hard labor
when
we work
to survive
it costs our soul
if that is our only motivation
~kat
Poetry form for the month of May: Tetractys/5 lines/syllable count 1-2-3-4-10
Tag Archives: Challenge
May Day 1
hearts
how
they bleed
when worn on
sleeves, broken hearts,
shielded in darkness, how they harden
~kat
This month we’re exploring the Tetractys, a poetic form invented by Ray Stebbing, consisting of at least 5 lines of 1, 2, 3, 4, 10 syllables (total of 20). Tetractys can be written with more than one verse, but must follow suit with an inverted syllable count. Tetractys can also bereversed and written 10, 4, 3, 2, 1.
Double Tetractys: 1, 2, 3, 4, 10, 10, 4, 3, 2, 1
Triple Tetractys: 1, 2, 3, 4, 10, 10, 4, 3, 2, 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 10
and so on.
“Euclid, the mathematician of classical times, considered the number series 1, 2, 3, 4 to have mystical significance because its sum is 10, so he dignified it with a name of its own – Tetractys. The tetractys could be Britain’s answer to the haiku. Its challenge is to express a complete thought, profound or comic, witty or wise, within the narrow compass of twenty syllables.” – Ray Stebbin
Near Miss – NaPoWriMo 2019 #29
Near Miss
Like a cool whisper death passed by one day
I felt his stale breath inside my ear
though I will come for you, I heard death say
this is a taste for now… nothing to fear
but fear I did, if you could call it that
the hair on my bare neck stood stiff and tall
I didn’t realize it then, in fact,
how close I was to danger all in all
I felt the rush of something…was it wind?
that shifted me out of the semi’s path
averting a collision much to death’s chagrin
I’ve no doubt angels spared me from his wrath
I shudder to this day each time I see
the street where death revealed himself to me!
~kat
Another Sonnet for NaPoWriMo 2019 Prompt #29: produce a poem that meditates, from a position of tranquility, on an emotion you have felt powerfully.
intoxicated
intoxicated
you entered
my heart,
you, to whom I am
bound like
a drunkard to wine
I begged
to be freed
from your kisses
~kat
A Blackout poem and digital artwork for Mind Love Miseries Menagerie’s Sunday Writing Prompt inspired by the poem, The Vampire by Charles Baudelaire. (See below)
The Vampire
You who, like the stab of a knife,
Entered my plaintive heart;
You who, strong as a herd
Of demons, came, ardent and adorned,
To make your bed and your domain
Of my humiliated mind
– Infamous bitch to whom I’m bound
Like the convict to his chain,
Like the stubborn gambler to the game,
Like the drunkard to his wine,
Like the maggots to the corpse,
– Accurst, accurst be you!
I begged the swift poniard
To gain for me my liberty,
I asked perfidious poison
To give aid to my cowardice.
Alas! both poison and the knife
Contemptuously said to me:
“You do not deserve to be freed
From your accursed slavery,
Fool! – if from her domination
Our efforts could deliver you,
Your kisses would resuscitate
The cadaver of your vampire!”
Published in 1857.
When I Remember, Missing – NaPoWriMo 2019 #27
When I Remember, Missing
When it is quiet, thoughts swirl in my head,
The memories of a long forgotten past
Tinged with regret, rememb’ring dreams now dead;
Time slips away so quickly, our fates are cast;
Tears well up in my eyes when I think upon
Dear friends who’ve passed away, oh how I miss them;
The pain, just as fresh as when I heard they’d gone,
Too soon, before I had time to make amends;
It’s the words I didn’t say that haunt me most;
Sometimes I say what I would have told them then
And hope that they are listening somewhere close,
I’ve heard the veil’s thin ‘tween here and heaven;
But if I dwell on the best of times we had,
I feel them in my heart; how can I be sad?
~kat
A sonnet re-penned, inspired by Shakespeare’s Sonnet #30 (see below), on prompt for NaPoWriMo 2019 #27.
Sonnet #30
By William Shakespeare
When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death’s dateless night,
And weep afresh love’s long since cancell’d woe,
And moan the expense of many a vanish’d sight:
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o’er
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restor’d and sorrows end.
Most Inspirational Blogger Nominee
like mercury colliding... 