Libra Venus as a Sonnet
By Jasmine Respess
As I shuffle, the High Court cards fall out
and I ponder Empress and Emperor
When it comes to love, I am sick with doubt
I seek credence in the Tarot's order
The deck says, The King is the divine man
but Bonnie says, I can't make you love me...
I would never force her long fingered hand
to follow a path to rest on my knee
When the tears come down, there is no release
That cannot be all there is to manhood
I look to The Queen card for a new lease
Is this how I’m meant to do womanhood?
But she comes for me when I love crudely
So, I must be sacred enough by now
Shakespearean Sonnet Form:
The Italian word Sonnet translates to a “little song”.
The sonnet traditionally reflects upon a single sentiment, with a clarification or “turn” of thought in its concluding lines. There are many different types of sonnets, but we are focusing on the Shakespearean Sonnet.
Traditionally, the Shakespearean Sonnet is a 14-line stanza of three quatrains and a concluding couplet, with a rhyme scheme.
ABABCDCDEFEFGG
A
B
A
B
C
D
C
D
E
F
E
F
G
G
Sonnet lines are in iambic pentameter which means the line has 10 syllables in 5 pairs. In each of these pairs the emphasis is on the second syllable like a heartbeat.
Pentameter:
A pentameter is a line made up of five feet. Feet is the basic unit of measurement of accentual-syllabic meter. A foot usually contains one stressed syllable and at least one unstressed syllable.
Iambic:
A metrical foot consisting of an unaccented syllable followed by an accented syllable.
Libra Venus as a Sonnet
By Jasmine Respess
as I / shuf-FLE,/ the HIGH/ court CARDS/ fall OUT
and I/ pon-DER/ emp-RESS/ and EM/ per-OR
when IT/ comes TO/ love, I/ am SICK/ with DOUBT
I SEEK/ cre-DENCE/ in THE/ tar-OT’S/ or-DER
the DECK/ says, THE/ king IS/ the DI-/vine MAN
but BON-/nie SAYS/ I CAN’T/ make YOU/ love ME...
I WOULD/ nev-ER/ force HER/ long FING-/ered HAND
to FOLL-/ow A/ path TO/ rest ON/ my KNEE
when THE/ tears COME/ down, THERE/ is NO/ re-LEASE
that CAN/not BE/ all THERE/ is TO/ man-HOOD
I LOOK/ to THE/ queen CARD/ for A/ new LEASE
is THIS/ how I’M/ meant TO/ do WO-/ man-HOOD?
but SHE/ comes FOR/ me WHEN/ I LOVE/ crude-LY
so, I/ must BE/ sa-CRED/ e-NOUGH/ by-NOW
"Sonnet"/Violets"
By Alice Moore Dunbar-Nelson
I had no thought of violets of late,
The wild, shy kind that spring beneath your feet
In wistful April days, when lovers mate
And wander through the fields in raptures sweet.
The thought of violets meant florists' shops,
And bows and pins, and perfumed papers fine;
And garish lights, and mincing little fops
And cabarets and songs, and deadening wine.
So far from sweet real things my thoughts had strayed,
I had forgot wide fields, and clear brown streams;
The perfect loveliness that God has made,--
Wild violets shy and Heaven-mounting dreams.
And now--unwittingly, you've made me dream
Of violets, and my soul's forgotten gleam.
To Madame Curie
By Alice Moore Dunbar-Nelson
Oft have I thrilled at deeds of high emprise,
And yearned to venture into realms unknown,
Thrice blessed she, I deemed, whom God had shown
How to achieve great deeds in woman’s guise.
Yet what discov’ry by expectant eyes
Of foreign shores, could vision half the throne
Full gained by her, whose power fully grown
Exceeds the conquerors of th’ uncharted skies?
So would I be this woman whom the world
Avows its benefactor; nobler far,
Than Sybil, Joan, Sappho, or Egypt’s queen.
In the alembic forged her shafts and hurled
At pain, diseases, waging a humane war;
Greater than this achievement, none, I ween.
Warming Her Pearls
By Carol Ann Duffy
for Judith Radstone
Next to my own skin, her pearls. My mistress
bids me wear them, warm them, until evening
when I'll brush her hair. At six, I place them
round her cool, white throat. All day I think of her,
resting in the Yellow Room, contemplating silk
or taffeta, which gown tonight? She fans herself
whilst I work willingly, my slow heat entering
each pearl. Slack on my neck, her rope.
She's beautiful. I dream about her
in my attic bed; picture her dancing
with tall men, puzzled by my faint, persistent scent
beneath her French perfume, her milky stones.
I dust her shoulders with a rabbit's foot,
watch the soft blush seep through her skin
like an indolent sigh. In her looking-glass
my red lips part as though I want to speak.
Full moon. Her carriage brings her home. I see
her every movement in my head.... Undressing,
taking off her jewels, her slim hand reaching
for the case, slipping naked into bed, the way
she always does.... And I lie here awake,
knowing the pearls are cooling even now
in the room where my mistress sleeps. All night
I feel their absence and I burn.
A Sonnet to My Lady with the Jaundice
By Natalie Clifford Barney
Was not Titania golden? See these flowers
Are they for being yellowish less fair?
Apollo and the Godesses all share
In this most glorious hue. The jealous bowers
Of Kings are coloured thus, their reed of powers,
Their rings, their chains, the crowns that they must wear
Golden their mistress and their minion’s hair
Golden the bannered sun above their towers!
Reflecting butter-cups amuses Puck
But flower-rubbed eye-lids, and complexions mend
So fear not broken crystals long ill-luck
But look in this new mirror, lovely friend.
Both gods and fairies wait on lovers’ wills.
That jaundices be changed to daffodils!
Twenty-One Love Poems [Poem II]
By Adrienne Rich
I wake up in your bed. I know I have been dreaming.
Much earlier, the alarm broke us from each other,
you’ve been at your desk for hours. I know what I dreamed:
our friend the poet comes into my room
where I’ve been writing for days,
drafts, carbons, poems are scattered everywhere,
and I want to show her one poem
which is the poem of my life. But I hesitate,
and wake. You’ve kissed my hair
to wake me. I dreamed you were a poem,
I say, a poem I wanted to show someone . . .
and I laugh and fall dreaming again
of the desire to show you to everyone I love,
to move openly together
in the pull of gravity, which is not simple,
which carries the feathered grass a long way down the upbreathing air.
Six Sonnets: Crossing the West
By Janice Gould
1
Desert heat, high clouds, and sky
the color of lapis. On this journey,
anything seems possible,
so we stop by an ancient cottonwood
to kiss. The beauty trembles,
doesn't say a word, just watches
me, so open. Small birds fly by, flock
in the shady tree above us. What
settles in her heart? What congeals?
Hope? Despair? Far off, the river churns
in its sandy banks, swallows veer, turn
in fiery air. Will these kisses seal
her to me? I her lover, she my wife?
Is all of this a dream, my whole life?
2
She is just this side of wonderful,
and suddenly the glamorous world
fills itself with shining and we laugh
at highway monuments that explain
how hard the trek had been for Franciscans
in the Indian wilderness, poor fellows—
conversion is the devil's own
work! Then the stones of her dream
turn up under her feet, the back
of a huge land turtle. I know
we must be circling Paradise
because the ants enter the fleshy petals
of the roadside flowers with evident
joy and purpose (oh, my dark, pretty one).
3
Music, my adored. When is there never
music? My accordion puffs up
with drinkable melodies. I spill
her tunes into your listening ear,
one after the other: the squeeze-box
enters the dance of the plaintive gypsy
with its hard rhythms, lilts the back-
breaking labor song the worker croons
to earth, warbles romantic notes of
dissolving borders. You melt
like a woman beneath her lover's touch.
Music is happy and pitiless when
it sets fire to combustible souls. Even
the raspy bandoneon's voice is lyric.
4
Sacred. Sacred. Sacred. Sacred. (Speak
in a whisper.) We slip into this
space half cognizant. The land is very
large indeed: bones of the earth
worn down, though she is a living thing.
See how she exposes her grace? Antelopes
graze on the far plain—their high,
white tails—the red soil throbs
its slow heartbeat, and the blue sky
clears so smartly, perfectly, like
radiance. Are the ancestors near?
What can we know? We decide
to wander around this prairie, mistaken
for Utes, buy commodities in little towns.
5
Late afternoon we head west along the willow-banked
Malheur after the long curve of the Snake River plain.
(Above the falls where the Shoshone went to pray
we soaked our feet in cold water, and I observed
the arch of her brown foot.) Rabbitbrush and sage
along the highway, juniper on far hills and bluffs.
Sundown, and dusk falls over the wide basin of land.
In Burns we eat eggs in a cafe, take a room
in the Motel 6. In the dark, I can see
her black hair, black against the pillows. Its clean
scent makes me think of corn. At dawn, I hold her
and there are kisses. Then more kisses. Then more.
The day is cold; a north wind blew last night. But
the land is open. Rain falls in showers of light.
6
Her hand on my thigh, my shoulder,
in my hair. She leans over to kiss my cheek.
We look at each other, smile. For miles
we travel this way, nearly silent, point
with eyes or chins at the circling hawk, the king-
fisher on the snag above the swollen
creek. One night I weep in her arms
as she cries, "Oh, oh, oh!" because I have touched
her scars lightly: throat, belly, breasts.
In that communion of lovers, thick sobs
break from me as I think of my love
back home, all that I have done
and cannot say. This is the first time
I have left her so completely, so alone.
[When the bed is empty ... ]
By Dawn Lundy Martin
When the bed is empty, we pull the shades to block light,
light of resemblance to remembery, long light of waiting,
an impatience in the glows of it. The here of the now and the glow
that days make in the room, without the body but with the stench
of it. So we say, vacancy and abject,against the was, against
a philosophy of once and then not. Not-being against.
A child once grew here. As lines on a wall. As
growing without knowing what would one day not be. A
gnawing grows. Grew and was. Protection is curled. Motion-
less. I envy her in her room. Hers with paint and dolls and hand-
prints. Great green and glowing under blankets with a hand
that nurtures the heart of the mouth, purrs into mouth, loves
the heart. Heart beating within another—blushing blood—
God, the beating, lit, and doing what it does.
On Reflection
By Anna Larner
If we were to meet again, I would say
sorry today, for then, when mad with love,
deranged with passion, all reason astray,
I cried ‘I love you!’ Three words – not enough.
So I left flowers to wilt at your door,
composed mixed tapes, wrote odes, baked cakes, your name
on my lips, in my brain. 'Be mine' I implored,
as I failed exams, missed deadlines, endured pain.
I lost sleep, got sick, felt weak, refused to
see sense - still convinced that you could be mine.
And through it all, silent, wise and kind, you
knew the one answer for me would be time.
You were so gentle with your rejection.
Yes, I can see that now, on reflection.