November

[Benjamin]

Countless brown needles trample everywhere:

and pine cones rolling through a hectic street

can't tempt wise pets into the wind-whipped rain.

..

Both old and young cling on to hats and skirts:

try not to run as gusts of flying leaves

lash prams and twist umbrellas fragile frames.

.

And flooded gutters where small children dare

to splash, oblivious of sodden feet,

are playgrounds, to their guardians chagrin.

.

The Cypress Trees and Olive Grove, wet streaks

on a shop window; prematurely lit

with fairy lights to wish time on again.

.

And suddenly it's such a long way home

with wintry faces from old maps to come.

[Benjamin]

This is meant to be a Trilonnet. A fourteen line poem consisting of four tercets and a couplet end but the edit facility won't recognize the spaces between the verse lines for some reason. The rhyme scheme is abc/abc/abc/abc/dd. This form can also be written in iambic tetrameter and/or with the rhyme scheme abc/cba/abc/cba/dd.

[David W. Parsley]

An interesting form, Ben. Nice capture of the dampness and sense of participant vitality, onset of a glad season with the nip of peril relegated to the periphery.

 

I have experienced the same problem with getting the editor to acknowledge breaks between verses. I usually insert a line with a single period, then color the punctuation white, so it doesn't show. Maybe Tinker or another expert can provide better guidance.

 

P.S. Watch for the rhyme word, "prams" - may have slipped off the slant cliff. Also, I believe "along" is intended to be "a long"?

 

Nice,

- Dave

[Benjamin]

Thanks for the spacing tip Dave-- also for your keen eye and useful input. I posted this 'diary' piece somewhat hastily though will undoubtedly revise it in due course. The weather here is shocking at the moment so it will serve as a small reminder of what I was thinking at the time. The form is attributed to Shelley Cephas. Ben.