The first prompt for July’s Open Write was a challenge. It was about writing a sonnet (a form I have not tackled in quite some time) and Glenda suggested a double-consciousness theme, where the poet grapples with something contradictory (I think that’s what it is about). I’m not sure I did that with my sonnet to Charlie Parker but I enjoyed the constraints this morning.
A Sonnet For Charlie Parker
A Bird of free range flying through the night
wrapped in chords of compositional scratches
and tangled like roses, thorns as sharp as flight;
yet within noise, the melody flashes
I am an earbud audience, in awe
of the way the sound moves in near motion
so that when I close my eyes — not a flaw –
only quick winds and waves on the ocean
Yet he remains a complicated man,
a puzzle of complexity, a wire
who could channel beauty on the bandstand
while nearly losing himself to the fire
Some music that’s played becomes a life, lost,
and listeners often forget the cost
Peace (in the muse),
Kevin