(a sonnet in the Italian style)

Jonathan Dodd 

 

 

Mysterious forces combine to ignite

A barely-warm ember that bursts into fire;

A fantasy hardens and turns to desire;

You suddenly find you are starting to write.

The process is painful - you work through the night;

The mountain of jumbled-up phrases grows higher,

A babble of voices instead of a choir;

The words and the meanings refuse to unite.

You lie half-asleep where you fell into bed,

Your mind rearranging the lines you have penned,

And find to your horror you're dreaming in rhyme.

A lifetime's apprenticeship stretches ahead;

As every new writer finds out in the end,

The mountain you make is the one you must climb.