a sonnet from 555 by John Lowther | Really System: Issue Seven

a sonnet from 555

John Lowther

We must love one another, or die.
Get my cold drink.
At least I'm not racing to a red light.

Grab your wallet, here comes a slow song.
Last night, you struck a decisive blow for loneliness.
Many view these descriptions as logical truths.

I prefer something that takes some time, some thought, some technique.
Meaning and modality are essentially connected.
As then, so now.

It is best that the possessor of the secret goes under with it.
Only in our fantasies can mastery be a one-way street.
Hell to the no.

Note on the Text: The 555 sonnets are made with found lines and precise measures, a database and text analytic software. I crunched Shakespeare's sonnets for word, syllable and character averages — my new measures. The lines' oddities are their own, the arrangement is mine. After the text analytics and data entry, many ways of assembling are found. I hold to the turn (when I think of it) and that sonnets are poems of a certain size, but little more. Something in excess of the lines pass through, it's this that I'm chasing.

John Lowther's work appears in the anthologies, The Lattice Inside (UNO Press, 2012) and Another South: Experimental Writing in the South (U of Alabama, 2003). Held to the Letter, co-authored with Dana Lisa Young is forthcoming from Lavender Ink.

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