Sunday, February 5, 2012

LESSON


The prompt for Sunday Scribblings is LESSON.

This may well be a lesson for me!  This is a poem I wrote several years ago, and I thought at the time that I had invented a new form of rhyme.  Knowing, however, that multitudinous rhyme forms exist, it is now hard for me to think that this is original!  So, if you are more informed than I am, please tell me about it.  That will be the lesson TO me.

TO POETS LEST THEY 
FAIL TO SAVE IT

Sing not of poison oak or sticker.
The sunlit meadow plays no tricks.

Hear note of lark or bee and sing it.
Ignore the broken wing and sting.

Reject vast emptiness of ocean.
Its rosy shells are better shown.

Man's poisoned air may choke and stifle.
Sing only of impassioned flights.

For gloomy word be reprimanded.
Don't let it slip that man is damned.

This bent brown child convulsed with rickets?
Try gentler views, more wisely risked.

Avert your eyes from floorless chasm.
Erect for skulls a smiling mask.



Though you have probably detected my rhyme strategy by now, I will pretend that this is a lesson FROM me and TO you:  

The couplets have regular four beat lines. The first line ends with one word with two syllables. The second condenses the two syllables into one word using the same consonants and, if necessary, omitting a silent vowel.  For instance, the title drops the "e" which it needed complete the two-syllable sound. In the first verse, one of the two "i"s is dropped. 

The rhyme, however, actually depends upon sounds, not spelling.  In the 3rd verse, "ocean" and "shown" are an example of this, as are "chasm" and "mask".

Lesson over!  Please turn to Sunday Scribblings to see other responses to this prompt. Do so by clicking on link.

4 comments:

Old Egg said...

I loved the metamorphosis of the words to provide the link. If not original I don't mind, in fact I was happy to sit in the classroom again and be taught by you.

Archna Sharma said...

Your attempt at originality seems possible, the poem definitely shows a unique flow.

I appreciated the conversion in thought from each verse. Each one ends with a sweet song.

Along with the alignment here, I loved you words, especially where the rosy shells are shown against that vast hallow space.

Wonderful lesson!

Jae Rose said...

Your last line is so powerful..I have never worked out the mechanics of writing..this was an original read..the imagery was captivating..Jae

Madeleine Begun Kane said...

I enjoyed your poem! Thanks!

Also, I dropped by to congratulate you on your Honorable Mention in last week's Limerick-Off. Great job! Limerick of the Week 48.