Shadows Dancing

Petrarchan sonnet

By Harper Lewis Published about a year ago • Updated about a year ago • 1 min read

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This ancient drum, pounding anew

samples the past into a fresh song,

where old melodies and original rhythms belong,

melting down my core, forging me into something new.

Fear and longing beat a tattoo,

weaving into a bassline of torturous wrong

while prosaic life drudges me along

in this suffocating absence of you.

Redemption pirouettes on the periphery where my mind reaches.

You jitterbug through my memory;

shadows of us dance the Charleston on beaches,

lonely, low-tide beaches stretching out to where the sea should be,

the vast expanse of emptiness preaches

your inevitable ebb from me.

Intrusive rhyme bothers me, except as a weapon.

Intertextuality is my passion.

Formalist/ New Critical are my guiding theories.

My words are mine, not a robot’s.

MA English literature, CofC

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