Below is my sonnet, "Writ" describing the quest for artistic inspiration, as well as playing on the definition of the word "writ" (a simple past tense and past participle of the word "write"), and as a legal term : a legal document that orders a person to do a particular thing, as in a search warrant.
"Writ"was nominated for a Pushcart Prize by the late Paul Stevens, Editor, The Chimaera in 2008, and also nominated for "Best of the Net" that same year. The poem has appeared in The HyperTexts, Sonnetto Poesia, The Chimaera, and The Flea, and is part of my first collection of poems, Lines of Flight.
Who were the tenants of the now-vacant room?
Writ
“Foole,” said my Muse to me, “Looke in thy heart and write.”
– Sir Philip Sidney, “Astrophel and Stella”
And so I searched, but all that I could see
to write about was this: a vacant room
whose occupants once held a tenancy
of woodstream orchids, where an old perfume
clings to its quiet corners, knows my key
will turn, a frequent caller to a tomb
already ransacked, sifting through debris
only a fool like me would dare exhume.
I’ve served my warrant, Muse, and I am pleased
to tell you that I’ve found the smoking gun
you always knew was there. So I have seized
it, tagged and bagged it. Now my work is done.
This evidence I can at last impart –
the delicate forensics of the heart.
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