Casting Out Lines with Tina

Night has come to my great sorrow,
Light won’t be here ‘til tomorrow.
Can’t go fishin‘ ‘til the morning,
but I’m wishin’ that the warning
that dad made could be forgotten
and these fish were caught, not boughten!

Night has come to my great sorrow.
Light won’t be here ‘til tomorrow.

Still we will rise before day dawns,
rub sleep from eyes and stifle yawns.
There’s time left to grant our wishes,
bait our hooks and catch those fishes!

This is the trickiest prompt that I’ve seen in a looooong time. Tina’s Zigzag Rhyme rules are the quirkiest and I think I’ve followed them to a “T.” (In no place does she say that it’s not legal to end every line in a rhyme–just that you must do so in lines 5, 6, 11 and 12, so I rhymed every couplet. Words that must be rhymed by Tina’s rules are underlined in my poem, just to make your checking up on me easier. No, that’s not Tina pictured with me. That’s my big sister Patti. I’m pretending to have caught all those fish she’s holding.

Tina’s Zigzag Rhyme is a form created by Christina R Jussaume and found at Poetry Styles (site no longer accessible.)

• It starts with a sestet, refrain, quatrain and then another refrain and quatrain if you wish.
• It must be uplifting subject.
• Rhyme in first two lines is at left,
• next rhyme is center in lines 3 and 4,
• and rhyme in lines 5 and 6 is an end rhyme.
• Refrain is first two lines of poem.
• After refrain , in the quatrain you use center rhyme, then end rhyme.
• It is an 8 syllable per line poem. No limit to stanzas but must have,at least one sestet, refrain, and quatrain.

• Thanks to David at Skeptic’s Kadish for sharing this form. See his poem at his link HERE.