Four Poems

Hello friends,

This week, four poems from four different constraints. Enjoy! (And if you do, please consider supporting my work by purchasing either The Robots of Babylon or my omnibus edition Knit Ink (and Other Poems).)

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This first poem is an “alternating bivocalism” — it employs only two vowels (a and e), with the additional rule that these two vowels must alternate throughout the poem.

BLACKBEARD (Alternating Bivocalism)

Blackbeard — 
menace at sea.
Enslave all the waters
and shred all the waves.

As the mast,
helm and stern
race fast,
bear the flag
jet black;

spread the blade
and the name.

---

THE SEAGULL (Palindrome)

Go, feel freed....
All abyss,
algae saw a sloop,
one vocal lugsail.
As you based it on wash, surf,
or a wade, I died.
A war of rush saw no tides….
A buoy’s alias: "Gull".
A cove,
no pool,
saw a sea.
Glassy balladeer, flee fog....

---

THE BEES (Anagrammed Lines)

The bees have left their lonely
hive. They float, serene. (The bell
tolls here — the feeble, heavy tin....)
They flee, over beaten hills (the
level ones, by the fertile heath).
They are fell, the noble thieves —
rebel lives that flee the honey.

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CROWS (Sonnet)

They stop
and perch
atop
the church, 
a choir
below
the spire:
The crows.
Each caw
enlists
ten more.
The mist
is grey
as clay.