"scansion" poems
Poems need not be sad
Or angry or mad
With endless lines that go on and on and on and on and on about broken homes an broken hearts
And false starts
That painfully chart
The awkward writer
From darker to brighter...
No, instead they can start
With a poetry ****
Pure expression, release
Once out they bring peace
Just put words on a page
Don’t think, just engage
They don’t have to be long
And they don’t even have to be rhythmically strong
Short or ugly or loud,
Will do just fine, that’s allowed
As long as you write
With all of your might
Let go
Of the words
Let them flow!
Get rid of what’s stuck
In a head full of muck
Let them out and they’ll bake
You a metaphorical cake
That does what you need it to do
Even if it’s not good enough for a national poetry competition because the scansion’s all wrong
Nov 12, 2012
Nov 12, 2012 at 4:09 PM UTC
With generosity of time and care
He teaches her about the things he knows.
Such as a couplet is a rhyming pair
And how a sonnet ought to be composed.
Pentameter iambic is the key
With accents, syllables and scansion too.
It seems a huge and baffling mystery
But bit by bit he gives a hint. A clue.
“It helps to tap your fingers on the desk
To count the syllables and hear the beat.
For some this seems bizarre and quite grotesque
But listen hard and count along. It’s sweet!”
A teacher true who cares for flawless rhyme
I thank you friend for giving me your time.
Jan 18, 2011
Jan 18, 2011 at 7:15 AM UTC
No matter how
You may attempt
To grow out
The container
Of your life
Which was provided for you.
There are others
Who weigh you down?
With the weight
Of their ideas.
Empty the bowl
Continue to reach
Through your roots depthless
In the soil of your speaking
And then from your hand.
May sprout the words
With green leaf script
Growing up the scansion
Of the stars.
For in the gleaning
Of bonsai
The tiny and insignificant
Are magnified
For burden’s elegance
Is Refinement
The smoothness of the soul.
For what is compact
Is always whole.
Apr 11, 2014
Apr 11, 2014 at 11:05 AM UTC
Laid now on his smooth bed
For the last time, watching dully
Through heavy eyelids the day's colour
Widow the sky, what can he say
Worthy of record, the books all open,
Pens ready, the faces, sad,
Waiting gravely for the tired lips
To move once -- what can he say?
His tongue wrestles to force one word
Past the thick phlegm; no speech, no phrases
For the day's news, just the one word ‘sorry';
Sorry for the lies, for the long failure
In the poet's war; that he preferred
The easier rhythms of the heart
To the mind's scansion; that now he dies
Intestate, having nothing to leave
But a few songs, cold as stones
In the thin hands that asked for bread.
2.3k
the criminal element is lost
have you fought with your boss
each day is fraught with challenges
but that's what makes you stronger
all along the water's edge
the waves break and connect
like threads of poetry
lines of beauty
curving at the moon
luminous intrusions
before we are fallen
dreams seethe
with colorful landscapes
and i am a blade of grass
threads of astral fire
aspire for the sun
my magic is beyond recognition
it ignites the silence
and burns bright as day
words are living
breathing entities
families of sounds
consonants and vowels
are relatively harmless
unless you dare
to speak them out loud
control your tone
and let aspiration resonate
this assonance is rather transient
so lets embrace our scansion
mansions of impermanence
lands of intransigent transients
its tragic really
how the lead of vehemence
can spread so rapidly
sentient powers stake their claim
in soil that remains dutiful
despite your shame
have we gone insane
its quite likely
or are we still the same
that remains to be questioned
better to drop this game
and keep up your crazy vision quest
Nov 13, 2018
Nov 13, 2018 at 2:03 PM UTC
Freedom is existence, growth and persistence enacted through nonviolence such as passive resistance.
Freedom is expansion, past the bounds of your mind's mansion, to evolve with the environment like verses without scansion.
To revel in the expansion of your own spatial existence is like how treble leaves you dancing as the bass is Doppler shifting.
To enjoy the state of living in your temporal position is the very definition of the joy of manumission.
Mar 3, 2015
Mar 3, 2015 at 7:16 PM UTC
Lost in the scansion of a cool iron box
I struggle for air from the confines of metal that blocks all fresh of life from the cage
Bound in gagged suffocated reflexes
I utter muffled screams of my nights spent in lost days
Held in suspended motion, mid-flight to a descent
I train myself, my senses already know what comes next
meanwhile the art of stillness, in vivid stasis I contemplate.
Aug 12, 2014
Aug 12, 2014 at 10:18 AM UTC
Lawrence Hall
[email protected]
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Your Poems as Love-Letters to God
Gregariousness is always the refuge of mediocrities, whether
they swear by Soloviev or Kant or Marx. Only individuals
seek the truth, and they break with those who don’t love it
sufficiently.
-Doctor Zhivago, p. 9 in the Pantheon edition
You live, you have lived, and you will live
And because you live you will engrave your life
In elegant scansion, in noble lines
That shape chaos into beauty and truth
Not into metal or rocks or wood
But flung into Creation in gratitude
For the sacred life you have been given
For the strength of your love and thoughts
Each little line is a gathering-gift to God
Baptized in the Jordan and in the Hippocrene
To God, and to the Muses who smile on you
And to great Mysteries beyond the stars
Each little line is a gathering-gift to all
To read in the light of seven sacred lamps
The wisdom of patience and pilgrimage
Beside the banks of the river you know
You live, and so you write, you must, you must:
For there is meaning in tumbling in the grass
On a summer day that will live forever
Helped along in your written remembrancing
You live an eternal meaning in the why
Of laughter and puppy-kissings and grass-stained jeans
And that is why you must write it all down
For others in intellectually-sharpened rhythms
You live an eternal meaning in the why
Of love, of deeper kissings in the dark
Emotional confusions gone crazy-wild
Until they are sensed through crafted verse
You live an eternal meaning in the why
Of recruit training and sometimes war
The joys of learning wisdom from great books
Tentatively shaping your own new knowledge worthily
You live an eternal meaning in the why
Of leafy springs and apple-green summers
Golden autumns and winters of blue
Writing them as hymns of gratitude
You live an eternal meaning in the why
Of children in a home modest in wealth
But rich and layered in love, work, and prayer
“Is this poem about me?!” Oh, yes, child
You live an eternal meaning in the why
Of lonely nights, hospital stays, mistakes
Disappearing dreams, disappointed hopes
Memories of friends buried in the dust
You live, you have lived, and you will live
And because you live you will engrave your life
Love-letters as your gift to Creation
In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti*
Apr 8, 2025
Apr 8, 2025 at 8:54 AM UTC
Brevity is the soul of wit
parody is the spirit of zombie
or the lack thereof--
as they scratch through the scansion.
Parody arise from
its grave hungry
stalking through the letters of trees
until it comes
to cabin isolated in the backwoods.
Batter through the three doors
of the stanza
and then eat the children
of another’s poem.
Jun 26, 2014
Jun 26, 2014 at 9:20 PM UTC
Ma Diva veut être meublée de parenthèses
De ïambes de jade meuble aux couleurs de toutes les toques
Et manches et casaques de l 'arc-en-ciel
Toque blanche manches vertes et casaque noire,
Toque rose manches blanches et casaque verte.
A l'intérieur des petites lunes enchantées
Entre losanges, étoiles et petits pois
Ma diva, oh la vilaine, a mis des accolades et des crochets
De jade blanc, digressions ponctuées périodiquement
Par d'exquises parties de ïambes en l'air.
Qui dit ïambe dit trochée
(me suis-je permis de préciser)
Et qui dit ïambe et trochée dit scansion
Alternance dans le pied, donc dans la marche
Dans le pas cadencé, l 'amble, le trot et le galop
De la respiration longue et brève des solipèdes.
A l 'intérieur des parenthèses enchantées
Entre une espace et l 'autre de l 'écurie
J'ai vu danser ainsi une diva de forte encolure
Revendiquée modèle de Botero
Embarquer en longe un soleil pas trop chaud
Pour égayer le paddock de son haras
De vieilles pierres et de prés, de sous-bois et de beaux paysages
De musées et de concerts et de galipettes
Au bras d'un cavalier épicurien
Dragon de paille, bon à tout faire :
Lad qui la sorte à la longe
En chemise polaire de luxe
Cavalier qui la monte
Au grand steeple-chase de l'immortalité
En cajolant ses flancs de liqueur de jade blanche
Et en même temps groom qui la soigne
En divaguant en elle au gré de ses envies
De pierre semi-précieuse en transe.
Sep 16, 2019
Sep 16, 2019 at 11:00 AM UTC
I am Bic Pentameter
Bic Pentameter is my name
Rhythm is my business
Time management is my game
Short, Long & Sons employ me
To tidy up their verse
The satirists are not too bad
But Catullus is a curse
I have danced with Sappho
Brought Shakespeare home for tea
Swapped pretty tales with Byron
Bounced da Padova on my knee
Marlowe picked a fight for nought
Auden spiked my drink
Wordsworth was insomnolent
He never slept a wink
Yeats, now there's an anecdote
Worthy of the press
The critic's choice by all accounts
The brightest and the best
But listen to me prattling on
To my work I must attend
Performance, prosody, poesy
The rules of scansion do not bend
For metre is all important
When reciting off by heart
The classic works of yesteryear
And I shall play my part
Jan 2, 2019
Jan 2, 2019 at 7:06 PM UTC
If you ever feel like
you have nothing left to give
just look all around you
for some reasons to live
There's the crisp autumn leaves
that fall in november
and all the christmas cheer
spread throughout december
There's laughter and tears
that come with moments in life,
and there's lessons learned
when things don't go right
You'll want to be there
when your sister says "I do"
you'll want to be there
for her darkest times, too.
If you leave during the storm
you'll never see the light,
so don't give up on us now.
You can win this fight.
Oct 19, 2014
Oct 19, 2014 at 10:55 PM UTC
"Caliban must have dinner."
Let him have first a bit of scansion
Of the vowels marooned to his feet
Along with the consonants washed ashore
By a called up mock storm
Inhabited by catalectic trochaic Trimeter, hexameter or pentameter
Name it !
This muse is his.
For his is the muse
This muse is his island
And every storm of hers is a beatitude
Passed on him by his Sycorax.
So blessed is Caliban
For his is the musedom of light
This muse is a perfect antilabe
He has pampered her with caesurae
He has spoiled her with feminine
Stressed and unstressed syllables
Kissed her with iambic pentameter
Caressed her with hemistichs
A trochee here
A spondee there
Caliban is beatitude in scansion.
Blessed is Caliban
For his is the musedom of light.
Sep 11, 2019
Sep 11, 2019 at 12:28 AM UTC
Slouching...
From an idea suggested by Robert Graves in
On English Poetry
I. Thesis
Formalist poetry to attention stands
In ordered meters, ranks and files and lines
Of scansion as determined by disciplined minds
And set in place through skillful strategy
II. Antithesis
Other poetry slouches indolently, insolently with its louche trilby askew
Sleeping late, smoking cigarettes,
sauntering off
for a beer
Through scansion as admitted by the heart or the pancreas or something
And seldom set in place at all unless it just sort of happens
III. A Perhaps Unnecessary but Useful Conjunction
But
IV. Synthesis
All poems ramble the same neighborhood
In quest of the true, the beautiful, the good
Aug 1, 2019
Aug 1, 2019 at 4:04 PM UTC
I'll sing for you a symphony
and strum the strings in beats
an inspired grandiose melody
of lifelong rhapsody entirely
four movements my heart completes.
I'll sing for you a chanson
full of lyrics affecting and pure
my solo voice defies easy scansion
to develop an embracing expansion
admiration is mine to ensure.
I'll sing for you an anthem
devotion to you alone
your sacred being beyond fathom
ardent, I'm held for ransom
devotion to cherish and own.
I'll sing for you a love song
every word flows right and true
to croon an acoustic-filled levity
with a phrase ensured in brevity
for your heart I will win anew.
Apr 1, 2021
Apr 1, 2021 at 4:04 AM UTC
Poems are an odd business:
an idea,
a concept,
it slips into your mind
and all of a sudden
there are words
that describe it,
it’s present,
it’s past,
sometimes it’s future.
these words have to have
rhythm and scansion,
the syllables must sound right,
the words must sound right,
the lines must be right,
the silences in between
must sound right,
just using words.
It is more than building with bricks and mortar;
these are fixed known things,
but poems
come into existence
like flashes of lightning
that light the sky,
they are there
and then they are not there,
you have to be quick
to catch them before they fade,
and leave you in the dark
with no words on paper.
Mar 2, 2016
Mar 2, 2016 at 10:30 AM UTC
Whenever I begin to write a verse,
I rarely know quite how the work will end;
I try to keep my subjects somewhat terse
and use the form to make the scansion bend.
I find the meaning somewhere halfway through
the writing process, where it's leading me;
and try my utmost not to overdo
the metaphors and sappy imag'ry
(for sentimental verse we hardly lack
among the countless writings of our time).
I speak of love, but more so I stay back
and think of other matters for to rhyme,
and when I reach the end and writing's done,
it's not long ere the next work is begun.
May 17, 2017
May 17, 2017 at 11:45 PM UTC
when it's time to write the words again
they come one by one
filing in through an opening,
it might be that they've waited patiently
for a right time or an invitation
but not always
I like it best when they rush in, fervently needing attention
hearing them coming, I
lift my head
and with a certain kind of tightness in the belly
begin to place them quickly,
carefully
in order or progression, to
ensure that for the reader,
they carry meaning
from time to time I
go back to the beginning of a line
and review the order
review the syntax
the scansion
the metre
or perhaps re-order or re-use or remove one or two
as necessary
repetition can be a feature of this process
as sometimes words
want to come in twos, pairs
or repeated phrases,
to create emphasis;
and of the words upon arrival
I marvel as they move a line
to connect and weave and work to
lift from the page a story
as a poem
as a promise
as a possibility
May 10, 2014
May 10, 2014 at 4:56 PM UTC