Best Alternating Poems
A Song at Sunrise
He sang the song at sunrise, to the morning dawn
It rose into the atmosphere and carried on and on
It fell in gentle rain upon the barren lands
It moistened upturned faces and was caught in outstretched hands
It blew within warm winds across the marshy fen
Was whispered through the waving reeds and reached the hearts of men
This song is never ending all around the earth
The song that started long ago with our sweet Saviour's birth
POULTER'S MEASURE that is in alternating 12 then 14 syllables lines and so on
(the form always commences with a 12 syllable line)
Courtesy of Brian Strand
Margaret Foster: 18th February 2010
Dream catchers chime in the wind,
like soft tones of a xylophone.
Melodic melancholic rain,
is free flowing,
but morning birds still arrive,
sitting on wet window sills,
singing about their desires.
In daffodil daydreams,
the breeze resonates like a flutist,
gently swaying bluebells in a rhythmic flow,
as pink, silver and lilac heather spread
around a bed of golden violet crocus.
Under my magnificent magnolia tree,
ivory petals dance in puddles upon
damp lawns with fresh grass,
weeping love songs strummed
on acoustic strings of green.
Sprinkles of drizzle sparkle,
like an absent lover's ostinato,
caressing the earth in a
rhapsody of tender kisses,
nourishing it's soul to harmonise with
a symphony of returning sun rays.
As a chorus of clouds clear in
a final crescendo, introducing
sapphire hues with golden delight,
rainbow pastels bless the tempo
of rows of tantalising tulips
in kaleidoscopic shades -
as natures breathes in alternating fusion.
Whiskey on the rocks, advised by my doc
combats dementia, so bring on the blocks
no need for a glass; I'll have me the bottle
with a big bowl of ice this baby I'll throttle
The whiskey's gone, now a brandy'd be fine
my inside's on fire, there's a hoop up my spine
swigging from the bot comes at a price
I'll temper the fire with whole blocks of ice
The flames have been doused; rum, if you please?
my head's in a clamp; ice will loosen the squeeze
now, be a sport and pile on the ice
two bowls or more I think should suffice
Three bottlesh down, all on the rocksh
my tootshiesh are shtarting to curl in my shocksh
my shmile is chemented, my lipsh glued together
my fashe the feel and texture of leather
Twishe left, thrishe right my head ish shwinging
short, long, short, long my earsh are zinging
either I'm crosh-eyed or my brainsh have been fried
elsh why are my legsh by three multiplied?
I'm freefalling on shixh feet firmly earthed
alternating twixht lower and then upper berth
vocal chordsh tangled, shizhably crimped
I'm walking with a lishp and talking with a limp
I'm teetering-tottering or tettering-tortering
I've no clue which ish which and given up wondering
the world ish a blur; I musht be plarshtered
the liquor went down well; ishe warsh the barshtard
On all foursh – nay, twelve, I reach the bed
now I'm pondering and shcratching my head:
am I waking up or about to retire?
I shimply topple over, my whole being on fire
In the Land of Nod I'm harnessed by tether
in comely dreams of cowboys and leather
when plagued by a swishy feel in my bladder
swelling as fast as a pregnant puffadder
Abruptly awakened when a stream emanated
unable to move, still intoxicated
stuck to my bed and severely drenched
nausea ensued in the encompassing stench
How my stomach reacted I'd best not relate
suffice to say it was a full freight
soiled and hung-over, a word of advice:
liquor's fantastic but steer clear of ice
I laugh but I want to cry
My heart is in so much pain
Like I'm about to just die
I'm not ready to say bye
I need shelter from the rain
I laugh but I want to cry
Please God tell me why
Hurt runs through my veins
Like I'm about to just die
I wish I had you nigh
I'm about to go insane
I laugh but I want to cry
You were a amazing guy
Why did you have to get slain
I laugh but I want to cry
Like I'm about to just die
Alexis Y.
08-15-16
A Villanelle is a nineteen-line poem consisting of a very specific rhyming scheme: aba aba aba aba aba abaa.
The first and the third lines in the first stanza are repeated in alternating order throughout the poem, and appear together in the last couplet (last two lines).
Belladonnic poison seeps from your eyes,
like an electric serum of Venusian alchemy,
one that paralyzes my sense of pride.
My mind oscillating,
alternating,
your gaze,
annihilating.
An infusion,
Uranium radiating me into half life,
as I look up small to thee.
How can you be my painkiller,
stretching rack,
healer,
and a killer clown surgeon
with a knack for stealing autonomy?
Your touch burns with the fires of Purgatory,
a solar cycle casting elemental ghouls,
in a rogues gallery of impish valkyrie.
Propheting in New Moon phases
of alignment's interferon mightocon cell mining,
beaming morse code anecdotally-
You dress me in the dark's fairie mood ring-collar- manacle- you cause me to wear in my captivity.
Endangered in the midst of your wilds,
from your strange type of phi
that echoes from the voids-
enchantress- third eye.
I flop like a fresh caught fish
in your net of silk, patterned telepathy.
You are a siren, a villain- bewitching
the stormy seas- to shipwreck adventurous souls
and harbor them on your oasiatic Isle, Circe?
So why do I feel saved, even in your captivity.
Turn me into a fattened pig, then,
do as you will,
but be the truffle of my descent
as I forage for delicacy.
The flying sent projections free to see,
from adjunct Astrals singing bold decree.
Perched on Pisces’s cusp, forsaking Plato’s cave,
Puppets casting shadows, chancing me a slave.
They hang from dreams of higher forms, allures
Contempt in self when loving carnal cores.
Haunted by women’s passions kept in Spirits,
Dawns my sleeping stages now inherits
Marionettes aloft eternal twists
of spinning truths with lies recalling trysts.
Killing prone volitions, changing essence.
Chosen starlight’s beings guiding presence.
Upon a love in purest form demands,
Forgotten suicides of ego strands.
Risking Pirsig’s fate in Zen and journey,
Waging sanity, a bounty worthy.
The stringing of my soul and bracing seeks,
A pulling truth beyond this death it speaks.
------------------------------------------------------------
Alternating stanzas of iambic and trochaic pentameter
Hand knit socks you are wonderful to me.
As I'm winding this soft wool yarn,
deciding, which needles to use,
I know you're going to be gorgeous,
cozy, and fun to wear socks.
Only the best wool for you, with
careful, hand wash, and lay flat to dry
cleaning instructions, befitting royalty.
Hand knit socks you will rock.
You'll think I'm a genius, my
matching bright lime green and rainbow yarns together.
The chosen slip stitch pattern, alternating the yarn,
makes you dear socks a joy.
An amazing joy to knit as well as to wear.
Oh the colors, the perfect fit, like wearable art.
My hand knit socks you'll be the envy of my other socks.
You dear socks deserve this honor.
You are the socks that rock.
Night has come, the fog is slowly wreathing
Crying soft, a form is moving forward
Now she walks through mist, 'tween shadows seething
Past the ancient walls she pushes onward
Mid the shrouded stones she pours her sorrow
Crying soft, a form is moving forward
Now she weeps amid a ruined palace
*Starting when the distant forest trembles
Comfort is not nigh to ease her sorrow
In her hands she bears a broken chalice
She that once was rich is now the poorest
Starting when the distant forest trembles
Deep within the shadows of the forest
Wars were fought that changed her life forever
She that once was rich is now the poorest
How could men her castle cruelly sever?
Night has come, the fog is slowly wreathing
Wars were fought that changed her life forever
Now she walks through mist, 'tween shadows seething
Day is dawning
Light scatters shadows
What hope will morning bring?
- *Starting is a sudden motion or spasm caused by being alarmed. -
- The part of this poem that is in Terzanelle form is also Trochaic Pentameter, meaning that it is ten syllables per line and alternating between a stressed and unstressed syllable the whole way through. -
- First place in contest, "Terzanelle Fantasy with a Questionku Chaser".
At first glance, I saw forever
It was love at first sight
You were so charming and clever
My life long endeavor
While in your arms all was right
At first glance, I saw forever
I would never leave you, never
That all changed that dreadful night
You were so charming and clever
Driving way to fast foot pressed on lever
The other car was no where in sight
At first glance, I saw forever
On that day fate came to sever,
Our lovely union, I couldn't even fight
At first glance, I saw forever
You were so charming and clever
07-28-16
A Villanelle is a nineteen-line poem consisting of a very specific rhyming scheme: aba aba aba aba aba abaa.
The first and the third lines in the first stanza are repeated in alternating order throughout the poem, and appear together in the last couplet (last two lines).
Author's Note: This is pure fiction. A contest inspired me to write this.
(Sonnet with rhyme on both ends of alternating lines)
The starkness of my world now that he’s gone
pervades in all I see and hear and feel,
but darkness swallows all until the dawn
invades. Then what I’ve lost is made more real!
I yearn for Moon’s return - her tender light
to keep me soothed, for sunshine is my bane.
I burn with thoughts of him. I need, each night,
to sleep away my longings and the pain.
He left, and now he’s far away from me
across the globe. Oh, how I love him so!
Bereft am I, but he perhaps feels free!
My loss means where he is tonight shall glow
sweet Moon, caressing him - as once did I,
and soon, I’ll face the glare from morning’s sky!
For Nicola Byrne's Long Distance Love Poetry Contest
How fickle are the humors of the heart,
capricious and of alternating hue.
a masked chameleon of cunning art;
transmuting colours often hid from view.
Now sunk in sombre thoughts of deep regret
now tinged with envy's veil of deepest green,
rose-coloured when by love's suffusion met
or cleansed as white as snow and pristine clean.
Just like the changing seasons, hearts endure
bright sunshine, louring skies or sudden storms,
and when the heavy heart is overcast
it looks not upwards as a rainbow forms.
Kaleidoscopic heart, at journey's end
which hues will shape the palette's final blend?
entered 13.02.21
My Foolish Heart Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Craig Cornish
03/12/18
riding artificial waves – he exploits her alternating moods
For Monoku Contest sponsored by Silent One.
Placed 2nd
From the bottom of an abandoned gravel pit
behind my childhood home, seated,
leaning against its hardpacked sandy side,
he watched the July sun set,
the empty prescription bottle at his side.
Did he walk that day to his unnatural fate
slowly, shoulders rolling like a big cat,
alternating first one, then the other,
forward, head bent, one black errant
curl tumbling across his troubled forehead.
Did he hesitate or did he hurry
and did he think of me, just 12,
soon to be fatherless, before he
began his two weeks of decomposing
in the hot Texas sun until
the man on horseback found him
while looking for a lost calf.
I couldn't blame my mother
for the divorce she filed.
I had wanted him to leave, too,
and hadn't I prayed he would die
when he dragged her over the yard,
by a handful of her hair clasped
tightly in his fist,
because she had cut it without his permission.
Especially the next day when I found
the clump of auburn hair caught in the lush
purple blooms of the wisteria bush,
I wanted him to die.
He played his harmonica for me,
and I sang, "Daddy's Little Darling,
Don't you think I'm sweet?"
But I prayed my dad would die,
and though I asked God to ignore those
prayers of terror, I will never be able to
love enough wayward men to save my dad.
He sits with his head upon his hands
His eyes are red
And water that glued the sands
Sun sucked, slithered from the sandy bed
His thoughts are the hourglass
Grains of meaning mincing away
His castle was the sheltered pass
Tomorrow in today decay.
The officer who came to the door
Polite as an exterior of class
Knocked his ego to the floor
Set his emotions to tinder like grass
Dry as the cinders of his life:
It was she who picked up the knife
She who wanted out as wife
So many things unspoken, so much rife
And he cannot own that argument again
He lost in the public sphere
While he was at the war enduring pain
Treason was a shift of change here.
The officer asked him if he had somewhere
To go ... leaving the house his hands built
He wandered through the cold night air
Racked by conscience alternating guilt.
Then here ... to sit and muse alone
Rejecting interventions of the court
To share what was his own
He relinguished property and support
Except from the sweet distil of fruit
And wanders between the staggering eye
Victim of an altered truth
Forgotten mortal under infallible sky.
Seasons
Each season she will rise
Changing them with her sighs; to tame
the seasons with no shame
In life none can share blame; you see
Because she sets them free
Taking the old, so we can play
Refresh the earth each day, the land
she rules with iron hand
My attempt at this form! It is called a Luc Bat form!
The luc bat is a Vietnamese poetic form
that means “six-eight.” In fact, the poem
consists of alternating lines of six and eight syllables.
This form is interesting in its rhyme scheme that
renews at the end of every eight-syllable line
and rhymes on the sixth syllable of both lines.
xxxxxA
xxxxxAxB
xxxxxB
xxxxxBxC
xxxxxC
xxxxxCxD
xxxxxD
xxxxxDxE
And so on. Luc bat poems have
no set length or subject matter,
and some run on for thousands of lines.
Form: