American Sonnet for My Past and Future Assassin uses the traditional 14 lines of a sonnet, iambic pentameter, though the sonnet diverts in its traditional form by not maintaining any sort of rhyme scheme and eventually turns to free verse. This diversion is the “American-ness” of the sonnet. By brea...
I lock you in an American sonnet that is part prison,
Part panic closet, a little room in a house set aflame.
I lock you in a form that is part music box, part meat
Grinder to separate the song of the bird from the bone.
I lock your persona in a dream-inducing sleeper hold
While your better selves watch from the bleachers.
I make you both gym & crow here. As the crow
You undergo a beautiful catharsis trapped one night
In the shadows of the gym. As the gym, the feel of crow-
Shit dropping to your floors is not unlike the stars
Falling from the pep rally postеrs on your walls.
I make you a box of darkness with a bird in its heart.
Voltas of acoustics, instinct & mеtaphor. It is not enough
To love you. It is not enough to want you destroyed.
Terrance-hayes released American Sonnet for My Past and Future Assassin [“I lock you in an American sonnet that is part prison”] on Fri Sep 01 2017.