MY MEDICINE BOOK (LOST SONNET)

Wrote this as an introduction to my Drab Lil book in 2013. When I deleted my first WordPress blog, this was “lost” from the internet.  In celebration of Carlos Ruiz  Zafon’s newest book in the Cemetery of Forgotten Books series (Labyrinth of the Spirits) I am posting the sonnet I wrote when publishing my first book.  Can’t wait to read Zafron’s book!

Will it take a century to be read
Just like the Book of Talismans I found?
A hundred years lying like the undead
Surfacing in the dark of night, unbound?

Or will it wait upon a shelf somewhere?
Or molder on the web’s ancient server?
Discovered by a person who will care,
Or public domain miners with fervor?

The Cemetery of Forgotten Books
As created by Carlos R. Zafon
Is modernized in Kindles and in Nooks
And would serve as the perfect stepping stone.

So here is my book for posterity
Please try to read it with sincerity!

(c) 2013 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja) Drab Lil: A Gypsy’s Medicine Book
Image: From Books & Bras poem

 

 

“THE UNCERTAIN GLORY OF AN APRIL DAY…”

SHAKESPEARE’S BIRTHDAY APPROXIMATELY APRIL 23, 1564

In cold country I sadly plucked the lute
Shining in England, you the rising son {sun}
Seeking me in verse, yet remaining mute
Why don’t you know we are meant to be one

Oh, dear Will, you were fated to be mine
Although centuries separate us now
Twin souls formed by a heavenly design
Calling your name, but me you disavow

Yet I’ve glimpsed your soul somewhere in my space
Perhaps in a yellow striped bumble bee
And though you changed I recognize your face
But stung by your insensitivity

Wading through tears, my grief so prodigious
We’ve lost so much, love now sacrilegious

(c) 2018 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

(Title from Shakespeare’s The Two Gentlemen of Verona)

IMAGES not properly attributed from Google Images.

The cartoon is from Pop Sonnets Blog 416 Collins Language

 

 

AND HERE IS MY ANNUAL BIRTHDAY SONNET CREATED FROM THE FIRST LINES OF SHAKESPEARE’S SONNETS:

 

#60 Sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye
#88 When thou shalt be disposed to set me light
#66 Tired with all these, for restful death I cry
#80 O, how I faint when I of you do write.

#139 O, call not me to justify the wrong
#150 O, from what power hast thou this powerful might
#100 Where art thou, Muse, that thou forget’st so long
#28 How can I then return in happy plight

#43 When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see
#66 Tired with all these, for restful death I cry
#52 So am I as the rich, whose blessed key
#115 Those lines that I before have writ do lie

#56 Sweet love, renew thy force; be it not said
#71 No longer mourn for me when I am dead

© 2014 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja) and William Shakespeare

SHAKESPEARE BIRTHDAY SONNET April 23, 1564

My annual Happy B-day Sonnet to Shakespeare

(USING THE FIRST LINES OF HIS SONNETS)

#60 Sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye
#88 When thou shalt be disposed to set me light
#66 Tired with all these, for restful death I cry
#80 O, how I faint when I of you do write.

#139 O, call not me to justify the wrong
#150 O, from what power hast thou this powerful might
#100 Where art thou, Muse, that thou forget’st so long
#28 How can I then return in happy plight

#43 When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see
#66 Tired with all these, for restful death I cry
#52 So am I as the rich, whose blessed key
#115 Those lines that I before have writ do lie

#56 Sweet love, renew thy force; be it not said
#71 No longer mourn for me when I am dead

 

© 2014 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja) and William Shakespeare

 

 

ABANDONED HOUSE (sonnet)

*scroll down for a YouTube video*

 

Doesn’t take a therapist to know why

I bond with exhausted, forsaken shacks

Nothing but the crows circling with a cry

Prowling, feral cats alert for live snacks.

 

Why empty so long? How did this house fail?

Dirty pink insulation leaking out

Of screaming mouths with crying walls so frail

Mold and dirt and shaky steps, cause for doubt.

 

What happened here in the maddened attic?

Ancient clothes and books hug the swollen floors

Tell me your secret, you ache brick by brick

Relinquish the mystery of closed doors.

 

No one deserves abandonment, ever

Helping lost and wrecked, lifetime’s endeavor.

 

© 2014 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja) from Poetic Alchemy:Talking Blues

(tweaking an old poem)

**YouTube video Ella Mai, Left Me https://youtu.be/yOVNS12CVqE

IMAGE: Abandoned House (public domain)

 

 

 

 

 

 

MY ANNUAL HATE-FREE DAY SONNET

 

#6 MANGEN PES (LOVE EACH OTHER)

(scroll down for a YouTube video)

Love each other, often hard to endorse

So what if we cannot always feel love?

Tolerance is an acceptable course

Distilled from burning passion undreamed of

 

See our fellow humans who suffer too

Spreading hatred causes life to be worse

Anger poisons the aethers wafting through

Hovering like an everlasting curse

 

We specks of life on each other depend

Yet we form tribes of separate masses

Mistaking charisma as our best friend

Further separating into classes

 

Although love is a precious rarity

Honor the emotion with clarity

 

© 2014 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja) Madame Sosostris Explains (a poetry patchwork)

YouTube video, Youngbloods, Get Together https://youtu.be/o4fWN6VvgKQ

 

 

 

 

 

 

1.2 MILLION GALAXIES SONNET

 

 

1.2 million galaxies mapped out

That’s a lot of suns both alive and dead

It’s made me feel completely overwhelmed

As possibilities scream through my head

 

The 3-D map may unlock the secrets

Of a mysterious dark energy

Relating to universe expansion

Buttressing theories of gravity

 

World-wide group of scientists met in peace

Mapping space billions of light years away

Measurements taken over a decade

Expanding our minds with this news today

 

Can you look at this map and still pretend

That all war and hatred is a godsend?

 

(c) 2016 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGE: 3-D map of 1.2 million galaxies (IFLS article)

 

 

SHAKESPEARE BIRTHDAY SONNET

 

(USING HIS SONNETS)

#60 Sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye
#88 When thou shalt be disposed to set me light
#66 Tired with all these, for restful death I cry
#80 O, how I faint when I of you do write.

#139 O, call not me to justify the wrong
#150 O, from what power hast thou this powerful might
#100 Where art thou, Muse, that thou forget’st so long
#28 How can I then return in happy plight

#43 When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see
#66 Tired with all these, for restful death I cry
#52 So am I as the rich, whose blessed key
#115 Those lines that I before have writ do lie

#56 Sweet love, renew thy force; be it not said
#71 No longer mourn for me when I am dead

 

© 2014 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja) and William Shakespeare

ROMANI ORAL TRADITION

World Roma Day

April 8

 

“{International Romani Day} commemorates the day on which Romani people officially sealed their international cooperation and the Romani movement achieved an international sociopolitical dimension. On this day, those who annually celebrate it commemorate their common culture, language, origins, unity, work and primarily their “romipen” (“Romani-ness”).”  From http://www.romea.cz

 

My Annual Sonnet:

 

Who says we cannot read? We read fringed lines

As they meander across your worn palm

We read the leaf clumps and delicate vines

Clinging to the empty teacup, now calm.

 

We read your story of pain and glory

On sketched chips of wood or bright vellum card

Brown, green, blue, gray reflections give away

Both truth and lies you desperately guard.

 

Asking us for help, we once again read

The page of your voices, anger, and fear

Despised, uneducated, we still bleed

In sympathy for your disguised veneer.

 

No country, no school, no planting of seed

And yet we have always known how to read.

 

© 2013 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

From Madame Sosostris Explains (a poetry patchwork)

IMAGE: Graphic RR Marki dr/eh, Zurich Switzerland

 

 

6- Mangen Pes (Love Each Other)

(ANNUAL HATE-FREE DAY SONNET)

Love each other, often hard to endorse

So what if we cannot always feel love?

Tolerance is an acceptable course

Distilled from burning passion undreamed of.

See our fellow humans who suffer too

Spreading hatred causes life to be worse

Anger poisons the aethers wafting through

Hovering like an everlasting curse.

We specks of life on each other depend

Yet we form tribes of separate masses

Mistaking charisma as our best friend

Further separating into classes.

Although love is a precious rarity

Honor the emotion with clarity

© 2014 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja) Madame Sosostris Explains (a poetry patchwork)

SONNETS SONNET

Sometimes, as a poet, one must return

To the early forms studied as students

Meter and rhyme, now a time to relearn

That straight backbone of all those rudiments

*****

What fun wandering among the free verse

Protesting confines of old school of thought

Poetry dancing in song so diverse

Ignoring the boring frame we were taught

*****

Writing merely in free is not diverse

Similar poetry becomes dry rot

Grudgingly, I turn my head and reverse

Weaving carefully through the common knot

*****

Perhaps I must commit to higher rhyme

Singing syllables to have a good time

© 2015 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGE: KARLEVI RUNESTONE IN “COURTLY METRE”