Endeavor to Persevere

#60

Welcome back. Pardon the delay this week. Chalk it up to the recovery from my shoulder surgery. This week’s selection (random number generator again) is a standard Shakespearean Sonnet, ABAB BCBC DEDE FF

Endeavor to Persevere
#60

We know with what the road to hell is paved.
Yet still we place our feet into our maws.
And then we swear that next time we'll be saved
By our intentions to perfect our flaws.

And yet again we're forced to clarify
The reasons why our speech falls sometimes short.
Vocabulary cannot verify
All by itself or to prevent retort.

And then we're left to figure out a way
To comfort all the hurt our comfort wrought.
How not to err with what we've come to say
A second time to fix what first we sought.

Forgive me if I end with this cliche,
We're all, at best, but creatures made of clay.

Frank Garnick

© Copyright The Archer's March
03 May 2022

The title is taken from a line in the movie, “The Outlaw Josey Wales” where the character played by Chief Dan George quotes a speech from the Secretary of Indian Affairs. Not only must we persevere but we must yearn for the ability when things look most bleak.

I’ve used the opening line twice (so far), as not only is it pure iambic pentameter but it is a splendid lead in for a work of introspection, which most of my writing is.

We know with what the road to hell is paved

We all know this to be a self evident truth, yet time and again we think our intentions are sufficient to get our point across. And again our words fall short of our intended meaning, forcing us to restate what we thought was perfectly clear. In our scramble to repair the damage our misunderstood words caused we need to not forget our original plan. That our restatement does not lose itself in semantics.

The final couplet is anything but heroic in that it’s really just a cop-out. I’m not claiming to have all the answers in my verse. Most of my writing is merely a poetic expression of conversations I have with myself. I’m trying to improve who I am and I share my rhyme in the off chance that someone may face similar issues. Or maybe just enjoy the poetry. Or both.

Thanks for reading and have a great day.

I would ask for you to peruse my website and choose a sonnet for a future newsletter.

The Archer's March

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