MetricalSonneteer

The poem that made my ex feel bad.

In the most recent edit (shown here), I changed the last line into Alexandrine (i.e., [iambic] hexameter with a caesura after the third foot); like in Pope's famous two lines, the longer metre in the line is a good place for an end, a conclusion (I edited this poem, at one point, to have it done at the end of every "philosophical" verse).

He lived within his little writing world,
And wrote more poems every day and day;
Although he hoped to be well-published – none
Had ever thought of giving him their pay.

And yet, he had romantic touch within,
And many found him worthy as a friend;
Though adolescent, he had felt some love,
His heart? – It took him many months to mend.

Some things in life go unaccompanied,
And some have mutual acts all in return;
Sometimes you have a shoulder for to cry,
But sometimes water only scalds the burn.

And all liked him, for he was such a friend
That all could well depend on; none assumed
He could have been attracted to themselves
And that, perhaps, his life was not resumed.

For even in depressions that he had,
His face was neat, he showed a blissful side,
None speculated covers, that perhaps
He had a gruesome life beneath his hide.

A person who is nice will e’er be loved,
But friendlily: no passions, all is cold;
Women don’t crave the person who’s their friend –
And if they do – the centre cannot hold.
But life kept on, and files of poems were there,
He wrote and wrote his heart out on the page;
He dealt with other things, he socialised –
He even acted well upon the stage.

Yet all the while, something had crept beneath,
He found his aggravating social life
Demeaning in his chances to be loved –
Not ever living to obtain a wife.

As much as one with his fidelity
Tries to oppress his true id down below,
He’ll only manage somewhat; in the end
All comes out, sometimes with a shuddering blow.

One day, a dame he liked, his heart’s desire,
Had even given thought to concepts such
As being the predicate of his true love
And maybe – one day – she would love him much.

Thoughts ranged, and by the day, should she accept?
Yet he’s a friend, although romantic too;
She loved him, but perhaps it would be waste
To risk a failure, bidding each adieu.

Forever friendship stands where it has been,
(Love does not bend with it) but is removed
When all arisen broils to mutiny;
So rough’s the task for he who has been loved.

She never really liked the fact that he
Indulged in poetry; she didn’t care
Or found it flattery that he oft wrote
His own form of the sonnet just for her.

Yet all he knew (and well) was how to write:
Sestinas, villanelles – but no avail;
She had her mind, and he lived in his world,
And this relationship was doomed to fail.

Is there a form of reconciliation,
Where two from polar backgrounds get along?
He is of one, she of another, yet
They’re harmonised within their sappy song?

A week of pleasure, seven days of joy,
They touched and loved, his star shone out in bliss;
His tender lips upon her rosy cheek –
Her hands all tremor at his gentle kiss.

Then she departed fortnights overseas,
And he aspired to see her once again;
But by the time she came back home, she changed
And treated his romance with much disdain.

If dreams get trodden on by frequent change,
And frequent partings poison what one feels –
Perhaps one shouldn’t have relationships
Full of romance, but cancel off the deal?

Within two days she spoke and said that’s that,
The end has come; it’s back to the old ways.
But how could he return to ‘being friends’,
And travel back in time to the old days?

She asked him to forget it ever happened,
But he had changed; to him she meant a lot:
And even when he thought she loved him too –
It seemed that she concluded she did not.

A person’s senses always are in change,
You can’t ignore that; since the attitude
Is not the same, it alters memories:
And those – you cannot ever quite elude.

He had no epode, nothing to unfold:
No grandiose conclusion, just an end;
He lost the one he loved, she now broke free –
But furthermore, he lost his dearest friend.

And all he’ll ever do is write more verse,
And dedicate it to his love anon.
But he was never numbered in a song:
Will anyone remember him when gone?

For he whom writers praise is ever loved,
And lives forever in cadence and rhyme;
But he who wrote – from memory’s removed,
And shall be swept away by ebbing flow of time.