Valentine's Day Sonnet Contest

I have some Gmail accounts to give away. They'll go to the top five original sonnets about love and blogging (must deal with both subjects in the same poem). Hit the comments section and show off your poetic prowess. Double points if you read it aloud and put it in a podcast.

Comments

[David Weinberger]

I blogged my sonnet here.

How about next time making it a limerick? :)

[Joi Ito]

Sorry. I'm Japanese. I don't believe in Valentine's or sonnets, but here's a Haiku for you.

Bloggers love to fisk
Rathergate and Easongate
Kittens in our midst

[K.G. Schneider]

I'm an awful poet (can we have an essay contest next time?), and certainly no Berkman genius, but this did get me going. (It's a hat trick: blogging, love, and librarianship.) I also podcast it, on behalf of the 11% of the public who own MP3 players, according to today's Pew report.

[Frank Paynter]

I wish I'd done something like Joi's "Kittens in the Mist" Haiku. Instead, I posted a sonnet here:
http://sandhill.typepad.com/sandhill_trek/2005/02/for_rebecca_a_v.html

[Luisetta]

Evolution

Oh blog, me, babe! Don't miss a word of it!
Many a blog has brought love to my door
Netted by sparkling poem, or flash of wit -
The chatroom kind, of course, and little more.
What need of tangled flesh on messy dates
The weight of expectation as it starts
Its gentle journey southwards, then abates?
The strain of those repeated broken hearts?
Love's old economy is gone for good
Desire is met through ethernet, our span
Is all the world by cable, though we should
Still try to be as sticky as we can.

But now I'm worried if your e-mail spells:
You only want me for my URLs?

[Luisetta]

Evolution

Oh blog, me, babe! Don't miss a word of it!
Many a blog has brought love to my door
Netted by sparkling poem, or flash of wit -
The chatroom kind, of course, and little more.
What need of tangled flesh on messy dates
The weight of expectation as it starts
Its gentle journey southwards, then abates?
The strain of those repeated broken hearts?
Love's old economy is gone for good
Desire is met through ethernet, our span
Is all the world by cable, though we should
Still try to be as sticky as we can.

But now I'm worried if your e-mail spells:
You only want me for my URLs?

[Luisetta]

Sorry to post that twice. I didn't think I had. And there's a comma in the first line that shouldn't be there (Oh blog!). Happy Valentine's Day. L xxxx

[Luisetta]

The recording isn't great, but that was the third attempt. :P

http://www.angelfire.com/ma3/mandarin/Evolution.mp3

[Rodger Morrow]

Okay, it's more Lorenz Hart than Bill Shakespeare.

But it's still fourteen lines, and it rhymes (sort of) …

My bloggy valentine
'lectronic valentine
I fell for you from the start
Your lips are smackable.
They're so trackbackable.
They make me wish never to part.

Though your facts sometimes are wrong
And you go on a little long
Still I know that you belong
In my heart.

But … don’t change a word for me
It's so absurd to me
That we should have ever met this way,
Blogging on Valentine’s Day.

[John]

Self Love and Blogging

When Narcissus first visited my blog,
He found reflected there a leftward lean,
And on that first post, he had to slog
Through turgid prose, common among the green
Bloggers who think everyone will love them.
Narcissus found himself and preened and cooed
And babbled about this or that new gem
Of thought, of a philosophy that wooed
All who found it. He cried when Google said
Nothing of this blog on its firstmost page;
He beat his chest when clicking more links led
Nowhere. He smashed his mirror and in a rage
Said "There is no love but my own for me;
No one will quote my words hence in history."

[SJ]

Lo! I blog myself
Love's current saturates me
Licentious ego

(Sonnets take too long; modern serenades must fit... between commercials)

[Neils Christensen]

Love is the only rock

Worth being pushed
To the top of the hill
Love is an engagement
Of perseverance and will

Love is a struggle
That can test your soul
Or that something you can’t have
If you too tightly hold

Love is a fire
That burns like white heat
That spurns all buyers
And dances to primal beats

Love is a thunderstorm
And a lightning strike
That’ll give you what you need
But maybe not what you like

Love is acceptance
And gentle forgiving
A process of simplicity
And everyday living

Love isn’t fair but isn’t fair weather
Love is steel lace and a leather feather

Neils
7:17 pm
02/16/2004
*
transcribed this time
10:13 am
03/02/2005

[Neils Christensen]

Love is a key

Love is a key
That can open up the skies
Is a rock to stand on
When you don’t know why

Is heat and passion
And happy delight
A shared silly moment
A reason to only fairly fight

A house that children
Can learn to love too
Where it is what you say
And in what you do

Love is a door
That is always there
It’s the deepest of mysteries
That something in the air

Love is awesome power a state of being
Seer and Seen one in the act of seeing

Neils
7:04 pm
02/16/2004
*
transcribed this time
10:16 am
03/02/2005