Sonnet to the Autumnal Sun

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Canadian poet, Elaine Stirling, fall equinox, poems of the equinox, seasonal verse, sonnet

railway train bridge winding cliff track

All laud this equinox to Helios,
locomotive engineer whose aeons
of impeccable attention to Earth’s
fine clientele from least to uppermost
has wavered not a jot. His sacred bonds
to cargo in the form of death and birth
hold tight, & yet he’s quick to loose for those
intrepid riders who can see beyond
outdated schedules and rails not worth
pursuing. Cheer him for the way he coasts
into the station of your dawn. Begone,
insipid darkness, to your lower berths!
The greater Sol and I triangulate
to lay new tracks through joy, we luminate.

~~~

© Elaine Stirling, 2016
Photographer unknown

Wells

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Canadian poet, Elaine Stirling, sonnet

I have lost my map to the well of deep
thoughts. I’m caught up in shallows and crosshairs
reacting to bobbers in barrels where
one wrong emotion or word indiscreet
upsets the precarious balance. Nowhere
in views or remarks of the day can I
track what in dreams leads me straight through the eye
of the storm to the seed. Forget despair
and the voices that choke, outraged by lies
in their fervent belief that keen focus
on desperate acts will stir magnanimous
change. Cast out, flocks of native kindness fly
in search of fields where levity holds camp.
Here, wells of hope replenish through the damp.

~~~

Image of Senegal village well is from Wikimedia Commons.

© Elaine Stirling, 2016

The Best We Can Do For Now

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Canadian poet, Elaine Stirling, sonnet

Listening for your boots of Spanish leather,
heels worn from years of compas and despair.
I know your beat, your broken harmonies;
they whip like shredded silk, thorn-studded hair
shirts. You’ve reworked martyrdom to cold tease,
partner in a hopeless dance of never.
Last night, aroused by rustling myrtle trees,
I thought I heard you sigh…no? Whenever
such illusions rise, I turn to fairer
game. Your footfall I will hear whenever
I let beauty be in tangled fields of tare
and learn to see past fractured tiles to frieze.
One day, you’ll take those spurs down from the wall;
a final chase, then vanish to us all.

~~~

© Elaine Stirling, 2016

The One We Hated’s Dead

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Canadian poet, Elaine Stirling, sonnet

Yes, he is dead. The news broke out today.
What killed him spared no thought for all he did
and hoped to do. My unrelenting gaze
demanding he repent and feel dismay
must scurry now, a rat who’s lost her head.
Could I have kinder viewed his cock-eyed ways?

The greater tragedy may be he died
and I can feel no sadness, nor sweep clean
my joy. When will I learn all enmity
is waste, a pox of boiling gall inside
a vessel—mine!—disintegrating lean
and vibrant strength of mind? Insanity!

So now you ford the stream we all must cross.
You wish us well. Life carries on, no loss…

~~~

© Elaine Stirling, 2016

Milking Sour, Milking Sweet

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Canadian poet, Elaine Stirling, sonnet

I have soured on the taste of not enough,
curdled, clabbered, clotted on the knotty
view that discontent with every issue
non-aligned with my enlightened brain stuff
brings stupendous, bold new clarity.
Do spare the violins. Pass the tissue.

We’ve all been churned, known days both buttery
and sweet, but culture’s seeds grow in the now.
They draw no savour from remembered taste.
A finer state, perhaps, awaits the me
awake to fermentations that allow
uprisings to boil over, without haste.

I walk along, content, the bank of dreams
where all that settles lifts the richest cream.

~~~

© Elaine Stirling, 2016

My Search for the Unborn Poets

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birds as psychopomps, Canadian poet, Elaine Stirling, sonnet, World Poetry Day

I seek to converse with poets not yet
born, bright sparks at the periphery who
fear neither malware nor the afterlife.

I’ve whirled a round or two with Blake; my debt
to Donne is astronomical. While true
that every incarnation owes her strife

to popes and princes, rot and poverty,
while cowardice barks loud for guns and fists,
there surely must exist a proto-state,

some pre-orgasmic green room where non-me
and not-yet-you leapfrog in rhymeful twists
and turns of mind with those who shall be great.

A wild-eyed yellow bird lands at my feet.
“Too-whee! Step lively, mate, we got your tweet.”

~~~

I managed to squeak this sonnet in with hours to spare on World Poetry Day 2016. While the coffee shops I frequent have yet to accept poetry as currency on March 21, as many do, I remain hopeful—and I thoroughly enjoyed the latte that fueled this one.

© Elaine Stirling, 2016
Image by by Bill Majoros at http://www.billmajoros.com

The Vast Whatever

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Canadian poet, Elaine Stirling, sonnet

When I play upon the fields of the vast
whatever, no one knows my name. No one
cares that I am learning secret rules
to a game with victories sweet and fast
where everyone reclaims their sense of fun.
It’s not the kind of game they teach in schools.

Here, no rhyme’s a crime. Sonnets happen all
the time; lame words like bonnet find their place
internally, the pulses I was born
with have the times of their life. Thinking small
is where my field shrinks. I lose my pace—
originality gives way to scorn.

If you’ll excuse me now, I have a date
with the captain—he’s a hottie!—of my fate.

~~~

© Elaine Stirling, 2016

Hasta Luego, Cofokabe!

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Canadian poet, Elaine Stirling, poetry, sonnet, terza rima

I’m letting the Cofokabe River
run dry, pulling up stakes from one-horse
villages with nothing to deliver.

The waterways, they flourished once, their course
ran sweet as apricots and salsa hot.
We gathered, felt uplifted, never forced.

Your songs reshaped my politics, your thought
on Russian Lit unearthed simplicity
I feared I’d lost. We gave, we learned, we got.

But rivers bend and yearn to reach the sea.
Lid bangers, chronic grievers, sere the banks;
entangled, hopeless, you don’t interest me.

And so, dear Cofokabe, evaporate!
When springtime reigns, we may yet celebrate.

~~~

This sonnet was written in terza rima with an anagram thrown in, so as not to be too obvious.

© Elaine Stirling, 2016

sun gods

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Canadian poet, Elaine Stirling, sonnet

Demise or springing forth? The election
rests between my eyes, a pale slender line,
a point before the fork. One direction
leads, the other shoves, preference purely mine.

A head of steam worked up requires constant
shoveling of coal. The gnashing protest
to end this, end that feels more evident
of worth than laying what I hate, to rest.

I should have guessed. There’s gold in every glint.
Each momentary impulse holds the key
to buoyancy. Why gnaw the bone of skint
when marrow’s all been sucked from memory?

The sun gods that we were, we are again
when skirting light between affairs of men.

~~~

© Elaine Stirling, 2016

Happy Birthday, Beethoven!

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#CanadianPoet, Beethoven's birthsay, Elaine Stirling, poetry, sonnet

Happy birthday, Beethoven, dear Ludwig!
Your season is here, your pure reason for
being. This blue spinning globe needs you more
every day as we plummet and soar, big
movements colliding with pockets of fear,
deafening hearts that seek to even some
score—what bores, pounding upon off-pitch drums.
You, though, never gave a ripe fig to fear.
You rose to odes of joy so we could hear
your ninth proclaims universal welcome,
encompassing all who have passed and come
again, naked and howling. With good cheer,
we shall compose beneath the moonlit tree,
and prove to be your greatest symphony.

~~~

If you like the framed photo of Beethoven as much as the music teacher who bought it, then you’ll love the gifts at Past Perfect Antiquity.

© Elaine Stirling, 2015