Category Archives: Poetry

April Poetry Month – A Poem a Day #16

We are over the hump, day 16!  Today I am exploring the Terzanelle. For starters, isn’t it a lovely word to say…Terzanelle. 🙂 It is a combination of the Villanelle and the Terza Rima poetry forms.
A 19-line poem consisting of five interlocking triplets/tercets, the last stanza is a
quatrain with the first and third lines of the first triplet appearing as refrains. The middle line of each triplet is repeated, reappearing as the last line of the succeeding triplet with the exception of the center line of the next-to-the-last stanza which appears in the quatrain. 

Yikes! Sounds complicated, but it’s not. Seeing it in diagram will hopefully dispel any confusion. The rhyme and refrain scheme for the triplets is as follows:
1. A
2. B
3. A

4. b
5. C
6. B

7. c
8. D
9. C

10. d
11. E
12. D

13. e
14. F
15. E

Ending Type 1:
16. f
17. A
18. F
19. A

Ending Type 2:
16. f
17. F
18. A
19. A

Each line of the poem should be the same metrical length.

IMG_4873

Spring Longing

I remember you in spring
When the rose bush bursts in bloom
I remember you in spring

Its sweet fragrance heavy looms
The soft breeze caressing me
When the rose bush bursts in bloom

Waves of longing crushing me
Your breath dusting my warm skin
The soft breeze caressing me

Breaking my heart once again
Do you ever think of us?
Your breath dusting my warm skin

Love’s refrain fades in the dust
Oh to hear your voice again
Do you ever think of us?

Can’t accept this bitter end
Oh to hear your voice again
I remember you in spring
I remember you in spring

kat ~ 16 April 2016


April Poetry Month – A Poem a Day # 15

It’s Friday!   A special treat each week is going out to a great little Asian restaurant that features Thai, Japanese and Chinese cuisine. It’s become my favorite place. And so for this day’s poetry form I am sharing the Epulaeryu with you. It’s an obscure little form developed by one Joseph Spence, Sr. inspired by the memorable foods he experienced on his Mediterranean and Far East travels. There is literally a poem and poetry form for everything it seems!

Here’s are the details of a proper Epulaeryu:
-First and foremost it is all about delicious food!
-7 lines with 33 syllable
-The syllable scheme is: 7/5/7/5/5/3/1
-It may or may not rhyme
-Each line contains one thought describing the featured course with the last 1 syllable word expressing the writer’s feelings about the dish. To add drama, an exclamation point is always called for at the end.

I dedicate this one to all my foodie friends! 🙂

my-drunken-noodles-ivillage_380

This photo is from Pinterest

Drunken Noodling

Pepper infused, savory
veggies lightly tossed
drunken noodles sweating steam
aromatic pot
culinary treat
slippery
hot!

kat ~ 15 April 2016


Poet-Speak

IMG_3961

some see the world in syllables
they speak in an iambic tone
solitary souls, but not alone

a stanza’s pause, invisible
punctuated space in between
crystalline waves of  lucid dreams

brain soft-wired ethereal
meters mingled in rhyme explored
engaged in trysts with metaphors

delightful musings, lyrical
syncopated rhythm flowing
poet’s tender voice bestowing

visions of all things beautiful
in syncopated streams of words
twenty-six letters, nouns and verbs

kat – 15 April 2016

For Jane Dougherty’s Weekly Poetry Challenge, a Constanza, consisting of five or more 3-line stanzas. Each line has a set meter of eight syllables. The first lines of all the stanzas can be read successively as an independent poem, with the rest of the poem weaved in to express a deeper meaning. The first lines convey a theme written in monorhyme, while the second and third lines of each stanza rhyme together.

Rhyme scheme: a/b/b, a/c/c, a/d/d, a/e/e, a/f/f………etc.


Wafflestompers – Friday’s Word of the Day Haiku

wafflestomper

Happy Friday!

Well…here’s a word for you…WAFFLESTOMPERS! Today’s dictionary.com word of the day hails to us from 1970’s Americana.

This late middle-aging flower child of the 70’s must admit, I have never heard this word before. It could be that I spent most of the 70’s barefooted; tripping through fields of daisy’s chasing butterflies…or it may be my insane fear of heights! Either way, it is no wonder I never had a need for a pair of wafflestompers!

But given that it is today’s word of the day…and a very high-in-syllable word at that…I shall do my best, despite my obvious inexperience, to render the wafflestomper its proper homage in a contrived haiku. Three lines, syllables 5-7-5…anything but profound with a touch of thesaurus mischief!  Have a great weekend folks!

Wafflestomping

Intrepid trekkers
don high-top wafflestompers
To reach a climax.

kat ~ 15 April 2016


April Poetry Month – A Poem a Day #14

Today I’m giving the Luc Bat a go. This poetry form is Vietnamese in origin and means “six-eight.” In fact, the poem consists of alternating lines of six and eight syllables. This poem is interesting in its rhyme scheme that renews at the end of every eight-syllable line and rhymes on the sixth syllable of both lines.

Here’s a diagram of how the first few lines of luc bat poems should rhyme:
xxxxxA
xxxxxAxB
xxxxxB
xxxxxBxC
xxxxxC
xxxxxCxD
xxxxxD
xxxxxDxE

I managed a few luc bats. The rhyme sequence is a bit tricky B but once I got the hang of it I wanted to keep going! Hope you will give this one a try! 😊

creeper 1

Sleep Interrupted

Here at the cusp of dawn
as dark of night moves on, I sigh
half asleep, buying time
Hit the snooze, close my eyes, distressed,
Toss and turn, try to rest
And then the sun, that pest, peeks through
The day awaits anew
There’s nothing left to do but rise.

No Regrets

It’s too late to regret
a deed once done and yet we try
“A do-over!” we cry,
as if we could deny our part
It cuts us to the heart
Releasing is an art, you know
the only way to grow
choose to learn, let it go, move on.

kat ~ 14 April 2016