JayDee

Going through a pile of books for something specific today, I happened upon half a sonnet I'd completely forgotten trying to write. Followed by a sizable bundle of notes and lines and drafts from the summer before. Some quite nice lines, that deserve to be set in a complete poem. Some that were discarded because they weren't going anywhere and doing it awkwardly.

Plenty of ideas and notes that I wrote thinking 'I simply must turn this into a poem' but haven't, yet.

And spread over half a dozen sheets, written around and through a bunch of other poems, one that I did finish. It was the reason most of the other scraps made it to paper. I had an idea I wanted to impress upon someone, and figured putting it in verse would make it more convincing. Kept those pages in my pockets for weeks, agonising over a line at a time.

Except for the ocassional awkward - if earnest - line, I am and was pretty happy with it in the end.

( Forty-eightish line poem after the cut. )

Wasn't planning on sharing this one, when I wrote it. I was planning, instead, to write a new poem (perhaps a sestina?) on the same theme, but using various references to Doctor Who instead of the references used loosely here. But on re-reading it four months after writing, I'm fairly happy with the way this flows.

( A bunch of terza rima once again... )

There, new poem for the first time in a couple of months. Since May, I think. Of course, it is a poem I started back in March. But still new.

Back in March I was arguing with someone who was being all Wrong On The Internet. Hours of pointless conversation later, I realised that time would have been better spent putting my thoughts into verse. And promptly started to do so (but less promptly finished.)

I'm not happy with it; there are too many unspecific pronouns, and the verse distorts the argument rather than supporting it. For a start. But it's done, and not complete rubbish, I think. I do like the eighteenth line.

( Thirty three lines about an article I read, once. )

While occasionally I do try something a little different like that last one, I do enjoy writing sonnets. They are a nice size for a single idea. Whether or not it is a nice idea.

Here is another poem from a while ago.

( A sonnet from some summer or other )

A while back I posted the first draft for an essay. While a sonnet was far less than the required three thousand words, the essay I ended up handing in... well, I didn't end up taking it more seriously than that. Still, I scored 90% somehow for my Frankenstein themed dialogue.

Not all lecturers are cool enough as to provide such marks, alas.

I recently found a sonnet and a half I wrote back in Autumn of last year (2009) complaining about a lecturer or two. Finished the second and here they are.

( Well, 'here' being after this cut. )

So I got started on the second draft of my Physical Chemistry assignment today. 700 words written out of 3000. Three thousand words for an assessment item worth 6% of the final mark. Ugh. But I'm having fun with it - my current first line is "It was a dark and stormy night", and my first draft looked like this:

To understand electrochemistry
behaviour of solutions must be known,
not concentration, but activity
is used, because ions are not alone.
A way to model this has been proposed
by Debye and Hückel, who wrote a law
to find activity, where they supposed
it was Coulumbic forces, with a more
appropriate value for epsilon:
the permittivity of the solvent.
First they considered with no forces on
the ions, then with charges on, which meant
the chemical potential changes could
reveal the co-efficient. Which is good.

Looking through old poems for something to put up last night made me think about what I was writing then. Which thoughts, I decided, might as well rhyme. This form seems quite suited to rambling on. To rambling on about rambling on, even.

( Cut 'cause rambly makes for long. )

Sure it's a couple of hours early, but what the hell. This one is for today / tonight.

The clock ticks over once again, another day is here.
And yet another day is gone, gurgled down the drain.
The countdown ends, the fires bloom, we mark it with a cheer:
the clock ticks over once again

As fireworks fade we can still hear that 'Auld Lang Syne' refrain:
This isn't just another day, it is a brand new year.
New decade too, a cleaner slate, and so we make it plain

how we expect to change ourselves, with all of these sincere
things we resolve, or insincere ones that we merely feign
that we will do. But either way there is no need to fear,
the clock ticks over once again.

I love sonnets. This is my first attempt at the Petrarchan rhyming scheme, but the words still flowed as easily as the wine.

I hope that sorrows never learn to swim;
To make their way upriver like a trout.
For if they do then we shall be without
a way to put them down, and at their whim
would cry a flood to cure any drought.
We do need alcohol to bring about
a cure for melancholy with no doubt
it will succeed. No need for feeling grim.
But maybe there are other ways to deal;
perhaps another way to face this grief.
Who knows? It may be drowning doesn't work,
that it merely postpones, and cannot heal.
While drink provides a moment of relief
it might just push the sorrow down to lurk.

This semester just gone I took four courses. I, um, submitted poetry as part of my final assessment for three of those.

I spent far longer working on this Sonnet than I did on the essay I put it at the start of.

The faces of the crowd are focused on
her lively racing pen upon the board.
With symbols from that pen a light is shone
into the cluttered mindset of the horde.
And as her hands these arcane patterns trace
a murmur from the crowd begins to rise.
They start to notice what they'll have to face
and anger sparks and flashes in their eyes.
The knowledge that they hold in high esteem -
the formulae and facts explaining all -
once firm and strong as marble, now are steam
compared to what is written on the wall.
But while they should be thankful for this proof,
their hatred shows just how much they love Truth.