April Poetry Challenge 2021: Day Twenty-Two

Day 22 Prompt: Nature

Form: hay(na)ku

Days

call me

away from youth.

Poetic Form 80: Kyrielle

 

Doesn't Know

Late on a January night,

blizzard conditions are in sight.

Bitter cold drops to stake a claim.

The winter wind doesn’t know my name.

The snap hooks on a flagpole keep

uneven time for those asleep.

I hear Mother Nature’s fierce claim.

The winter wind doesn’t know my name.

The rumble of long vowels tells me

I am an outcast to these trees,

swaying outside my window frame.

The winter wind doesn’t know my name.

It is darker on the other

side of the window. The covers

no shield against this dark night’s aim.

The winter wind doesn’t know my name.

Poetic Form #80: Kyrielle

The kyrielle is a French four-line stanza form that uses a refrain in the fourth line.

Each line contains 8 syllables. Traditional kyrielle poems are written in iambic

tetrameter. The rhyme scheme is flexible and really up to the poet. Some common

schemes are (B is the refrain): 

• aabB

• abaB

• aaaB

• abcB

The poem can also be as long as the poet wants. 

Poetic Form 79: Interlocking Rubaiyat

 Another Storm

Another storm, my hands become

numb. The wind cuts like a bass drum

along the street, angry with us.

Eyes closing I shy away from

Mother Nature’s judgment. Night plus

time reveals a clearing sky, thus

I can see Orion standing, 

shield ready as if he mistrusts

the oncoming day. Commanding

the horizon from expanding.

I wonder if he can save me,

from the storm I am withstanding.

My breath, white and dense, show the degree

the night has fallen. The grey trees

whisper over my head, “No, he

will not step from the stars for thee.”

Poetic Form #79: Interlocking Rubaiyat

The Interlocking Rubaiyat is composed of quatrains following 

an aaba rhyme pattern. The successive quatrain uses the 

unrhymed line as the rhyme for that stanza. A three-stanza 

rubaiyat rhyme scheme would be: aaba/bbcb/ccdc. Sometimes 

the final stanza rhymes all four lines. The lines are usually tetrameter 

and pentameter. Robert Frost’s "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” 

is a classic example.

Poetic Form 32: Chanso

The Headline Read

I walk the streets filled with the debris

of last night’s summer storm when I see

a soaked newspaper’s headline decree

“3 Dead.” The rest is folded under,

lost in the puddle. I feel thunder

echo in the branches. I wonder

about the story untold of life’s

end for three people. Maybe a wife?

Friends? Or a fight that ended by knife?

As I step around the fallen leaves,

and tiptoe through puddles, the wind grieves

with me the cold truth no one believes.

The headline was one of too many

stories that fall like rain. There’s plenty

of moments ignored like lost pennies.

As I turn home,

I suddenly 

feel very alone.

Poetic Form #32: Chanso

The Chanso form consists of five or six stanzas with an envoy that 
is half the size of the stanzas in the poem. The stanza structure depends on the poet. The main rules are that each line of the poem should have the same number of syllables, and each stanza should be uniform in line length and rhyme scheme.