a certain indefinite number of Petrarchan “sonnets”: №148
Pygmalion
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 20 lines and an unorthodox rhyme-scheme is like a quartet with 6 members, though reproof is always welcome from anyone who feels so moved.
THE ANCIENT KING of Cypress, as we know, carved an ivory maiden with a knife, to Aphrodite prayed, who gave her life: the statue lived that never had to grow neither pain nor hardship ever had to know no trials endure, no sadness and no strife I see beside me, still asleep, my wife her breath I sense, as Summer breezes blow, its rise and fall, its gentle ebb and flow it was a myth stone could come to life for like a river life descends apace from high above on Paradise’ hill departs the Garden born by grit and grace over-leaping rocks and shrubs until the sea it reaches and its resting place and yet the mystery is that it still remains—its end does not displace its origin; no sculptor has the skill, whether god or man, this mystery to trace the one displayed upon her sleeping face
and yet the mystery is that it still
remains—its end does not displace
its origin;
Beautiful!