City Sonnets - 1 and 2

This is my next thing I've been doing/am doing. I thought I'd write 14 city sonnets, because I thought it would be nice to practise a form, with a set subject, and be limited by that.

The thing is, the second one I wrote wasn't actually about an actual city, and then when I'd done 14, I saw that a lot of them could be better so I thought I'd write more to see if i could get 14 satisfactory ones, and I've sort of expanded to almost any "place" I've been to.

It's curiously addictive, and of course, for me, it's nice to get in touch with a memory and shape it into something - though these are not all, of course, wholly true memories.

Some of the memories/stories, such as they are, would be better served by a different form, but packing it into 14 lines is good for me to practise

I don't really know how to lay these out, or which ones are good or not....

I'll post two at a time ...


STOCKHOLM
A giant spider of tight islands hides
Its secrets in the dazzling open cold,
A city which both authors and abides,
Preserves its shipwrecks, spins it woes to gold.
We keep on crossing bridges till we’ve found
Ourselves back at the start, with emptied hands
Which paid to hear the treasure in each sound
and leave each relic breathing, where it stands.

Such grandeur! fostered opulence at each
Clear corner. I can see in every hall
that some fresh masterpiece is within reach,
and free? Hardly …but … equally free for all …
We caught the train to Gothenburg before midday
But it grew dark as soon as we were on our way.

BIRMINGHAM
“We’re mostly here for company” she said
Though I had hardly asked. I was impressed
Nevertheless, and since my faith was dead,
Almost, in any case, pleased she’d not dressed
This rigmarole in pretty gilded lies.
The Scottish vicar (bitter, hairy) drank
His share of lunchtime brandy, thought it wise
To whizz us round the ring road (his car stank

Of fags and God, of course) to Sellyoak,
Where I devised a method, in one week,
To hold a mirror to the stifling smoke
And plot, at least, a comfort I could seek.
Apostasy, my honour and my friend,
In Birmingham where missions go to end.