Poetry Forum

Cinquains time! As in the Jan Harris poems in the recent Snakeskin short poems edition.

http://www.simmers1.webspace.virginmedia.com/index.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinquain

I like this idea, but I've forgotten where we post them. In this thread? Or elsewhere?

Let us go wild and post them here in this thread.

Lamb time,
fields of infants,
short jumps and leaps, these days
are intoxication for them,
small bliss.

Antcliff wrote:Lamb time,
fields of infants.
short jumps and leaps, these days
are intoxication for them,
small bliss.

Very timely. And I like small bliss. (Comma after infants?)

I've checked.
There's nothing wrong
with the cat-flap. It's
the cat that is malfunctioning
instead.

Like that, David. I sense there could be a few variations on the theme.

GOVAN HOGBACKS


Some say,
tiled, odd houses.
The folk say: animals.
I say a cross between a roof
and back.


http://www.thegovanstones.org.uk/index.html

The animals have it for me. They do look like large stone guinea pigs.

Sesqui-
pedalian-
ism only gets you
so far. Short words are better, grunts
best. Ugh.

David wrote:I've checked.
There's nothing wrong
with the cat-flap. It's
the cat that is malfunctioning
instead.

This is great!

cosmic mermaid cinquain

chrome-pearled,
hushed, she dived in,
swirled, jived to spin the world,
then blushed to see its foam-hived grin
unfurled

k-j wrote:

David wrote:I've checked.
There's nothing wrong
with the cat-flap. It's
the cat that is malfunctioning
instead.

This is great!

Absolutely, publish at once!

stop blithering

resume
normal service
I'm fed up with it now
just bloody pull your fingers out
and vote

Ahhh. This is fun; I had never really realised it could actually be done.

(on rereading STC:)

Down dropt
the breeze, the sails
dropt down. We knelt on deck,
hostage to the deep dark droning
songlines.

*

What is STC, Jane?

Good stuff, Ian, K-J, Jane, David!


.................................

SUNLIT CINQUAIN

Warm cheek.
Unexpected.
Next, a quilt of birdsong,
pillow of the singing feathers
of snipe.

It took me a moment, but Samuel Taylor Coleridge...

bodkin wrote:It took me a moment, but Samuel Taylor Coleridge...

Doh! Slaps own head...of course it is.

Glad you like my silly cat one. (True story, though.)

k-j wrote:Sesqui-
pedalian-
ism only gets you
so far. Short words are better, grunts
best. Ugh.

Quite right, k-j. Good stuff. To my shame, I had to look up your big word.

Two marine ones, Jane! And a public service one from Ian, and a sunny one from Seth. These are all good. This is a terrific little format, and I've never used it before. (I think.)

Silly catflap, snipe feathers and everything, marvily enjoyable! Will this be the format to bring the unknown out in us all?


Look now:
the optical
barometer salesman.
He ain't got no feckin' juju
eyeballs.

(inspired by ETA Hoffmann's Sandmann)

"optical barometer" ??

Does this just mean one that's not invisible?

there's no
bloody mandate
you're just not ousted yet
politics and democracy
pshaw

Ian, it's just that he's selling optical appliances as well as barometers. Comprehensive salesmanship.


Quiet.
Pass the ammo
and look the other way.
There'll be time enough for countin'
(I hope).

*

A Spring one!

Primrose,
prima rosa,
not a prima donna
but what a pretty chorus girl
in Spring.

The only thing
in the ruined croft cottage


Brass bed,
roof gone, door gone.
Where the wind sometimes rests,
undisturbed by rain, whispering
at stars