"Fight to the death, I'll see you in the next life..."

Welcome to Insomnia Theatre.

I have, as usual, had a final line floating in my head for the past several days, just waiting for some idea of how to reach it.  Often my poems start from the end like that. The self discovery found in the process of writing is not what conclusion I'll arrive at but rather the realization of how I arrived there.

In any case, after about 40 minutes of lying wide awake last night (was it the time-change? Who knows...) I got an inkling of a first line.  After rolling over a few times and trying not to think about it, I got up and scribbled it in the dark before jumping back into my bed. Which I exited not many minutes later, trapped by the fact that a first line begets a second.  So that's the story behind this one.  Luckily, it didn't take long and I was in bed again within about twenty minutes, able to fall asleep.  I wonder if perhaps the fact that I don't allow myself much interior time during the day results in this racing brain syndrome after I turn out the lights and everything is finally quiet. I swore that I was going to force myself to reflect more this Lent. So far, I haven't done much.

This is a somewhat irregluar sonnet. The octet is in Shakespearian format (abab, etc) except that I reversed the order on the second quatrain to attempt to duplicate the beatiful 4th-5th line transition in an Italian/Petrarchan quatrain (abbaabba). I'm not sure if this moment strikes you like it does me, but it seems like there is always this moment of transcendance when, finished with a quatrain, you hear that "a" rhyme again right after. It's like a second volta. It's like the moment that you reach the top of the hill and, after going up for a while, first feel gravity begin to pull you down.  So, in any case, that's the effect that I was going for.  The sextet is in a typical Italian form (cdecde), and even has a proper volta! I was so proud of myself. Okay. I realize that few of you read this paragraph, because it was fairly dense. But hopefully the Lit majors at least appreciated it. My point was that, in an attempt to duplicate the effect of the center of an "abbaabba", I made a "ababbaba" and I think it worked out pretty well.  The title is, as ever, my spectral fifteenth line.

"... Then find myself a craven thing, a snail." -3/09/09

So ready to betray, the fearful heart,

Which finds itself unable e'er to bend.

And so, although it once was coaxed to start,

So ready finds itself to make an end.

It finds no bond to hold it in a friend,

For self-protection is its given art.

And so, when challenged, rather than defend,

At soonest sign of danger it will part.

This story, told in third, tells not as well

As that which, told in first, would sure excite

Emotions suiting truth within a tale.

The truth is: though You braved the Scorn of Hell,

I fear that I myself would lack the might;

I flee when "in this sign" I think I'll fail...

All in all, I think that this is the first thing that I've written in over a year that just flowed without feeling forced and, in fact, without respect for my sleep schedule. I think that's why I've been writing so much about the process of writing it. It just feels so good to get a dash of inspiration again, whatever the merits of the product.

"With a dull blade, could take all night."

-L