time stretched peace in a flat line awareness curve
ever present flowing orientation
positions us in state of bliss we deserve
transitioning to all-time meditation
that as we go about with gusto and verve
although we dwell in the void of cessation
tranquility is the fragrance of our soul
enlivened by bliss beats that make us feel whole
It is pointless to negate the here now this,
for no matter what be our recognition,
we cannot deny divine energised bliss,
brought about by kundalini ignition,
caress sublime borne by Divine Mother’s kiss,
where those with pure hearts have right of admission.
Rapture renewal is the name of the game,
embodied in our heart as our claim to fame.
that we act as a signpost offering hope
to other weary seekers trudging along
our poems cajole our soul group to elope
with Cupid humming a melodious song
dancing at the edge of a slippery slope
asking us to discard fear and become strong
to which end if firm be resolve we evolve
as the stillness point around which worlds revolve
We met in the Philippine’s tropical glow
Those days feeling like dreams drifting soft and free
Your laughter in the air made the whole world slow
The time shaping a path meant for you and me
You crossed to the states with a hope we could grow
A beautiful life built by distant decree
Fifteen years have shown love will never depart
Beautiful island girl is home for my heart
Fortunate developments do not excite,
in as a heart tremor, as they once used to
and likewise downturns diminish not soul’s light,
for we know each moment in this dream is new,
so from God’s bliss boat we choose not to alight,
glistening in sunlight, as does morning dew.
Call this a stoic stance or simply heart’s dance,
it is because we have turned inward our glance.
It’s raining of sunless pleasure; smiles and frowns.
Exacting - the priceless presence of nature.
Who will save this family; its ups and downs…
What doesn’t work - scolding of ‘rents’s-legislature.
Oh, we saw the littles pull the drain, the sounds
Of fallen oaks, branches running; teenagers.
Little feet slip and slide; it’s a muddy mess.
Let the kids make tracks - must let go to possess.
As light ineffable illumining form,
with heart that feels, mind that thinks and senses five,
caressed by the breeze, currents both cool and warm,
the vehicle ensouled seems to be alive,
though it is but dust, swirled about in the storm,
wherein formless presence is he who does jive,
so as that, not this, polarities rotate,
where from the void, we watch torrents in full spate.
Prior to intent, in the unmanifest,
where creative will of God reverberates,
in us as the Monad, in peace and at rest,
the seed of desire in our heart then gyrates,
bringing about creation at God’s behest,
enacting its role till the desire abates,
whence heart quiescent it returns to the source,
in time dissolved stillness without use of force.
Ego indulgence is a brainchild of mind,
which labours within the matrix of space-time,
so to be free, head and heart must be aligned,
whence all that is then left, is God’s bliss beat chime,
melding with which, ego cravings are declined,
that all nodes tango dancing, conjure a rhyme,
enabling us then to reclaim Monad’s light,
which mirrors God’s heartbeat, throbbing with delight.
Flicker of ancient shadows playing with fire.
Crackle of light, fine spirited wind and chimes.
Infant’s lullaby, before the sea aspire.
Unfurling leaves, hunter green, sonorous climb.
Twinkling of eyes, brightening of poet’s inspire.
Christmas bow unwrapped, labyrinthine daytimes.
Wonder of a storm, rocking and rolling force.
A stupendous show, tree splits, a ship off course.
Peaks and valleys alight with touch, candlelight.
Flicker and sizzle, creaking, crashing of bed.
Crisscrossing to transcend remarkable height.
She whispers a moan; romantic fire, widespread.
Trunk bends, ceiling fan blowing a clash downright.
They’re like thunder and lightning. Oh what a night!
A storm, like a firepit, is stoked; flames are high.
All at once, all is calm. Cloud's singular sigh.
walking the tightrope of silence bliss suffused
insulated from thought forms swirling around
pristine presence is by illusions amused
lifelike dreamy realms where ego was once crowned
but with truth deduced we beg to be excused
as influx of grace continues to astound
we are yet sometimes called upon to engage
to play with smoky shapes upon this world’s stage
In the congruent eddy of life and time
That may twist and turn but will end inline
We may see the end in front of us
But will spin and bend with existence flurry
it will always abruptly end no matter the plan
Continue to drop until the last grain of sand
No mercy to even the best of us
With no favors can we curry
I've ran a race with all due zeal
I have stood tall and refused to neal
I'm inclined to beg no more
And inclined to see it through
Back, will my limited reality be pealed
In tacked, as my short comings be sealed
With no risk on to the unwanted be poured
And no more will be due .
Memory recalls epiphanies gone by,
which although are but signposts along the way,
the fact that they’ve appeared, we cannot deny,
interfering with heart’s spontaneous play,
which would if it could, let bygone moments die,
so instead of holding such thought forms at bay,
we embrace and release each impulse received,
no attainments sought, no cause to be aggrieved.
mindfulness the way, watchfulness our effort
that thus in stillness, doing nothing at all
we’re poised in peace even if others cause hurt
heart tranquil centred in a benign bliss squall
delighted sensing magnetic currents spurt
breaking down the ego wall and standing tall
recognising that in each heart glows God’s spark
thus knowing we ascend on an upward arc
body fatigue diminishes not soul’s light
though no doubt it has to be attended to
to savour the bliss of magnetic delight
cascading within form whose each hue is new
cognised by our spiritual eye’s clear sight
as blessings of grace continue to accrue
that thus situation any we dance on
in time dissolved silence breath by breath reborn
Larger than life the vision brings panic,
a sugary jar drew an unsought guest.
Leaving lines on the glass legs like a stick,
the anxiety of it’s journey.. I’m stressed.
Rapidly this fear turns my pulse frantic,
all I can think? Put courage to the test.
Sweet tea on the tongue truly corrosive,
baiting palmetto bugs.. just repulsive.
Introduction
The pleasure of reading ottava rimas begins in the tension between continuation and arrival. Interlaced rhymes keep thought moving forward, inviting each sound to return with a changed meaning, while the final couplet creates a marked point of concentration. A poet may use that arrival for resolution, surprise, wit, defiance, tenderness, or deliberate uncertainty. Because the stanza carries both momentum and closure, readers can enjoy the unfolding argument as much as the destination.
As you browse the community poems, notice how much variety can live inside this shared architecture. One writer may tell a compact story; another may develop a meditation, portrait, dramatic speech, or comic complaint. Some voices may sound elevated and ceremonious, while others exploit the contrast between a stately cadence and ordinary language. Longer poems can make each stanza feel like a narrative stage, whereas a single-stanza poem may compress an entire emotional movement into one decisive unit.
Reading several examples side by side reveals choices that one isolated poem cannot. Compare how different poets manage the wait for the closing couplet, place sentences across line endings, or make repeated rhyme sounds feel natural rather than merely dutiful. Consider, too, whether the final two lines confirm what came before or make you reinterpret it. Read beyond the first example: each new poem offers another answer to the form's central creative question-how can a patterned stanza remain conversational, surprising, and emotionally alive?
Reading Guide
Read an ottava rima stanza as an unfolding act of expectation. Its returning sounds create memory across intervening lines, while its closing pair promises a more immediate kind of completion. The most revealing comparisons therefore involve not only whether a poem sounds accomplished, but how it distributes attention. As you read the community poems, listen for the relationship among sentence, line, rhyme, and stanza: these elements may cooperate smoothly, pull against one another, or create a strategic jolt.
- Track the returning rhyme sounds. A rhyme gains meaning from the words attached to it, so each return can deepen an image, redirect an argument, or expose an ironic connection. When comparing poems, ask: do the recurring sounds accumulate significance, or do they seem chosen only to satisfy the pattern?
- Watch where sentences cross line endings. Enjambment can keep the stanza from becoming sing-song, delaying grammatical completion while the rhyme remains audible. Ask whether each poet uses line breaks to create suspense and double meaning or simply cuts sentences into measured lengths.
- Listen to the metrical current rather than counting mechanically. A generally iambic movement can support narrative confidence, formal dignity, or comic overstatement. Variations matter because they place stress on particular words. Ask where the speaking rhythm becomes unusually forceful, hesitant, rapid, or intimate, and what emotional change that disturbance signals.
- Study the approach to the couplet. The preceding lines often build pressure that the last two must somehow answer. A couplet may conclude, reverse, mock, intensify, or complicate the stanza. Ask: did the ending feel prepared yet fresh, or could it have been attached to almost any preceding passage?
- Notice changes of tone. Ottava rima can move quickly between seriousness and wit because the polished stanza can frame conversational asides or sudden undercutting remarks. Ask whether a tonal shift enlarges the subject or merely distracts from an unresolved idea.
- Compare single stanzas with sequences. In a longer poem, every couplet closes one unit while the next stanza reopens the movement. Ask how each poet maintains continuity: through narrative action, recurring imagery, an evolving speaker, or questions that survive local closure?
After a first reading, return to the opening lines with the ending in mind. The strongest conclusions often alter what earlier rhymes, images, and claims appear to mean. Comparing several poets' approaches will sharpen your sense of both fulfillment and surprise.
Writing Tips
Begin by treating the stanza as a small dramatic chamber rather than a container to be filled. Choose material capable of movement: a story with a turn, an argument that can complicate itself, a scene that changes under observation, or a speaker whose confidence may not survive the ending. Before drafting, decide what pressure should gather through the opening movement and what kind of arrival the couplet might provide. That plan can change, but it gives the formal pattern an artistic task.
- Choose a subject with more than one register. Ottava rima is especially hospitable to material that can be viewed earnestly and skeptically, grandly and familiarly, or from both inside and outside a speaker's convictions. Such doubleness gives the closing couplet something richer to do than repeat a settled point.
- Sketch the stanza's movement before hunting rhymes. Write a brief prose outline of what develops, where the perspective shifts, and what the ending reveals. This prevents available rhyme words from dictating the poem's ideas. Formal compliance should intensify thought, not replace it.
- Build flexible rhyme families. List nouns, verbs, adjectives, phrases, and grammatical variations rather than three isolated matching words. Then reject any choice that requires strained syntax or vague padding. A less dazzling rhyme that belongs naturally to the speaker is usually stronger than an ingenious rhyme that announces the poet's struggle.
- Vary the relationship between syntax and line. If every line ends with a full grammatical stop, the alternating pattern can become stiff and predictable. Let some sentences travel across lines, but preserve moments of pause where the argument needs weight. The goal is controlled forward pressure, not breathless continuity.
- Use metrical variation as expression. Establish enough rhythmic steadiness for departures to register, then test where an extra stress, initial reversal, or lighter passage serves the voice. Avoid repairing every line into lifeless regularity. Equally, do not use conversational looseness as an excuse for a pulse that never becomes perceptible.
- Make rhyme alter meaning. Repeated sounds can bind unlike ideas: desire to error, ceremony to appetite, memory to present action. Look for semantic friction among rhyme words. When all three words in a family perform the same predictable function, the stanza loses opportunities for discovery.
- Earn the couplet. Beginners often bolt on a moral, summary, or joke after six lines of unrelated preparation. Seed the ending through diction, image, or implication, but do not disclose it too soon. The best couplet feels both inevitable in retrospect and unavailable in advance.
- Plan transitions in a longer poem. Do not let every stanza sound like a self-contained miniature followed by a restart. Vary the force of local endings: one couplet may settle a scene, another may open a question, and another may propel the narrative across the stanza break.
During revision, read the draft aloud twice: once for natural speech and once while lightly marking the rhythmic beat. Circle rhyme words, then ask whether each is vivid, necessary, and consistent with the voice. Cut explanatory language that merely escorts the reader toward the couplet. Finally, test the ending without its rhyme: if the thought is weak in plain language, sonic polish will not save it. Restore the pattern only after the emotional and intellectual turn can stand on its own.
Interesting Facts
- The delayed return of a rhyme can strengthen memory. Because another line intervenes before the sound comes back, readers hold a faint auditory expectation while following the sentence. A skillful poet rewards that memory with a word that is related in sound but surprising in sense.
- The couplet can revise the entire stanza. Its force need not come from offering a neat conclusion. A late change in speaker, scale, or attitude can make the preceding lines appear boastful, naïve, evasive, or more poignant than they first seemed.
- Regularity can support comic instability. A poised cadence may make an interruption, mundane detail, exaggerated claim, or self-correction funnier. The humor comes partly from the contrast between the stanza's composure and the speaker's unruly personality.
- Naturalness is often harder than rhyme itself. Finding matching sounds is only the beginning; the challenge is making all the rhyme words seem inevitable within the syntax and subject. Experienced poets may use enjambment, varied sentence lengths, and unobtrusive phrasing so the pattern guides the ear without dominating attention.
- Local closure does not require final closure. In a sequence, each couplet can complete a stage of thought while leaving a larger narrative, question, or emotional conflict unresolved. This balance lets a long poem feel articulated without becoming a chain of disconnected endings.
- Performance reveals competing structures. Reading aloud makes both the metrical pulse and ordinary speech audible. A pause required by syntax may resist the line ending, while a rhyme may register even when the sentence continues. Browse the poems in this collection to compare how writers balance those layers rather than treating them as identical.
Popular Themes
Subject matter and stanza design affect one another: ottava rima gives a poet room to develop an idea through recurring sounds, then places unusual emphasis on the final pair of lines. The following themes are literary possibilities, not statistical rankings. Each works because it can sustain movement before reaching a concentrated turn.
- Journeys and adventures. Travel supplies successive actions, obstacles, landscapes, and encounters. Individual stanzas can frame stages of a journey, while their couplets provide commentary, temporary arrival, or a reason to continue.
- Heroism and its contradictions. A ceremonious rhythm can elevate brave action, yet the same polish can expose vanity, luck, or self-deception. The form permits admiration and ironic distance to occupy the same passage.
- Love, courtship, and disappointment. Alternating rhymes can enact pursuit and response, hope and resistance, memory and present judgment. The couplet can transform romantic declaration into confession, acceptance, accusation, or rueful wit.
- Satire and social observation. The stanza offers enough space to establish a public pose before puncturing it. A speaker may sound authoritative through several lines, only for the ending to reveal an overlooked motive or absurd consequence.
- Memory and retrospective storytelling. Recurrent sounds suit the way memories return altered by later knowledge. The closing lines can distinguish what the speaker believed during an event from what the speaker understands now.
- Moral or philosophical debate. The opening movement can entertain competing claims rather than rushing to a maxim. A strong couplet may sharpen the dilemma instead of pretending to solve it, allowing intellectual pressure to survive closure.
- Nature under human interpretation. Landscape and weather provide vivid imagery, but the stanza can also question what a speaker projects onto them. The ending may join outer scene and inner state or expose the distance between the two.
As you read the community poems, compare writers who approach similar subjects but choose different tonal destinations. One may close a love stanza with certainty, another with comic embarrassment, and another with an unanswered doubt. The shared form makes those differences especially visible.
Editorial Insights
The central artistic tension in ottava rima lies between recurrence and discovery. The ear anticipates returning rhyme sounds and a strongly marked close, yet the mind wants each line to enlarge the poem rather than confirm a template. A technically recognizable stanza may fulfill every audible expectation while remaining inert. A memorable one uses expectation as pressure: syntax leans forward, rhyme words gather unexpected associations, and the couplet arrives not as an obligation but as the point toward which the stanza's thinking has been secretly moving.
Structure feels necessary when it performs the subject. A tale of pursuit may make alternating sounds seem to chase one another; an argument may attach competing positions to the two rhyme families; a comic monologue may allow the polished cadence to expose the speaker's lack of composure. These effects need not be schematic or announced. Editors and attentive readers notice when form changes the experience of content-when a delayed rhyme sharpens recollection, a metrical disturbance marks emotional strain, or the closing pair alters the scale of everything before it. In such poems, removing the stanza design would remove part of the meaning.
Common weaknesses arise when the poet serves the pattern more faithfully than the poem. Forced inversions, filler adjectives, vague abstractions, and conspicuous rhyme words make the machinery visible without giving it purpose. Mechanical end-stopping can turn forward movement into a sequence of sealed statements. At the other extreme, excessive enjambment or erratic rhythm may conceal the very expectations that could create tension. Predictable couplets pose another risk: a summary merely repeats, a moral over-explains, and an unrelated joke spends the stanza's accumulated energy without transforming it. The remedy is not greater cleverness alone, but fuller development before the close.
Individuality remains visible through diction, sentence movement, humor, image, narrative distance, and the kind of closure a poet prefers. One writer may make the stanza sound intimate and spoken; another may embrace ceremonial amplitude; a third may let the speaker's commentary compete with the story. Comparing multiple community poems develops judgment because quality is not reducible to smoothness. Read for the point at which technical control becomes expressive character. Ask not only whether the poem meets an expectation, but why it establishes that expectation, what emotional or intellectual consequence follows, and whether another poet using the same convention creates an entirely different necessity.
Read, Write & Share
Read several community poems before settling on an impression of what ottava rima can accomplish. Compare how poets guide the returning rhymes, sustain a speaking voice, and prepare-or deliberately unsettle-the final couplet. A thoughtful comment might identify a tonal turn, an especially natural rhyme, or an ending that changed your understanding of the stanza.
Then try shaping material of your own within the form's pressures. Read your draft aloud, revise until pattern and voice support each other, and publish it on PoetrySoup when the stanza feels earned. Your interpretation can extend the conversation by showing other readers one more way recurrence, movement, and closure can work together.
Collection Statistics
This collection contains 269 ottava rima poems, providing many opportunities to compare how a shared stanza design can support different subjects, voices, moods, and kinds of closure. As you browse, remember that individual poets may follow established conventions closely, adapt them to the needs of a particular poem, or challenge selected expectations while preserving a recognizable relationship to the form.
Ottava Rima Categories
Definition | What is Ottava Rima in Poetry?
Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.