December 2014
I live near Boston and teach philosophy at Boston University. Besides academic pieces, I write fiction (when I’m up to it) and poems (when I can’t help it). I use a fountain pen—my link to tradition—and write to music. I’ve published essays, stories, and poems in a wide variety of journals. A new story collection, Heiberg’s Twitch, is forthcoming.
Editor's Note: In an email to me about the following poems Robert explained, 'Here is an old experiment. The two sonnets are made from the same 14 lines: in the first, arranged as a Shakespearean sonnet, in the second, Petrarchan.'
Arrange Your Own Sonnet I
the melting snow lays puddles on the street
black looking-glass reflecting darkling walls
on such a night it was our fate to meet
to look, to see, before the silence falls
whole-hearted as a lion tearing flesh
each day my first, each night our very last
eagerness unanxious, ambition fresh
the present is all future and no past
before I knew I knew you I knew you
a virgin bridge no car has ever crossed
all the steps I took, every breath I drew
was it you I found or was it I was lost
whose melody's a minor mystery
this long adagio, our history
Arrange Your Own Sonnet II
This long adagio, our history
each day my first, each night our very last
the present is all future and no past
whose melody's a minor mystery
a virgin bridge no car has ever crossed
eagerness unanxious, ambition fresh
whole-hearted as a lion tearing flesh
was it you I found or was it I was lost
On such a night it was our fate to meet
to look, to see, before the silence falls
the melting snow lays puddles on the street
black looking-glass reflecting darkling walls
all the steps I took, every breath I drew
before I knew I knew you I knew you
Arrange Your Own Sonnet I
the melting snow lays puddles on the street
black looking-glass reflecting darkling walls
on such a night it was our fate to meet
to look, to see, before the silence falls
whole-hearted as a lion tearing flesh
each day my first, each night our very last
eagerness unanxious, ambition fresh
the present is all future and no past
before I knew I knew you I knew you
a virgin bridge no car has ever crossed
all the steps I took, every breath I drew
was it you I found or was it I was lost
whose melody's a minor mystery
this long adagio, our history
Arrange Your Own Sonnet II
This long adagio, our history
each day my first, each night our very last
the present is all future and no past
whose melody's a minor mystery
a virgin bridge no car has ever crossed
eagerness unanxious, ambition fresh
whole-hearted as a lion tearing flesh
was it you I found or was it I was lost
On such a night it was our fate to meet
to look, to see, before the silence falls
the melting snow lays puddles on the street
black looking-glass reflecting darkling walls
all the steps I took, every breath I drew
before I knew I knew you I knew you
Flinching Time
1.
Out of quiet swirl storms. A moment
and a day darkens, a second and
a heart shuts tight. Each instant’s
gravid with menace, trembling with
miracle, with kettles about to boil.
2.
We’re fast in time until time blurs
into weather, light, hunger, mood, sleep.
A reader in his chair is out of time;
a bather in her bath is timeless too.
Annihilation’s just the fullness of time.
3.
For a spell there were no distinctions, no
news, then a happening happened in
a flicker we just missed, a gray shadow
passing over a brown wall. Occasions
occur in the catches between breaths.
4.
Head, trunk, knees, hands, toes, all torn apart.
Dionysus, shredded by a half-dozen
brutal titans gripping, dripping mud,
sinks from frenzied time to frozen silence--
perhaps to be reborn in sweet sane Spring.
©2014 Robert Wexelblatt