From The Nocturnal Manuscript of Love Poetry…

Love looks not with the eyes but with the mind; And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.
~William Shakespeare, A Midsummer’s Night Dream 

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POST EDITED: I edited this post to provide some explanation on the idea behind this poem. Hopefully, it will provide better lighting in understanding the language and technique I used to write this sonnet. 

Libertà nel Versetto  (Liberty in Verse)

I do not want to write sonnets,
Nor do I want asps in rhyme,
This heart’s fuller without such vine
To strangle mine own vision’s eyne,
No more is there to see, but feel
In this uncoiled twining to thee.
So break from these nasty chained nets
And move forward out of this wretched wild,
For such scorn, such hate, such mild dew must break.
In verse to step to which is known,
In verse to stride into the unknown,
And in verse to show that cannot be shown.
For Love is patient, but Time is not blind,
And what this maybe, these two can define.

Mikhaela Ajon.2009

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Meaning/ Explanation:

1. First of all, the key to understanding any piece of poetry is to read the work at least two to three times. It will help to get a better grasp of what the speaker is saying. Put it this way, it’s like getting to know a person, the more you spend time with them, the more you will get to know them better. 

2. Next, go back and read the first line because first lines are crucial to understanding the thought of the person at that particular moment. Even though the structure of my poem mimics the fourteen-line structure of a sonnet, I still wrote: “I don’t want to write sonnets.” Ironic, isn’t it? If something does not make sense in reading a poem, then make note of it because the poet would not put it there if it wasn’t significant.

   In my case, I wrote that line because I want to imply how I no longer want to write poems which relies on superficiality to depict love. Through my past relationships, I have grown as person. Looks will always be deceiving and sadly, I’ve learned that the hard way.

3. Moving to the body of the poem, I divided it into 3 parts. The first part includes the opening line down to the seventh line. Looking closely at the rhyming pattern you’ll see an A-B-B-B-B-B-A structure:

   I do not want to write sonnets,               A
   Nor do I want asps in rhyme,                 B
   This heart’s fuller without such vine         B
   To strangle mine own vision’s eyne,        B
   No more is there to see, but feel             B
   In this uncoiled twining to thee.               B
   So break from these nasty chained nets. A

In this particular part of the poem, I am calling out the need to free myself from my past. Like the structure, I became trapped in fear and the only way towards happiness is to let go and liberize myself. These “asps” or snakes of the past have prevented me from doing so and I’ve come to realize how much my heart feels fuller without needing such thing to strangle my vision of the truth. This truth, is the path towards happiness and I’ve known it all along but forced myself to neglect it because I am afraid of getting hurt once again. In the last line, I emphasize how much I need to “break from these nasty chained nets.” I used powerful words here like “break” and “nasty” to mirror the power I will need to break free from the hauntings of my past. If you also look closely, the syllables had been eight until the last line which is ten. I made it specifically this way to create the shift in the poem when spoken out loud.

4.  Moving to second part, there are two lines in this poem which stands out because I specifically did not use any rhyme in them: 

And move forward out of this wretched wild,
For such scorn, such hate, such mild dew must break.

The reason is plain: I want to get out of that wilderness of heartached and failed relationship. I have to let go of all those scorns, hate and break out of my shell. One more thing in this part is the use of a repitition technique to literally show how I am moving forward through words. Using repitition allows these lines to stand out and portray a heavier emphasis on the reader.

In verse to step to which is known,                8
In verse to stride into the unknown,                9
And in verse to show that cannot be shown.  10 

See those coloured numbers? They represent the number of syllable I have incorporated in each of these lines. Through these lines, I want to show how I am literally allowing myself to move, “to step” or “to stride” forward: one step or one syllable at a time. Letting go is a hard process and is not really an easy thing to accomplish. The key is to have patience and take things little by little.
 
5. And now we’re on the final two lines of the poem. Remember, whenever you see a fourteen-line poem, that’s a sonnet and sonnets always have a conclusion at the end which is usually indicated by a rhyming couplet or plainly two lines which rhyme together.

 For Love is patient, but Time is not blind,  F
And what this maybe, these two can define.    F

In terms of saying  “Love is patient,” note that I am referring here to a passage from the Book of Corinthians in the Bible. It is a very famous passage and most people, I would say, are familiar with it. But then, I throw in a twist at the end of the line by saying “Time is not blind”. This should remind you of the saying “Love is blind.” For those who have experienced love and relationships, we’ve all been there and done that. We let our passion for those past beloved to cloud our better judgment. I, for one thing, trusted too much and got burned in the end. *cough cheaters *cough. I vowed to myself I will never let myself play prey to that kind of mischief because honestly, no one deserves that. It takes two to tango and the perceived mistake of another cannot always be blamed on the other person. We all deserved to be happy and frankly, loving is not an easy thing to do. Trusting is the vital aspect to it and once broken, it is hard to mend back or can never be mended at all. 

Only through time can we really tell the true nature of a person, if they are at all deserving of our care and affection.  Love and Time for me symbolize that profound experience which all of us want at some point in our lives: Love which transcends through Time. Yes, I may be young compared to some other people out there, but I am not also getting younger. It’s better for anyone to have learned these lessons now than never at all. Companionship is very hard to find nowadays especially when we are all brought up in a world enveloped in consumer superficiality. It’s one thing to have moments when you just want to feel pretty and good about yourself but it is also another to judge someone by mere physical attributes alone. Looking beyond the surface is a hard thing to do. It takes time. It takes patience. But once passed it, the rewards are surely fruitful and endless. 

6. Lastly, why is the title in Italian? Because the sonnet tradition was invented by an Italian named Petrarch. I’m devoting an aspect of this poem to him because he helped shape the minds of Shakespeare and some of my other favourite poets. Without them to provide me with beautiful poetry, I would not be who I am today.

That said, I do hope I have shed some light on the meaning behind this poem. It’s a very special poem (for reasons which cannot be disclosed) and I just thought of sharing it with you all. 

Enjoy.

That is all.

Adieu.