Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Miss Rumphius' Poetry Stretch

" I thought poems were songs for people with bad voices." - Lorna Dee Cervantes

This week's Miss Rumphius' poetry stretch is very much a stretch...my brain muscle is feeling a little sore right now, kind of like my thigh muscles do after a hard run.

She has asked us to write a terza rima. In easy terms it's a three-lined rhyming stanza in the following pattern: aba bcb cdc ded ee. You can make it as long as you like, and the definition I have says there are 11 syllables per line.

So here is what I came up... I've written better, but I have also written a lot worse. Besides this was a fun challenge.


Return to Sender

Mom came home from the hospital on Monday
In her arms lay two little bundles of joy
Those were Dad's words--mine were "Please send them away".

For a while I behaved like a choirboy
But soon enough I would be as sly as a fox
I'd come up with a plan that I would enjoy.

I could return them--put them in the post box
And the twins could go back to where they belong
Then I would ask Dad to install new door locks.

Even though I am four, I knew it was wrong
So I decided to behave good as gold
Because one day I'd need them to play along

For now I'd listen and do as I was told
And just wait for the twins to get really old.

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