Duo-rhyme

I have a folder in my poetry files that’s labeled “Unfinished Forms” – there’s another one called “Unfinished Poems” but that’s a story story for another time. I wanted to do a new form today, so I opened the folder and checked out some of the forms I’ve discovered but haven’t yet written poems for.

The first one talked about irregular syllables and long-short-long (or short-long-long ones) and I’m like, “Huh?” The second one was one of those incomprehensible Irish syllabic forms and I just don’t have the focus these days to tangle with one of those!

Then I came across this one. The Duo-rhyme was created by Mary L. Ports. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find out much about her other than she had a poetry chapbook, called Pathways to the Pleiades, published by Shadow Poetry.

The Duo-rhyme has only two rhymes and is generally written in iambic tetrameter. It can be 10 or 12 lines, with the first 2 and the last 2 having the same rhyme, and all the lines in between (either 6 or 8) having a second mono rhyme.

And that’s pretty much it. Except for my example. :-D


The Beltane Moon

The Beltane moon hangs in the sky
It calls to me, I know not why…
The springtime magic fills the air
  It heralds days that are more fair
  With blossoms blooming everywhere
  And sunny days become less rare
  As for the planting we prepare -
  We bless the fields and say a prayer,
  Promise the gods that we will share
  The bounty that we have to spare
And still the Beltane moon is high
It makes my spirit want to fly.

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

And because I had so much fun with the first one, I decided to do another. :-D

Dark Kin

The light fades fast as clouds roll in
I feel an itch beneath my skin
  The wind picks up, a bitter sting
  The fog can hold ‘most anything
  The birds take flight on hurried wing
  They flee from what the night will bring
  When spirits of the air will sing
  In homage to the dark souled king
I feel my mind begin to spin
I feel him now, my long lost kin.