Since Snakeskin published my sonnet collection, I Sing the Sonnet, in December I have had a third acrostic aphorism sonnet sequence, “Futures Unknown”, published in Snakeskin in March.
Then in July’s Snakeskin I had a short unrhyming poem (very rare for me), “The Bad Dancer” published. I wrote it in under half a minute, inspired by a fellow poet announcing on Facebook that for Father’s Day she was off to write a poem about how she lacked a father.
And now a third poem, my latest sonnet, called “On Papsie’s 89th Birthday”, which I’ve discussed here, has been published in August’s Snakeskin.
So thank you, George Simmers, editor of Snakeskin!
Here’s a sonnet I started on June 7th. Papsie is what we call my dad:
On Papsie’s 89th Birthday
I’m sitting in the Shamrock Inn in Copenhagen, where there’s time and space enough for me to rhyme. Why do I do it? Not to win applause, or please my kith and kin, but rather so my soul may climb up to the stars, to some sublime reunion with its long-lost twin.
The two kids kissing to this track (Mumford and Sons, “After the Storm”) remind me of the face-down Jack of Hearts downstairs. When love is warm, we never dream of turning back; our only duty’s to perform.
I composed the title last, as I often do, and this was partly inspired by the fact that there were 89 words in the sonnet. In fact, the sonnet amounted to 89 words without my intervention. I only had to count them. The subconscious at work, I think. It was Papsie’s 89th birthday after all.
The title can also be read “On Papsie’s Eighty-Ninth Birth Day”. The acronym of this is “OPEN BD”. The original title has 21 letters and the 21st letter of the poem is a small “C” (which is the letter you find if you “OPEN BD”). The new title has 28 letters and the 28th letter is a capital “C”, immediately followed by “open” (in “Copenhagen”), i.e. the cryptic clue has been solved; “C” is now “open”. There’s an extra gift to “open” too, as the remaining letters in “Copenhagen” are an anagram of “Change”. Perhaps this was a numerical/linguistic effect created by my subconscious. How else to explain it?
Anyway, it’s a nice anagram, and no doubt one my dad has come across, seeing as how he’s a great solver of cryptic crosswords. We share an interest in wordplay, as well as chess and bridge, but I leave the crosswords to him, and he leaves the poetry to me.