Jeff Oaks evokes the late-night loneliness of television in a dark room, and the sense that something has been lost.
Sonnet At the End of Eating
I sometimes wake and find myself watching
something on television I didn’t choose,
my shoes off, my body lying on the couch.
Was there a tie somewhere? Whom did I come with
while it was still light and where now
in the darkness have they gone? What is that
taste in my mouth? I don’t know anything
for a full minute; there is still too much
information, men running plays on a field,
the sound of dishes somewhere being stacked,
clink on top of clink, water running loose.
Who has left me here to sleep it off?
The house still smells of cinnamon and salt,
the old spells against abandonment and loss.
***
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Like all art forms, sonnets have evolved and changed over time. Many contemporary writers of the sonnet actually don’t use iambic pentameter.
From The Academy of American Poets:
“Stretched and teased formally and thematically, today’s sonnet can often only be identified by the ghost imprint that haunts it, recognizable by the presence of 14 lines or even by name only.”
– See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5791#sthash.sow31Jnt.dpuf
Not in iambic pentameter and therefore technically not a sonnet.