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Sonnet Sequence 1: What I Dream (Italian Gregorian Sonnaiku)

Missing image
~by Gregg Rowe~

Today I live, tomorrow I will die,
Even a monkey needs to feel his place --
I ask what's wrong with our domestic race?
My wonderment is how I have survived!
My life has not been void of tears I cry --
As Aphrodite swam in night time grace,
And Paris joined with golden apple face --
My fingers slowly fondle inner thighs.

Quebec winter
snowbird casts a shadowed blanket
across my tombstone

I've witnessed gun-less war -- in this my era,
So visual silence is my need right now --
For years now -- sleep is what I dream and pray,
As I escape, swim the River Kara:
My ribbon red you'll tie in a tree bough --
Existence mine proclaimed this very day.

Author notes

River Kara, c.140 mi (230 km) long, NE European and NW Siberian Russia. It flows N from the N Urals into the Kara Sea, forming part of the traditional border between European and Asian Russia. It is navigable in its lower course. It has to deal with my history -- being Irish and Scottish descent and having a step-father whose roots come from Russia.

Applause to Hugh Wyles who edited the iambic pentameter in this Sonnaiku for me.  Sending you a bottle of Scotch!  

Gregorian Sonnaiku
(How To Write This New Form—Learning Column)
by lordoftherings
allpoetry.com/Column/1043872
Written February 9th, 2005

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Comments


  • Amygdala the Tramp
    March 6, 2005
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    I love this form! I just can't have enough admiration for anyone who writes a sonnet with the octet rhyme scheme:abba abba. In my opinion, these are both the hardest to write because of all the words you have to rhyme, and the least appreciated because they don't flow as easily for most readers as a Shakespearean octet:abab cdcd...
    This is such a sad poem. God bless you! AIDS is such a devastating tragedy, but even more tragic is the way people who have tested positive in our society are shunned every day. I am reminded of the whole Gay Marriage "issue" during last years Presidential election here in the states. I find that the very same fools who think that gay marriage somehow threatens the "sanctity" of marriage are the same ones who used to picket in parades carrying signs that said the word 'GAY' meant 'Got AIDS Yet?' It is truly a massacre of indifference, just as bad--if not worse--than the Holocaust!
    (thank you for sharing this, and for your River Kara reference in the author's notes, I wouldn't have completely understood the sequence as a whole without it. God Bless )