metaphor – Elena Nola, Poet

I want to know each star within the galaxy
Of you, to measure its coordinates and map
Its place amidst the whole, then calculate degree
Of luminosity by noting every gap.

I want to learn the constellations you have found,
To see your sky as through your eyes, then offer you
My own interpretation of the chart. Not bound
To your perspective, I can show you you anew.

I want to watch the slow and swirling dance unfold
Across the span of time, to spot the patterns in
Your lights so I can also track the changes told
By shifting stars: some reignite while others dim.

I want to spiral in and reach your very heart,
To slip between your arms and come to rest at last,
To rearrange your gravity with my soul’s mass,
Fixed at your center, now, the one unmoving part.

~Elena Nola

This poem is one of my favorite things I’ve ever written. It’s a perfect form Petrarchan sonnet, and a poem that was adapted into that form from free-verse after I realized I had written 15 lines in something approaching iambic pentameter and with a very obvious question/answer.

It was originally published in Riddled with Arrows issue 2.3, Objects and Artifacts, in November 2018.

“The Alchemist”

No pointed hat nor sweeping robe required,
Nor lonely lamp-lit tower stabbing sky.
No pedant’s cant, archaic chant to ply,
Nor pestles filled with mortared coal expired.
The iron discipline of midnight fires
And winding dark roads walked alone, though, aye;
Unflinching yen to face the truth of why,
And burning will to manifest desires.
All I need for alchemy is my quill
And paper blank. I dip it in my vein
Of sorrow, let my sadness over-spill,
Transmuting into words my darkest pain.
A minor compensation for my ills,
To pages, not my soul, leave thusly stained.

-Elena Nola

Tag: metaphor

The Astronomer

The Alchemist

“The Alchemist”