a certain indefinite number of Petrarchan “sonnets” (73)
Ordinarily I don’t publish so much poetry at Theoria-press, and instead try to provide mostly essays with an odd poem or sonnet occasionally interspersed among them. But the Muse’s visits have outstripped my ability to keep pace with prose pieces so readers who prefer essays should peruse the archives of this site, which are replete with them. Also, I should acknowledge that the formal aspect of this “Petrarchan sonnet” is liberally conceived so it’s unnecessary to alert me that at “Petrarchan sonnet” with 16 lines is like a quartet with 5 members, though criticism and rebuke is always welcome from anyone who feels so moved.
WHEREFORE did I think to frame my heart in words? fine phrases like a carapace, ensconcing sense and feeling in a case not different from the taxidermist’s art each impression fixed and placed apart and sundered from the breath of life and grace each word a fish ashore and out of place bereft of any life it could impart but in my eye of mind I thought I saw the wave of Heaven lap upon a shore as breath of angels keeping cosmic law these tides to life all stranded words restore by burning them, so many bales of straw with tongues of flame they speak, and out they pour their sap and substance and their very core and by this act are made not less but more