Ice Blue/Your Ways
Two Variants on the Rhyme Royal
Ice Blue
How can the sky be so fire-orange true,
as if the horizon burned time red and gold
in a winter when wind blows trees ice blue,
and night screams as it comes in fear and cold?
Not much is sure of what we hold,
not why nor how nor any way back,
least of all the white road that's striped with black
or the peacock colors of who we are
that change as the sail trims light or dark,
just your wrist that burns with the pulse of a star,
that laid under my breast holds down the heart
made wild to fly, then fly apart,
a snake of smoke to the bonfire sky
blown on the wind of you and I.
Your Ways
Your leg lifts a sail gone slack on my thigh,
your wrist knocks its pulse beneath my far breast
holding down the heart you made wild to fly,
and fly apart, with each chamber pressed
each moment peeled, each beat undressed
blind with the shine of this folded hour
drunk with the moon in her swaying tower.
Nothing is certain, not life nor days.
Nothing is certain in dark or bright.
Nothing is certain except your ways
when you come to me here, to summer the night
on the road stark black but waved with white
against a peacock sky so fire-orange true
in a winter that blows the trees ice-blue.
~February 2014
posted for real toads
Fireblossom Friday: Rhyme Royal & W.T. Benda
The ever devious Fireblossom (Shay's Word Garden) who is known for her allergic reaction to haiku, has chosen to tantalize us with a form challenge today, the rhyme royal. The form is written using a seven line stanza with a rhyme scheme of ababbcc, or with either of two variants:
a quatrain and tercet, abab bcc or a tercet and two couplets, aba bb cc.
For full details, see the Toads link above.
I have written the same poem twice, reversed, once for each of the latter two ways. I also worked a word or two in derived from the illustration below by W.T. Benda.
a quatrain and tercet, abab bcc or a tercet and two couplets, aba bb cc.
For full details, see the Toads link above.
I have written the same poem twice, reversed, once for each of the latter two ways. I also worked a word or two in derived from the illustration below by W.T. Benda.
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| ~WT Benda |
Photos: Scruboak Sunset, Darkwood, by joyannjones copyright 2012,2014
All Rights Reserved.
