Three Poems
Hello friends,
Three poems this week. Enjoy! (And if you do, please consider supporting my work by purchasing either my omnibus edition Knit Ink (and Other Poems) or something from my store.)
Alternatively, buy me a coffee on Ko-Fi!
This first poem is written under a constraint I invented for my book The Robots of Babylon. The poem is a “palindrome-by-anagrammed-words”. While a palindrome-by-word requires that a text read the same forwards and backwards by word, a “palindrome-by-anagrammed-words” asks that each word be mirrored by an anagram of itself, with no word reappearing in its original form. Thus, in this case, the first word, “rawest”, reflects as the final word, “waters”; the second word, “prettiness”, reflects as the second to last word, “persistent”; and so on to the centre: “siren”, “risen”.
MERMAIDS
Rawest prettiness luring,
marine sprites speed —
leap,
charming deniers.
Float, siren, risen aloft!
Nereids,
marching pale deeps,
persist —
remain,
ruling persistent waters.This next poem is a palindrome by line:
OF SWORD AND SORCERY (Palindrome by Line)
The sorcerer slaughtered, the knight
returned home triumphant....
But cruel laughter broke this illusion.... He never
returned home. Triumphant,
the sorcerer slaughtered the knight.This final poem is a “redivider”, whose two halves use the same letters, in the same order:
OF SWORD AND SORCERY (Redivider)
Hero, deal one insight here:
Make swords quicken.
Trust tomes’ words.
Cast lessons,
to ward
the mage’s wand....
Eras lance sand, drag on.
Soft
wines
talk
in golden
trances
tonight.
He rode alone.
In sight,
he remakes words....
“Quick, entrust to me swords, castles, sons!”
Toward them,
ages wander,
as lances and dragons of twine
stalking old entrances
to night.
Stunning