a certain indefinite number of Petrarchan “sonnets” (95)
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 15 lines and an unorthodox rhyme-scheme is like a quartet with 5 members, though reproof is always welcome from anyone who feels so moved.
THE SCENE you survey from the place you stand with silent chimneys rising in the cold whose smoke-wrought pillars the high-heavens hold above your head like Atlas’s brawny hands the sky suspended o’er the frozen land within your mantle you yourself enfold and don your winter boots as you’d been told but by degrees you come to understand we are sorcerers caught up in our spell for now you feel that you could truly drown the scene is changed and torrent-waters well what first repelled the cold now draws you down so fail to shed these clothes and sink to hell or rise up naked with a thorny crown your soul a germ, but you must cast off your shell