Hello friends,
It’s now less than three weeks until the publication of THE ROBOTS OF BABYLON, my new collection of constrained, formal poetry. It’s a book full of newly invented constraints, old constraints, and variations on traditional forms — a 104-page, full-colour hardback or paperback, currently pre-orderable from both PenteractPress.com and AnthonyEtherin.com.
The first of this week’s four poems is from the new book: A triolet in anapaestic tetrameter, in this poem pairs of beats alliterate throughout (-shapes & shad-; dream & day; etc.).
LADY OF THE LAKE (Triolet)
She reshapes now a shadow. I dream her by day
as I walk to the water: The girl rises, grey
from the lake, and allures, with the face of the fey.
She reshapes now, a shadow.... I dream her by day,
but my reverie’s real, and its melody may
find me drowning in darkness, my will gone away....
She reshapes. Now a shadow, I dream her by day....
As I walk to the water, the girl rises, grey.
Now, three shorter poems:
SOMETIMES (Lipogram*)
Sometimes
it seems
time is mist.
It sits,
so moot.
It misses me.
(*using only the letters of its title)AD ASTRA (Palindrome-Haiku) Art, sad as me, opt for odes I’ve devised—or, oft, poems ad astra.
ONCE UPON A TIME (Anagram-Haiku)
Once upon a time,
on a poetic menu:
one epic amount.