Sample 16
| Author: | Nola | Published: | about 9 years ago |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tags: | humour, wordplay, poetry | Category: | Poetry |
Poetraya Disarraya
I thought it was a simple task
To write a little poem,
But when they taught poetic forms
I found I didn’t know ‘em.
I thought a tanka filled with oil
Would sail upon the ocean;
Now I know that homophones
Can complicate such notions.
Alliteration, assonance
And onomatopoeia,
Sprung rhythms and sestinas put
My thoughts in disarraya.
While palindromes and daisy chains
To me are just malarkey,
I’ve learned it is a mortal sin
To ever sound Hallmarkey.
I have to think of clever rhymes
Or near-rhymes, even better;
So time should rhyme with sky not lime
Bazaar with operetta.
And free verse isn’t free at all,
I can’t rhyme if I want to,
The more obscure the message gleaned,
The more I seem impromptu.
So I will learn these lessons well,
But hope I’m not remembered
For tearing beauty limb from limb
In poems I’ve dismembered.
© Nola Passmore
(Published in “Tales from the Upper Room: Stories and Poetry from Tabor Adelaide’s 2009 Creative Writing Programme”, edited by C. Bell, Y, Ham, B. Morton, & M. Worthing, published by Pantaenus Press, 2009, p. 127)