|
Home |
Dedication |
Editorial |
Submissions |
About Us |
Back Issues |
Contact Us |
Links
|
 |
|
Colin Honnor, based in the English Cotswolds, is
a widely published poet with several published collections. A translator of European
poets such as Montale and a lecturer, critic, writer and publisher of European
independant press poetry and literature.
|
Four Formal Sonnets to Maria Stuart
|
I
The Court, ingrown toenail, wisdom tooth
Bracelet of bright hair, elastic loop
To tie, brocade, velvet; travesty, truth -
Fotheringhay - its stones turved in June
Stone shadows cast into the Neme
Tumble to faded rose-leafed, blue-
white pressed crowns among these waters.
Red velvet clouds between the oaks
And swans bear cygnets to the edge
Treading upstream. The grass soaks
Rain from air, and buoyant, proves
To be infirm, no blade cuts such leaf
That learning, shrinks to pale green
With acid rains, of the planet's tears.
|
II
White swansneck, white rose, the sob
Of skies, cracks an oak branch broken
As the storm cheers building its storeys
Of cloud, beneath the fallen May
Flowers furnishing reflections.
Familiar shades are watching, silent
Constructing their beacons of man's
Absolutist harmony, keep-
Sakes blown to mark these rites
And retributions and wedding
The green lawns to trefoil-pierced holms.
The dove flies up from truffle-odoured corms
Beneath this columned field of masts
Crowing these denials of your serene story.
|
III
Beauty is two poems. One is the eye
And cheek flushing, fading; rose; yew
Lavender; the other hears, touches
Hidden corners, distant prospects
Grants visions, plotting, planning
Schemes for dynasties of leaves
And powdery roses flowering
And at rose-fall to appease the dead
With their quiet husbanding
Especially this oak, broken-whites
Clouding the heart wood
Which unleaves to trefoil, fleur de lys
Unmarked masking the leafmould.
|
IV
"May God grant you the love
I had for you" So the Slav Immortal
Fattening upon the new mown-hay,
Lactates even his imperfections
With their stones rolled away
Or fallen from mouths. Haunts
With seraphim sifting the gravel
Walks, footsteps echo in this
English garden, where rose-leaves
Cloak even their briars.
Fotheringhay its incredible
Fable of, miscellany of love
Shared with Rome such Orthodoxies
For which you burn. They look on,
Deceiving, deceitful, quick
|
|
|
|
| ©
2004-2006 the Dublin Quarterly--to see familiar things with unfamiliar eyes!
|
|
