Random poetry

[qatarperegrine]

Earlier this week I joined Friendster, and I discovered that a high school friend had Gerard Manley Hopkins listed as one of his favorite authors. This struck me as funny, because I suspect he was introduced to Hopkins through my presentation on Carrion Comfort (or was it No Worst, There is None?) in AP English, the same day his presentation introduced me to my now-favorite poem, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. It reminded me how much I loved that AP English class. One of the reasons I didn't major in English in college was that my first college-level English class so thoroughly failed to live up to AP English.

syd___ presented on Conrad Aiken, but sadly I don't remember which poem. (Do you remember, syd?) The only other presentation I remember was the one on E.E. Cummings, which was the first time I realized that many of Cummings' poems, as odd as they look on the page, are in fact sonnets. So, for your reading pleasure, here is my favorite maudlin sonnet:

it may not always be so; and i say
that if your lips, which i have loved, should touch
another's, and your dear strong fingers clutch
his heart, as mine in time not far away;
if on another's face your sweet hair lay
in such silence as i know, or such
great writhing words as, uttering overmuch,
stand helplessly before the spirit at bay;

if this should be, i say if this should be--
you of my heart, send me a little word;
that i may go unto him, and take his hands,
saying, Accept all happiness from me.
Then shall i turn my face and hear one bird
sing terribly afar in the lost lands

Edit: Say it ain't so! I just discovered that Bjork sings a song based on this sonnet. It's truly, truly horrific. If you have access to the Apple Music Store, it's called "Sonnets/Unrealities XI" on the Medulla album, but don't blame me if it ruins the poem for you.