a certain indefinite number of Petrarchan “sonnets” (76)

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 17 lines is like a quartet with 7 members, though criticism and rebuke is always welcome from anyone who feels so moved.

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I STUMBLED in a labyrinth of dreams
caught up in convolutions of my plight
through winding corridors with walls bedight
with images and scarce-remembered scenes
illumined by the silent silver beams
of a crescent Moon, whose indifferent light
was enough to see but not to read aright
the scroll I held, sufficing not to glean
instructions that the angel had conferred
in a moment far beyond familiar time
alighting on my shoulder like a bird
he spoke into my ear with speech sublime
and swiftly I recorded every word
the prosody, the cadence, and the paradigm
to no avail, and, hopeless—then I heard
a voice in telltale melody and rhyme
address my soul and say, “you are the bird.”

Photo by Luke Stackpoole on Unsplash