Category: Poetry Forms

Do trains still stop?

744C59BD-E935-4AC8-BDCF-5D08A3FC027CDo trains still stop at Adlestrop?

And if they stop will any look

Glance out, take in, survey the scene?

Do Whitsun couples line the route

With bridal veils and clumsy heels?

Would any notice if they did?

And if past rosey Ruislip gardens 

ran a red electric train

Who would stare from out its windows

Catch the views of backs of houses

Note the clacking of the lines?

Will the mail trains’ midnight journey

Clatter through commuters’ minds

When they’re bent, their eyes cast downward,

Staring at their mobile phones?

Gone the times of quite reflection,

Scenes half glimpsed; imagined things.

Plugged into their wretched ear phones

Who will hear if blackbird sings?

Imagination hit the buffers;

Signal failure down the line

End of reverie and reflection

Eyes cast down we squint at screens.

Who sees out the grimy window?

Who is looking out the train?

Where did quiet reflection go?

Will we know who went or came?

 

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Emphatically Wrong (Triolet)

You’re most emphatically wrong

You haven’t got it right

Your arguments far from strong

You’re most emphatically wrong

Dismissing it won’t take long

You’re clearly not that bright

You’re most emphatically wrong

You haven’t got it right.

via EMPHATICALLY

Word of the Day Challenge

Obtuse (Villanelle)

Your attitude’s obtuse

Insensitive, unfeeling

I can’t take this abuse.

 

Complaining is no use

There’s no point me appealing

Your attitude’s obtuse.

 

I really must cut loose

Your answer’s quite revealing

I can’t take this abuse.

 

You finally cooked your goose

Blew up and hit the ceiling

Your attitude’s obtuse.

 

It’s just pretence a ruse

You don’t get how I’m feeling

I can’t take this abuse.

 

You’re ignorant, unfeeling

Frankly unappealing.

Your attitude’s obtuse

I can’t take this abuse.

 

via Obtuse

Plethora of Options (Pantoum)

There’s a plethora of options

So many I could choose

Choose one for adoption

What have I got to lose?

 

So many I could choose

Who knows which one is best?

What have I got to lose?

Just choose one ditch the rest.

 

Who knows which one is best?

Who can know the answer?

Just choose one ditch the rest.

It won’t be a disaster.

 

Who can know the answer?

A plethora of options

It won’t be a disaster

Choose one for adoption.

 

via Plethora

Notorious (Pantoum)

The man was notorious of ill repute.

His conduct scandalous critics proclaimed.

That he got things wrong was beyond dispute

But, all things said could he really be blamed?

 

His conduct was scandalous critics proclaimed

He’d done things he shouldn’t we have to accept

But, all things said could he really be blamed

For all his success he had many regrets.

 

He’d done things he shouldn’t we have to accept.

The weight of his past would too often poke through

For all his success he had many regrets

They help to explain the things he would do.

 

The weight of his past would too often poke through

This man so notorious of such ill repute

Condemned for the things that he used to do

Had talents and gifts that none could dispute.

 

Word of the Day Challenge – Notorious

 

Vehement Triolet

It’s hard to be too vehement

When writing formal triolets

They can be sincere, of clear intent

But it’s hard to be too vehement.

You can be quite clear and say what’s meant

But structural rules must still be met

It’s hard to be too vehement

When writing formal triolets.

via Vehemently

Shrinking

you learned to shrink

for a family that liked

it’s daughters invisible

my whole family

lurked invisibly

for generations

in the corners of rooms

or on barrack room bunks

silent till summoned

quiet in the land

you learned the art

of being empty

believing them

when they told you

you are nothing

we never needed to be told

we knew our place

waiting in the shadows

to fulfil our better’s needs.

or die obediently in their wars.

Fan Friction

I’d never heard of fanfic till I started writing on Wattpad now I’ve realised with a start I’m practically writing the stuff.

My new Wattpad book Light and Bitter is my failed attempt to write like best selling poet Rupi Kaur. I say failed because our styles are totally different.

Rupi made her name on Instagram. Her work is invariably short, often striking but to my mind not really Poetry. I’m intrigued more than a fan.

Sometimes Light and Bitter tries to imitate from a different perspective. Other times it will expand on a suggested theme or question what has been written.

Is this fan fiction? Perhaps I’ve invented a new genre Fan Friction?