‘A Sonnet for the Sonnet-Maker’ and Other Poetry by Theresa Rodriguez

A Sonnet for the Sonnet-Maker

You know the beats and rhythms, the iamb
Which pulses like a crippled-legged walk;
You, with the force of one who said, “I am
That I am,” in iambs you will talk
Of truth and beauty, pain and sorrow, all
And nothing, touching Heaven and Hell
In what you speak and say, what will recall
The void in the beginning, and will tell
Of voided end, where “Never” ever cries,
And crowns pass to the undeserving fools
And great men metamorphose into lies,
And there we search and find the hidden jewels.
____And there a crown you bear the better part,
____In five-beat lines you tell us of your heart.

The Word-Birth Sonnet

I gave birth to a poem the other day,
I labored for twelve hours in a rhyme,
I centered, conjured, wombed, throbbed, then gave way
To empty out the fullness of my time.
As in the waves and ebbs and flows of life
By blood and pulsing, bearing down its course,
I think, I gestate, for the pangs of strife
Are sperm to my ripe, beating ovoid source.
Oh I am aching! So intense are all
The squeezings and the earnest tides of pain,
I move about, then settle in to cull
With open heart my brain canal again.
____For writing is the labor of the mind,
____And I have birthed my children all in kind.

Theresa Rodriguez is the author of Jesus and Eros: Sonnets, Poems and Songs. She is a classically-trained singer and voice teacher who has written for Classical Singer magazine.