A stellar sight delights the eyes
when comes the night from passing day
and ends sun’s starring matinée
with drama of the darkened skies.
The world assumes nocturnal guise
as songbirds hush their roundelay.
A stellar sight delights the eyes
when comes the night from passing day.
Will once again a sun arise
somewhere somehow so poets may
in other lyric rondels say
long after earthly last goodbyes,
a stellar sight delights the eyes
when comes the night from passing day?
~ Harley White
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The poem is a rondel, which is a fixed form of verse based on two rhyme sounds and consisting usually of 14 lines in three stanzas (2 quatrains followed by a sestet) in which the first two lines of the first stanza are repeated as the refrain of the second and third stanzas. The meter is open, but typically has eight syllables.
Rondel Pain
Poetry can inflict pain like a sharp rondel dagger,
Encircling each word with bigoted judgments on hand.
Down a spiral staircase a poet’s thoughts may stagger.
Semi-circular fashioned, ideas traverse memories’ span.
Hysterical, political…subject does not matter.
Orderliness and cleverness mete out the author’s plan.
Poetry can inflict pain like a sharp rondel dagger,
Encircling each word with bigoted judgments on hand.
Banter securely bound, released by creative augur.
Can choose many words found in vocabulary land.
Lexis gone thrilling can kill the heart of an iceman –
Stop, please! Choose kindly words; become a pain free enabler.
Poetry can inflict pain like a sharp rondel dagger.
© Dane Ann Smith-Johnsen
June 2, 2010
Poetic form: Rondel (Rondel Rhyming Pattern: ABab, abAB, aabbA)
Thanks Jared for making us think!
LEARN MORE:
1. POETRY: http://www.ehow.com/how_16711_write-rondel.html
2. DAGGAR http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rondel_dagger
3. STAINED GLASS http://www.anythinginstainedglass.com/glass/Rondels/rondels.html
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.