Affable people
are likeable fools
Divorced from the moment
their banter unspools
Affable people
in search of a creed
Amusing examples
— of folly indeed
(Dreamsleep: March, 2025)
They called me a coward, said my words would hide,
Too timid to face the storm, I’d run and confide.
My thoughts were shadows, secrets bound tight,
In the echoes of silence, I fought my own fight.
They wanted bold thunder, unyielding and loud,
To speak like the lightning, piercing the cloud.
But my voice trembled, a flickering flame,
Afraid of the sparks that might tarnish my name.
I carried my truths in whispers, not roars,
Let them drift behind unguarded doors.
Perhaps it was fear; perhaps it was care,
To speak of the absent felt too much to bear.
Still, they threw their stones, their judgment like chains,
Mocking my struggles, dismissing my pains.
But courage, I’ve learned, wears many a guise
It’s not always in voices, but in how one tries.
So call me a coward if that’s how you feel,
But my wounds are my own, and they’ve yet to heal.
I’ll find my voice when the moment is true,
And when I do speak, I’ll be ready for you.
Verse in metred word makes our inner voices heard
With image,cadence and tone we signature it our own,
Individual and distinct as dna
For all to see,our personality,writ large each day.
Note : a double coupled form (IE quatrain) in Thomas Wyatt(1502-42) poulter's measure style 12/14 syllable lines.
Experience overrules prescription of form
when euphony carries off a poem beyond the norm
Englishman Thomas Wyatt
adventurer poet & diplomat
Imported rom Italy the strombotto
Rhyming forms Sicilian,& Toscano
Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp
knew how to snag a gun totin' perp,
loved the ladies, but never liquor.
He was a habitual ice cream licker!
For Kim's Cleri-who? Contest, 5/31/15
** This poem is in memory of Allison N. Wyatt, one of the children who died in the Sandy Hook Shooting. Allison's favorite color was green and she loved to garden, cover her family's home with paintings and drawings ,and to be outside.
Grass grows tall.
As Allison waters it with her love.
She is planting fruits of happiness and peace in her garden in Heaven.
When Allison is not in her garden she will be playing with and reading to everyone in Heaven.
Creating pictures and drawings of wonderfulness.
Not only to people in Heaven,
But in the clouds in the sky to be shown to everyone.
Wyatt's alexandrine combined a rhyming fourteen
To introduce a novel verse,to the poetry scene;
For we poets he bequeathed this literary treasure
In couplet of iambs,some christen a 'poulter's measure'.
Note:Thomas Wyatt(1503-42) used over 70 different stanza forms,but now is best known for
this poulter's measure form(couplets of 12 syllables,alternating with 14,often used for serious
statements or for burlesque.
I label this quatrain version a 'wyatt'