Tag Archives: poetic forms

Make it a Double (A Cywydd Llosgyrnog Poem)

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A Cywydd Llosgyrnog Poem is a syllabic-based Welsh form with both end and internal rhymes. Here’s the structure of this six-line form (with the letters acting as syllables and the a’s, b’s, and c’s signifying rhymes:

1-xxxxxxxa
2-xxxxxxxa
3-xxxaxxb
4-xxxxxxxc
5-xxxxxxxc
6-xxxcxxb

So lines 1, 2, 4, and 5 are 8 syllables in length with lines 1 and 2 rhyming as well as lines 4 and 5. Lines 3 and 6 have 7 syllables and rhyme with each other; plus, line 3 has an internal rhyme with lines 1 and 2 while line 6 has an internal rhyme with lines 4 and 5. Phew!!! There are no further rules for subject matter or meter. (I think they have rules enough, don’t you?

Here is my poem.  Poets in the crowd, may I invite you to try out this challenging form as well? Don’t forget that internal rhyme as well as the end rhymes!

Make it a Double

I must admit that chocolate
is still my favorite ice cream, but
when asked what I’d like to lick,
pistachio  is very good
and so it’s likely (if I could)
some of each would be my pick.

 

(I found the prompt HERE on the Writer’s Digest website.)

Tanaga for dVerse Poets: New Wisdom from Old

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New Wisdom from Old

Words copied from the I Ching
turn new eyes to everything.
Propped up on her vanity,
they preserve her sanity.

for dVerse Poets Tanaga Challenge.

NaPoWriMo 2016, Day 14: Mother’s Song (san san poetry)

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Mother’s Song

Left in our wake, hushed water parts like wings,
leaving behind us this brief afternoon.
With every oar stroke, I feel our parting
hushed as the falling darkness brings
through the departing wings of birds, the moon.
In this hushed darkness, my thoughts are spinning,
for as the rest of your life has its starting,
you leave behind you its beginning.

 

Phew! The prompt today was a doozy.  Here it is:  Today your optional prompt is to write a seven-line poem called a san san, which means “three three” in Chinese (It’s also a term of art in the game Go). The san san has some things in common with the tritina, including repetition and rhyme. In particular, the san san repeats, three times, each of three terms or images. The seven lines rhyme in the pattern a-b-c-a-b-d-c-d.
http://www.napowrimo.net/day-fourteen-3/

Since this is a poem about leaving, which suitcases always suggest, I’m posting this on the WordPress Daily Post site as well:
 https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/suitcase/

Triple Tricky

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Triple Tricky

Who knows what each new day will bring?
Three dogs wiggling outside my door–
my feeding them, them wanting more.

The world reaches out for me and more.
Those worlds imagination  brings
come whining louder at my door.

Now and always at time’s door
I offer words and ask for more
than what, I know, the years will bring.

Agape once more, that final door brings me at last to face my fears.
I bring myself to cross its sill, still hoping there will be some more.

The WordPress prompt is “Tricky” and and NaPoWriMo prompt is to write a tritina–a poetic form that involves three three-line stanzas and a final concluding line. Three “end words” are used to conclude the lines of each stanza, in a set pattern of ABC, CAB, BCA, and all three end words appear together in the final line. I cheated and used two concluding lines instead of one. This poem meets both prompts. Tricky.
http://www.napowrimo.net/day-seven-3/
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/tricky/

The Long Road–Four Landays (NaPoWriMo day 19)

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The Long Road–Four Landays

Spent all her life looking for the man,
while the man spent his life looking at all the women.

Why doesn’t life give us what we want?
Most likely because we have never known what we want.

At the point where life starts to wear out,
ironically, life starts to be enough for us.

At the beginning of a long trip,
we hardly ever know where we are really going.

The NaPoWriMo Prompt today was to write a landay. A landay has only a few formal properties. Each has twenty-two syllables: nine in the first line, thirteen in the second.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/four-stars/

Five Shadormas

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The Prompt: For this week, write a shadorma (a non-rhyming six-line poem consisting of 3/5/3/3/7/5 syllables.)  Instead of following the WordPress prompt, My Circle of 5 will be 5 Shadormas. Thanks, Sam, for the prompt.

Used

 This paper
very slightly used–
erasures
and a stab.
This morning’s poem now dead–
unsung, unmourned.


Chinese Takeout

That rice grain
and the plastic fork–
evidence
against me
of another food court sin.
Yes, I ate it all.


Misanthrope

Walk away
lest you find reason
to stay here,
fouling up
your determination to
have a fucked-up life.


Signing the Papers

You prompt me
to mind my timing.
Five o’clock
on the dot.
I come early anyway.
Her scent signs the air.


Salt Water Taffy

Sweet toffee
cannot hide the tang–
bitter salt
on my tongue–
of all the tears I swallowed,
waiting for your touch.

To see more shadormas, go HERE.

NaPoWriMo Day 4: Fourteen Lunes

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Day four’s prompt is to write a lune. The lune involves a three-line stanza. The first line has three words. The second line has five, and the third line has three. I have written a poem consisting of four stanzas containing two lunes each, plus another six one-stanza lunes.

Fourteen Lunes

I wake exhausted
from walking in your footsteps
through my dream.
Then I wonder:
were we in my dream
or in yours?

Although you say
I visit you in dreams,
I don’t remember.
Perhaps that ghost
of last night’s lovely dream
was really yours?

If I manage
to find a way tonight
into your dreams,
how many others
will I find awaiting you
when I arrive?

Oh, what if
while I visited your dreams,
you visited mine?
What midnight irony,
if you were here while
I was there.

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Loud morning birds
seem to be speaking together
in different languages.

The wild heart
can choose what lives there
on its own.

It is pointless
to try to choose memories.
They choose us.

I keep forgetting
to look here at home
for my happiness.

At the stoplight,
no poem awaited me.
Only when driving.

A best friend
does not really leave you
when you part.