Here be Dragons
The walking path leans into the woods, sunlight
becomes a mosaic pattern of delight.
My daughters scamper onto the darken ground
to find sticks, there are new dragons here to fight.
I follow their adventure on the path, I
yell, “A golden fire breather to the right!”
Smiling, I can almost feel the the wings flapping
as the dragon rises in my girls’ eyes bright.
With a blink of memory I feel the dark
corners of the woods take me to a past night.
As a young boy I would run the streets alone,
trying to dodge my own dragons, fear in flight.
Those dragons, not seen with imagination,
their wings and claws were never shown in daylight.
Always the new kid with a new address to
remember, a family just out of sight.
I learned to slay them with my words and paper,
a battle I won with a pen and rewrite.
I open my eyes, leave the path to join in
a new story, three princesses and a knight.
We laugh as I spin the tale of new battles,
here be dragons that fatherly love makes right.
The Poetic Form #94: Qasida
The qasida is a form that dates back to pre-Islamic Arabia. The poem is a story
written in a string of shers (complete couplets) that can be as long as 100 couplets.
The meter is up to the poet but should be consistent. There is some debate
about the rhyme scheme. One form has a mono-rhymed pattern: aa aa aa.
Another variation is aa bb cc dd. The most common rhyme pattern is aa xa xa xa xa xa.
The poem should also entail the following parts:
- opening setting describes or recalls past times
- tale of lost love or things left behind
- the struggles of the journey
- praise or some moral maxim
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