   Fictitious mermaids have redemptive pain, While I, with no offsetting dreams, complain.	This was written as a distraction from pain after a leg injury.  I was, as you can see, feeling sorry for myself--and going so far as to overlook both the sad ending of the mermaid's story and the (thankfully) steady progress of my own recovery.
Here's a riff on a news item about toxin in apple seeds.	Temptation   I heard today a cup of apple seeds Has cyanide enough to kill a man (Or woman).  So for suicide one needs A huge amount of apples.  Here's my plan: Up bright and early for an orchard trip, Then home to cook the apples into sauce For gifts (pothumous), saving every pip, And thinking of the world's prospective loss.   I'd leave a row of jars, not good-bye notes. My friends would have the part I left behind Of life and apples, catching in their throats Each time the thought of me would cross their mind.   But here it's spring; the apple blossoms drop. So long a wait till autumn brings my crop.
The NASA scientists, now losing hope, Still watch their screens for signals sent from Mars, But nothing comes.  The Lander's on a slope, Perhaps, its beacon blocked by rock.  On stars They wish in vain to have some message from The Martian Polar Lander.  Still they wait And wonder.  Opportunities have come And gone.  It's likely never, if so late.   Communication stymied.  As with us. The work and worry, projects past or planned-- In vain?  Success becomes more dubious Each day, for reasons I don't understand.   Like NASA, I'm discouraged now.  But, shucks, At least I didn't spend a zillion bucks.	Another inspiration from the news.  This was written in December 1999.  (And, for the record, NASA only spent about $165 million.)
This sonnet, from March 2001, was inspired by the juxtaposition of a friend's divorce and the fiery return to earth of the 15-year-old Mir space station.	Mir Marriage   Just think of all those tons of plastic, steel, Titanium, and solar panels.  Screws And bolts and hinges, too.  One final wheel Around the earth, then mighty Mir will lose Its orbit and, as friction tears apart The hundred-forty-three ton station, make A fiery plunge.  A blazing farewell dart To hiss into the sea, debris its wake.   Attracted by the drama and the end Of something big, we hardly note the small, Less-plotted deaths of what's too late to mend. The slow demise of love--no flaming fall.   The marriage fades into its final phase, But, unlike Mir, no meteoric blaze.

 

 

(c) 2010  Holly Windle