Kindness and Tears
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English Quintain
An English Quintain poem is (five-line stanzas with a rhyming pattern of a,b,a,b,b ), with 10 syllables per line, there is no specific meter.
Only a hero volunteers for war,
willing to battle and die for others.
And do things they'd typically abhor,
rallying into a band of brothers
defending their homes, sisters, and mothers.
While war levies its toll in flesh and bone
insidious night-terrors haunt the mind.
And yet, in past wars, their cause was unknown,
but atrocities and guilt once combined,
PTSD symptoms aren’t far behind.
I was born while dad fought in Korea,
he had survived two wars before we met.
But who he was, I had no idea.
I knew naught of war; I was three, and yet
mom said my father was this army vet.
I could feel his anger, but not his pain,
though I bore its fury with every beer.
And cringed inside when he acted insane,
building up my resentment tear by tear
for he never offered love, only fear.
Frustrated, he was prone to violence,
but in his last years, I noticed a change.
He had stopped yelling, preferring silence,
and uncharacteristically strange
bouts of kindness, and tears, would interchange.
(English Quintain)
Nov. 11, 2018
Copyright © Emile Pinet | Year Posted 2018
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