Listen to this poem using the player above.
First and foremost (and totally unrelated to this poem) — Happy Birthday to my wonderful sister, Gretchen!
This is poem #23 for the November Poem-A-Day challenge. Today’s prompt was to write a poem using a specific poetic form. I’ve done that, and I’ll leave it to you to figure out the form I used. Good luck!
Can this be how life unfolds?
Am I to travel down this
road alone, suitcase in hand?
Or is there some other way? Will
love soften my path,
even as I hang my head and
expect the worst?
Daughters of Odysseus crowd
around me, pulling at my clothes.
Whence come their songs in this
night of all nights?
Seven times seven stars hang above my
head, a crown fit for a king,
even one with no subjects.
Rarely do I consider the alternative,
wish upon one of those distant jewels.
Only you can understand my song,
only you can make sense of the story I have set
down on this tattered, tear-stained parchment.
Please put me out of my misery: I love the unfolding rhythm, and the loveliness of the lines, but can’t seem to pin a specific form onto it.
As a devotee of formal poetry, I’d love to have some new rules to play with.