Savannah (a sonnet)

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Savannah

Rotund tourists wander the street below
drinking lukewarm beer out of plastic cups
and watching the Savannah river flow,
and Chuck’s in a corner playing guitar
for the plaid shorts and polo shirts, standing
in all their pastel glory at the bar.
Karla is on her fourth mojito, and
trying hard to catch his eye, as he segues
from Kentucky Woman to Fire and Rain;
joining the chorus , she stands on her chair
chugs back the remains of her mojito
and drunkenly punches the empty air.
Time, time is a disappearing muse
in time, in time, you feel every wound.

 

I’m participating in the month long sonnet challenge over at dVerse. This is my second attempt, the first can be found here. This one has an ABACDCEFEGG rhyming scheme. I wrote it after reading Jilly’s excellent dVerse post on enjambment.

The poem revisits content from two poems that were published in Cyphers magazine and a song lyric I wrote. The song lyric had a different rhyme scheme, shorter lines, a chorus, and of course more room to play (there’s always room for an extra verse).

Not sure how well this works, but it was fun trying.

 

27 thoughts on “Savannah (a sonnet)”

  1. Alexander De

    This is a rooftop poem – needs to be shouted out loud in that bar and maybe have a video to go with it. Really, really great. (Wish I could say it better than using ‘really’ twice – maybe I should get more sleep, huh?)

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  2. jillys2016

    Whoa! Love the specificity of this – the names and places – that’s what makes it so compelling! The musician in you brings this to life. Standing / And as rhyming words gives this a sense of rhythm that goes beyond the poetry. Love this, Jim!

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  10. Steve Simpson

    An impressive piece, Jim, with a great mysterious and sorrowful conclusion. I cannot help but see James Taylor as a kind of sad reminder of the past and I don’t know why that is. A very human piece, everybody’s looking for something (yes I know what sweet dreams made of 😸), how we dress and act, does it matter? And still there are no time machines.

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    1. sdtp33 Post author

      Thanks Steve. Yep, James was (is) a melancholy bloke and a deceptively poetic song writer(“geese in flight and dogs that bite/ and signs that may be omens”). Like the Eurythmics reference!

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