My Escape (Sonnet)

[MorpheusSandman]

(I'm bad with titles; I don't like this one, but it'll work for now)

In ages gone I caught the comet’s tail
A cosmos voyage thorough voided space and time
To flee these cares and worries, escape my crime
Where haunted, tortured memory is my hell
My mind a guarded gate of blood and bone
This brimstone Cerberus watches every move
And traps me in my burning room alone
My innocence and guilt just toys to prove
But now I’m gone, far gone, away, away
This ‘scape in sheets of winter gray and white
Where shimmering silver rivers flow astray
I’ll be… a scape; lack feathers for my flight
Don’t pull me down I’m safe in lofty heaven
And tired of baking like and for my leaven

[Delta40]

well the flow is different and I like the lines - as if their context lies elsewhere...

[Pendragon]

Liked it a lot up to the last line... somehow the word "leaven" rings like a forced rhyme

[Virgil]

The last line was definitely forced. But really it was fairly strong in places, especially this quatrain:

But now I’m gone, far gone, away, away
This ‘scape in sheets of winter gray and white
Where shimmering silver rivers flow astray
I’ll be… a scape; lack feathers for my flight

I think you mean "cosmic" in the second line, not "cosmos." It's an adjective, right?

I guess it was a little melodramatic, "ages gone" and "haunted memory," but but I guess that's just the given of the poem. Overall I liked this Morpheous. :)

[cogs]

i comment cause this poem sounds great:
i didn't understand the last line, "like and for my leaven", and "just toys to prove"(what?).
i guess parts of it had to fit the rhythm. i love the comet idea, and this beauty: "My mind a guarded gate of blood and bone" (like a breadbox, lol). very interesting.

[MorpheusSandman]

Liked it a lot up to the last line... somehow the word "leaven" rings like a forced rhyme
The last line was definitely forced.
i didn't understand the last line, "like and for my leaven"The irony of that last line is that I had it written/in mind from the beginning; the penultimate line was written to accommodate it; not the other way around, and in fact it's the 13th line that I wrote a bit haphazardly to "force" the rhyme. I fear that readers are missing the symbolic quality of leaven. Normally, I don't like explaining myself, but since all of the criticism surrounds the crux of that final line, I will.

-Leaven (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leavening_agent) on the literal level is a substance added to dough which ferments and lightens/softens the product.

-Leaven also traditionally represents sin (http://chezkneel.blogspot.com/2006/02/beware-of-leaven-of-pharisees-oops-i.html), so it's to be excluded during passover and communion bread is also not supposed to contain it.

- On another level, it also represents adding something to a product which changes its composition (http://minuteswithmessiah.tripod.com/minutes/leaven.html). In the religious sense it symbolizing adding something to change the bread/Word of God.

The metaphor relates to all of these as the depictions of hell reinforce the "baking" concept while the idea that leaven softens bread is symbolic for it softening the mind and body; hence it reinforces two of the main things I wanted to depict with the piece; both the speaker suffering for his sin and the guilt driving him into madness and changing his mental composition and inspiring the images of hell. Hence, he's baking both LIKE leaven and FOR (because of) his leaven.


I think you mean "cosmic" in the second line, not "cosmos." It's an adjective, right?It's one of those instances where I'll sacrifice grammar for phonetics. The long "o" in "cosmos" works better with "voyage" and "voided".


I guess it was a little melodramatic, "ages gone" and "haunted memory," but but I guess that's just the given of the poem. Overall I liked this Morpheous. :)The melodrama was a bit on purpose since it's also a tiny bit parodiable. I literally had the ELO song in my head when I wrote "don't pull (instead of bring) me down" and that "safe in... heaven" was inspired by the "In Heaven" song from Eraserhead (which is both funny and creepy) and the silly plays on the "scape". Thanks, though. I always appreciate your critical input.


and "just toys to prove"(what?)..Toys are trifles; also an allusion to innocence (maybe lost).