Hello friends,
Three poems this week, combining traditional forms with alphabetical constraints — enjoy!
And another reminder that my new book, The Robots of Babylon, remains available for purchase. 104 full-colour pages, in hardback or paperback binding; lots of new constraints/forms and old favourites — plus pulp art collages! Please consider picking up a copy; your support would mean a lot to me.
The first poem this week is a triolet of anagrammed lines, repeatedly anagramming the final line of John Keats’ Ode to a Nightingale:
ANAGRAM-TRIOLET FOR KEATS
Fled is that music:— Do I wake or sleep?
At dusk, a closer poem dies with life.
Amiss, I walk. I cloud the forest deep.
Fled is that music:— Do I wake or sleep?
It was the lucid dream of loss. I keep
its laws. Dues opiated, hemlock rife,
fled is that music. Do I wake or sleep
at dusk? A closer poem dies with life.This second poem is a villanelle in iambic pentameter. In addition to the formal constraints, each of the poem’s stanzas obeys a different alphabetical constraint.
The rules for each stanza are:
1— Each line has eight words.
2— Anagrammed lines (same letters, different order).
3— By line, corresponding words begin with the same letter (the first word of each line begins with a, the second with e, etc.).
4— A palindrome-by-letter.
5— Homovocalic lines (same vowels, same order).
6— By line, corresponding words have the same letter count (the first word of each line has two letters, the second six, etc.).
RAGNARÖK
We, yonder, drag. Dim gods go flat. Anew,
the world is born, and twilight’s petals bloom.
As elders fade, our fate is ever true.
Of Yggdrasil and dated Moon, we grew.
“Get Odin!” — dewy dawn, far daggers loom....
We yonder drag. Dim gods go flat, anew.
As evil fights, our flame is echoed through,
and even Frey owes fire its earthly tomb.
As elders fade, our fate is ever true.
We natal fogs dog Midgard — red, no yew.
Moods rise at all I kill — at Aesir’s doom.
We, yonder, drag dim gods — go flat, anew.
A serpent damned, Jörmungandr reigned the blue
and ended braver Thor.... Guards seized the fume —
as elders fade, our fate is ever true.
By Fenrir, dead was Odin, so mist drew
to Surtur, Garm and Loki — to ones whom
we yonder drag. (Dim gods go flat, anew....)
As elders fade, our fate is ever true.And finally, a sonnet of anagrammed lines, in iambic pentameter:
ANAGRAM-SONNET FOR MARIE CURIE
Tool laid, some diced uranium creates....
Collide to tides: name radium a course.
Meet radon: Curie’s old, malicious date.
(Old mines emit, could radiate a source.)
Aired, nuclear, dim atoms die out close.
Demise, in time, could set a cloud — a roar.
In curium, trace details loomed, a dose.
(A studied ill meant Curie’s doom: a core.)
Teamed isomers clue radiation, cloud
some radicals, mount ore, a dice dilute.
Atomic tides, in moles, dare cure aloud.
(As aimed result, a medicine could root....)
Most readouts aid, claim nuclei erode.
Dual laureate! Stir, mid one cosmic ode!