Best Octosyllabic Poems
Heavenly Spring
(Decima)
Colorful blooming pear and apple trees
Beautiful within the first weeks of spring
Everything is heavenly blossoming
With gentle blowing winds and humming bees
The time to plant some vegetable seeds
With the sunshine and rain all the seeds grow
Glorious rainbow putting on a show
Colorful flowers raising from the ground
Nature showing its beauty all around
With summer coming, time for spring to go
Decima is a style of poetry that is Octosyllabic and has 10 lines.
Given the flexible method of counting syllables in Spanish verse, where an "Octosyllabic" line could easily have seven or nine syllables (as normally counted), in writing a decima in English it would seem not unreasonable to write in iambic pentameter (theoretically ten syllables), which comes more naturally to English verse. So for English verse you would use 10 syllables per line.
The rhyming scheme is ABBAACCDDC.
so in English.. you would have 10 lines of 10 syllables per line... rhyme is above....
A fine family of foxes,
a feisty mom and her two kits
living near humans by shrewd wits.
Her constant success flummoxes.
Kits are tiny jack-in-the-boxes,
heads bobbing while mom baby sits.
NB: Other - Sextilla: A Sp. stanza form of six octosyllabic or shorter lines. In the classic period, the usual rhyme schemes were abbaab.
Breath of life in a forlorn one,
uplifted face to brace the wind,
called His name with prayer to send.
Forgive me! I have come undone.
I lost my way, now moribund,
and all I’d hoped was to ascend.
*Other - Sextilla: A Sp. stanza form of six octosyllabic or shorter lines. In the classic period, the usual rhyme schemes were abbaab,...oxfordreference.com
As young children, we were happy
but as adults, most of us not.
why so? Cause ideas what's thought
as right, differs -none takes gladly.
Adult unhappiness derives
from rigidity as stuck in
own ways though always wish to win
often leads to failure in lives.
While our routine ways of thinking,
acting may be useful, bringing
comfort in our lives in some ways
but prevents from growing always;
may lead to despair, beginning
of stress with negative thinking.
~X~X~X~
Sonondilla or Sardine Sonnet
Quote :: “This is a form invented by Charles L. Weatherford.
In his own word Charles explains that he developed to form to
play to his own particular strengths:
Creating the “sonondilla, I actually used two existing forms.
First was the Petrarchan sonnet; second was the redondilla,
a purely syllabic Spanish quatrain with envelope rhyme scheme (abba).
Based on this mixing, I came up with a fourteen lines form that
was syllabic, but was also tougher to rhyme than other sonnets.
So, the sonondilla’s predominant rhyme scheme is abbaabbaccddcc,
which is even more difficult than the Petrarchan sonnet."
Redondilla, a Spanish stanza form consisting of four
trochaic lines, usually of eight syllables each, with a rhyme
scheme of abba. Quatrains in this form with a rhyme scheme of
abab, sometimes also called redondillas, are more commonly
known as serventesios.
( Ref:: https://www.britannica.com/art/redondilla)
In the Sonondilla or Sardine Sonnet it should be written in octosyllabic lines.
Meter either iambic or trochaic
Rhyme scheme: Rhyme: abbacddceeffee or abbaabbaccddcc
Volta to appear at line 9.” Unquote
Pasted from http://poetscollective.org/everysonnet/sonondilla/
Thanks to Mr Lawrence Eberhart for the resource at Poets COLLECTIVE Site.
Now my posh palette is laid waste.
Winter, winding its way to fore,
lays its whiteness at my front door.
Vivid colors become murky paste
and lose their hue with rash haste.
My parquet is covered with hoar.
Other – Sextilla: (1) Six-line stanzas of eight-syllable lines rhymed either aabccb or ababcc…poetscollective.org
*(2) A Sp. stanza form of six octosyllabic or shorter lines. In the classic period, the usual rhyme scheme was abbaab...oxfordreference.com
June 21, 2025
For the Beatles 'Lay it to Me' song Contest by Charles Messina
The old iron curtain came down
But soon a clown reclaimed the crown
Ruthless and hollow-souled he rose
Now a foul Soviet wind blows
From the east it battered Ukraine
Spreading such cruel and endless pain
The past returns in blackened char
“Back in the U.S.S.R.”