FAST Sonnets in Cyberspace #8

Your arrows have pierced me. Scorn has broken
My heart. You’re close to the brokenhearted.
“I will remove your heart of stone” (token
Of fall) “and give you a new heart” (started
Before world was fashioned) — for cold heart’s blight
Is congenital, deceptive, beyond
Cure or hope or might … yet darkness is light
To You. Take dark heart from me — this free bond,
Blown boon, renegade risk, haunted home, torn
Tune, charred star — can’t be done, You say? No way,
Nohow, not now — save Your die-to-be-born
Way. Create in me a clean core — safe clay.
You are greater than my heart, and You know
All … search me, grow true me — old throw, new sow.

© Bruce William Deckert 2016

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NOTES — POETRY 411

• This sonnet employs a number of scriptural statements about the heart and related topics in an attempt to explore the nature of the human condition — namely, the crushing concept of the old nature and the hope of the new nature as espoused by the Christian worldview.

• Since this blog focuses on sports-and-faith issues, each sonnet I’m posting has at least an oblique sports connection. Here the connection comes in the first line, though it may have been elusive — archery, of course!

• In my book, the sonnet is the ideal poem for residents of the time-challenged 21st century — rather than long-winded free verse, the sonnet features 14 concise and power-packed lines.

• This is a Shakespearean (or English) sonnet — a 14-line poem comprised of three four-line stanzas and a closing couplet, with a rhyme scheme of abab cdcd efef gg. In places, though, this poem departs from the classic rhythm of the English sonnet, iambic pentameter. Such a departure is common enough, to my knowledge, but I include the caveat for the sake of any sonnet purists who have ventured to this post.

• Let me know your thoughts, however brief, in the comment section. Thanks for stopping by — I hope you’ve found your time here to be worthwhile.