Considering the days we cannot share
that stretch before and after us, an endless,
friendless entropy circumscribes our love.
The sun will set, grey or golden, across
this picture postcard bay no matter what,
and flotsam drift amongst the tidemarks scum,
come the day, when in the sand, our footprints
fade away. Though poets claim that morning's rose
can glut mysterious sorrow and Autumn
subverts the songs of Spring, a day will break
un-misted by our breath; we'll slip away
unknown. Sonnets tell us kindly lies -
that 'thy eternal Summer shall not fade'.
Our measure won't suffice. With us, love dies.
I posted this up for comment in September 2004. It started out as an exercise exploring rhyming the end of one line with the beginning of another - like Louis McNeice's poem, 'Sunlight in the Garden'. I soon discovered it was far trickier than it first appeared and I was unable to sustain it. Somewhere along the way the poem morphed into a standard 'Oh woe is me' sonnet serving up a generous portion of pre-packaged sentiment, then seasoning it with the odd allusion to Shakespeare and Keats. Ah well, you can't win them all.
About Me
- Pete Turpie
- Pete Turpie grew up in Northumberland, England. He studied History of Art and English Literature at Manchester and Open University. Pete worked in Further Education management for almost 30 years. Writing under the pen-name 'Alan Wickes', his poetry has been published extensively in the UK, North America and Australia, appearing in Aesthetica, Znine, Worm, Loch Raven Review, The Chimera, Envoi, The Raintown Review and Angle. His sonnets have won Ware Poets national competition twice, in 2004 and 2009. Cannon Poets awarded first prize to his poem "Parting Shots" in November 2006. In November 2007 his chapbook Prospero at Breakfast was published by Modern Metrics. His work has featured in anthologies and he is included on 'The Hypertexts' site as a spotlight poet. In 2012 the sonnet sequence 'Nighthawks' was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Pete retired in 2012 and has recently completed an M.A. in Humanities with the University of Derby. In the longer term he is looking forward to travelling more extensively, enjoying family life and to have more time to further develop his writing.
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