New Challenge

[Antcliff]

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

[David]

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

[Antcliff]

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

[Antcliff]

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

[David]

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?)

[David]

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

[Antcliff]

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

[Antcliff]

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

[David]

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

[k-j]

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

[k-j]

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

This is great!

[Magpie Jane]

cosmic mermaid cinquain

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

[bodkin]

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!

[bodkin]

stop blithering

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

[Magpie Jane]

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.

*

[Antcliff]

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.

[bodkin]

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

[Antcliff]

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

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

[David]

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

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.)

[Magpie Jane]

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)

[bodkin]

"optical barometer" ??

Does this just mean one that's not invisible?

[bodkin]

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

[Magpie Jane]

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).

*

[David]

A Spring one!

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

[Antcliff]

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