Although my ears were ringing with its rhymes

I edited my sonnet sixty times
It didn’t seem so many to my mind
Although my ears were ringing with its rhymes
To criticise myself seems quite unkind

What seemed to be a meter was none such
I could not sing it like Gray’s Elegy
My language late at night seems Double Dutch
But writing will, like loving, pleasure me.

If only we could edit when we speak
Instead of blurting out “the honest truth”
To stop our malice making others bleak
Or injuring their hearts with words uncouth.

When we reflect, we learn to see our speech
As something not entirely out of reach.

He said I was  a not a real  poet

My knowledge was , let’s say, inchoate

But when I wrote a sonnet

He said,Now you’ve done it.

You are a born   one and don’t you just know it!

 

I said, after  six years of practise.

I might have even become a stage actress.

But my vocation is  to pen,

And to amuse  gentlemen.

As the world turns round  again on its axis.

 

 

Six years is  more than 2,000 days

On which I have studied and prayed

For seven hours or more

Which brings up  my score

To fourteen thousand hours ,by the way.

 

So really I’ve not done that well.

But luckily most folk can’t tell.

I’ll   accept my position

With no self derision.

I might almost be in a nun’s cell

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’ll write a sonnet it’s not hard, is it

The hardest thing is how to begin it.

Once you start, it’s hard to stop.

One sonnet might be, in fact, a crop.

I used to write five poems a day.

I seemed to know just what to say

Yet too much talking can disturb.

The gentle angels are perturbed

In Suffolk is an ancient church

Above the altar small birds perch

The angels hang down from the roof

The faces grave convey the truth.

I tried to write but did it work?

Wisdom dwells where angels lurk

The face that was familiar is no more Lost like butterflies that wind destroys And I sit alone by this closed door From this anguish take me,I implore Hoping that my prayer will not annoy.

The face that was familiar is no more All the years have vanished from my store

With the empty future ,love destroyed .

As I sit alone by this closed door As days pass by, truth and pain conjoin .

Love is never evil but conveys

The face that was familiar is no more With nature’s rhythm, we touch on the benign Loss and even sin are cast away

As I decide to open this closed door

So I travel down the path of each new day

Good will and toleration come, I pray.

The face that was familiar is no more.

Kindness, care and time might me restore.