Sonnet 5: Likeness

Winner-The Booksie 2017 Poetry Competition Winner - The Booksie 2017 Poetry Competition

Poem by: Phin Hamak

Reads: 30506 | Likes: 115 | Shelves: 20 | Comments: 9

A painting or a sculpture of someone you care for can last well beyond one's life, but it can only show so much about a person. Memory does not last forever, but it is far more vivid and captures so much more of what that person really is (and especially what that person is to you).

Sonnet 5: Likeness

An artist may, with skill and brush, preserve
Your likeness--capturing with mastery
The way, at that serene yet anxious curve,
Your eyelids meet to rout all flattery.
But even such details in portraiture
Cannot reveal the one behind your eyes;
So I preserve a truer signature
In me of you and try to memorize:
The answers that you give, the jokes I told
That got your loudest laugh, and where you stand
On matters great or small. All this I hold,
And more, for times you are not near at hand.
This portrait in my mind preserves me too--
Sustained by just a thousandth part of you.

Submitted: May 25, 2017

Romance love memory art painting english-sonnet

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Comments

Kathleen Graven

Wow! This is an amazing poem! I am sure you would melt the heart of some sweet woman with that well crafted romantic expression of admiration!

Mon, May 29th, 2017 6:03am

Oleg Roschin

Wonderful poem. Beautifully and intricately crafted. Congratulations, the prize is well deserved!

Sat, July 1st, 2017 4:41am

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Thank you, Oleg! That means a lot. There were definitely a lot of entries that deserved to win--Pavement and The Alcoholic's Wife absolutely among them. I'm still in shock that the people at Booksie chose mine.

Thu, July 6th, 2017 10:55pm