amphibrachic verse
It looks like a kiwi
No, kiwis are fuzzy.
Then maybe a lemon?
or lime? I'm obsessed.
Am I getting closer?
Misshapened? an orange?
A colorless photo,
confusing at best.
The white seems so hazy
while black’s overriding
and grays run together,
an image in stress.
The point of this quand’ry -
I’m missing my colors,
the clues that enlighten
my eyes to the quest.
written and posted first here at Poetry Soup - 5 Mar 2015
by Reason A. Poteet
for Giorgio's Black and White Photography contest
This is my first try at using amphibrachic dimeter.
The amphibrach is a metrical foot of three syllables with the stress on the second syllable, or one long syllable between two short syllables, da DUM da
I had this terrific Idea for a poem
Yet! Was I pushing luck to the hilt?
The judge no doubt will view me with suspicion,
yet surely they need me just as
i need them, if only for
one’s hard earned
empathy!
But what is it that I give of myself?
My rhythmic impulse scrutinized,
my phobic enigma unraveled,
exposed to a worldly
sophistication, alliteration,
simile, amphibrachic metre
they are not here,
only a sudden impulse to emulate the Chris Aechtner's
of this land!
My mind ponders on the justification,
there will be a first! A second, even a last
there is always a last.
Yet! My sensitivity meanders
with me to the post box,
a vice like grip holds
the envelope, what I give,
here now
to be analyzed, a mind
diagnosed, symptoms seen
through the touch of a
fingertip!
© Harry J Horsman 2001
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