It is strange how these moments can stay So esteemed and adored in my mind. Like a madness, I cannot belay These odd thoughts so ineptly defined. On my right there’s the merciless noise, That dull chatter so endless and dry. To the left there’s that biblical voice, That I’ve known since before birds could fly. There’s a feeling now, foreign and new. From this sudden, soft warmth comes a fool. One who summoned affection untrue, Like the fall for a shade’s mistress cruel. Soon returned is this false, baseless love. As we sway to the new now made old. An illusion of fate from above, But the fool is now wise to his gold. So, if fate at last wanders my way, And I find her; electric, divine, We’ll divide the hushed chorus and play Down the tangled, dark, plastic grapevine.
A Little Bit about the Poem
This is the second proper poem I composed. It followed the class in college where I learned about poetic metre. My lecturer showed us the first line of Paradise Lost.
'Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit.'
I was amazed, and convinced I could replicate such ingenuity. My first attempt was a sonnet, naturally. It's dreadful, you will never see it. This next one copied the metre of H.P. Lovecraft's 'Nemesis', sans one syllable. I think I found alternating syllable counts too intimidating. Lovecraft's anapaest might give the impression of a lurching, eldritch beast's slow, heaving crawl up from some abyssal depth, though I always hoped mine replicated the gentle sway of someone listening to music.
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