Sonnet (inspired by Sonnet 22)
Wendy Cope
My glass can’t quite persuade me I am old –
In that respect my ageing eyes are kind –
But when I see a photograph, I’m told
The dismal truth: I’ve left my youth behind.
And when I try to get up from a chair
My knees remind me they are past their best.
The burden they have carried everywhere
Is heavier now. No wonder they protest.
Arthritic fingers, problematic neck,
Sometimes causing mild to moderate pain,
Could well persuade me I’m an ancient wreck
But here’s what helps me to feel young again:
My love, who fell for me so long ago,
Still loves me just as much, and tells me so.
When to the sessions of sweet silent thought (inspired by Sonnet 30)
Andrew Motion
We found each other late, by winding roads,
and for my own part: when I saw you clear
I saw you through the glass of my mistakes
which I can only think weren’t dear time’s waste
if I believe they taught me how to live.
Live better, that’s to say, although to fail
less hurtfully and with more care might be
a straighter way of saying what I feel.
Forgive me, then, for what you do not know.
Forgive me for the vanities that now
allow me to suggest they’re finished; gone.
They’re not, of course – all losses are restored –
but loving you as who I was made new,
at least the chance exists they might be less.
Senex on Market Street (inspired by Sonnet 1)
Douglas Dunn
‘Thou that art now the world’s fresh ornament’
Posh totty totters past on serious heels.
In handsomeness, with confidence, they walk
Towards exams, and don’t know how it feels
To hear the fateful tick-tock of the clock.
Young women, and young men, I, too, was young –
Believe that if you can! – but years go by
Until, one day, you find your songs are sung;
Ambitionless, your sap and tears run dry.
There’s something I must tell – need you know this? –
I loved a woman who dressed as well as you;
But I can’t give the past false emphasis,
For even old love is for ever new.
When she walked out she dulcified the air;
And so do you. To say so’s only fair.
The Trick (inspired by Sonnet 43)
Imtiaz Dharker
In a wasted time, it’s only when I sleep
that all my senses come awake. In the wake
of you, let day not break. Let me keep
the scent, the weight, the bright of you, take
the countless hours and count them all night through
till that time comes when you come to the door
of dreams, carrying oranges that cast a glow
up into your face. Greedy for more
than the gift of seeing you, I lean in to taste
the colour, kiss it off your offered mouth.
For this, for this, I fall asleep in haste,
willing to fall for the trick that tells the truth
that even your shade makes darkest absence bright,
that shadows live wherever there is light.
Two (inspired by Sonnet 36)
Don Paterson
These two, if two, can only half-exist,
their being so lost, so inwardly inclined
that were somehow the universal mind
to make its inventory, they would be missed,
their bodies having slipped between the hours
and dropped down to this silent underland,
the white torque of their sheet still in her hand
like the means of their escape. From the light purse
of their mouths, they pass their only coin
endlessly, so none may buy or sell.
Each has drawn so long and drank so deep
from the other’s throat or root, they cannot tell
tongue from tail or end from origin.
Sleep will halve them so they will not sleep.
Thirty-Five (inspired by Sonnet 11)
Jackie Kay
As quick as you fell ill, quickly you recover;
A quip returned, a memory uncovered.
Saline drip, subcut, a new route discovered.
You slip into the railed bed, slide under covers.
Outside Glasgow Royal – snow – a thin sheet.
Inside your wit, wisdom makes my heart swell –
Bigger than your water-retaining feet.
Without this love, nothing could ever be well.
A gift the heart wrapped early in this life.
The more you give the more you have to cherish.
If I could offer you my veins, I’d gladly use a knife.
At times it seems if you go, I too will perish.
A mould broke made a new mother of you.
Blood, water, sealed with a kiss: all true.
After Sonnet 38
Nick Laird
Love, if I call them in from the darkness,
the sonneteers, our fabulous liars,
and get them to sit at these rows of desks,
distribute goose quills, rolls of papyrus
or vellum sheets, or slates, or MacBook Airs,
disable the wifi and monitor
lighting, the background sounds and temperatures,
divert the Polish cleaner and offer
bottomless coffee or a few wee nips,
then set each brother at the other’s throat
with talk of posterity, the odd gift
of hard cash, and stand at the back to wait –
for as long as they want – for years and years –
they could not start to get down half your ways.
Di-Di-Dah-Dah-Di-Dit (inspired by Sonnet 20)
Simon Armitage
di-di-di-dit dit di-dah-di-dit dah-dah-dah
di-di-di-dah dit
di-di-dit di-di-di-dit di-dit dah-dah
di-di-di-dit
dit di-dah-di-dit dah-dah-dah
di-di-di-dah dit di-di-dit di-di-di-dit
di-dit dah-dah dah-dit dah-dah-dah dah
di-di-di-dit dit di-dah-di-dit
dah-dah-dah di-di-di-dah
dit di-di-dit di-di-di-dit di-dit
dah-dah di-di-di-dit dit di-dah-di-dit dah-dah-dah
di-di-di-dah dit di-di-dit
di-di-di-dit di-dit dah-dah
dah-dit dah-dah-dah dah
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