On Lovelace, etc.

One of the ideas that I entertained briefly in thinking of an approach to the most recent LJ Idol prompt was with a poem of my own in response to Richard Lovelace's To Althea, From Prison, the most well-known lines of which are:

Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage

However, the conventional wisdom of the competition is that poetry generally fares badly - an assessment with which I am not prepared to disagree - so my attention turned down other avenues, and the story of Bud, Mathilde, and Cory is the result.

Still, the other day, I scribbled some lines in "answer" to Lovelace's observation (and even posted them in a comment to this week's essay). And just now, after sending off three documents, the urge to revisit and revise struck again. The result seems a bit more substantial.

To Lovelace, On Prison

In poetry you did partake
When jail'd, and made us see:
'Stone walls do not a prison make.'
Confined, we still are free.
Yet just because we freely move,
And toil, and have our fun,
Is not enough alone to prove
That fetters we have none.

We each live in a "comfort zone,"
That's built inside our minds,
It shields us from all threats unknown,
But in so doing, binds.
We need no jailer, just our brains
For mighty bonds to shape,
We forge ourselves the strongest chains
From which there's no escape.

I think that'll work.

Cheers...