A Sonnet of a Different Meter

I have to admit, August was tough. The weather turned as if Summer took its ball and went home, leaving me with nothing to play with and only the constant banging from the construction next door to keep me company. However, the sun returned yesterday, bringing with it a will to get back to work, so here are new images and a new poem for OLN (open link night) at dVerse Poets Pub.

This morning, using Edna St. Vincent Millay’s poem “What Lips My Lips Have Kissed, and Where, and Why” as inspiration, I wrote two Sonnets in iambic pentameter. So when I saw today’s mini-prompt to write a sonnet in iambic tetrameter, I was actually in the mood. I had never heard of the Onegin stanza or Pushkin sonnet, and I’m excited to give it a try.

From Wikipedia: “Onegin stanza, sometimes ‘Pushkin sonnet,’ refers to the verse form popularized (or invented) by the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin . . . mostly written in verses of iambic tetrameter with the rhyme scheme aBaBccDDeFFeGG where the lowercase letters represent feminine rhymes (stressed on the penultimate syllable) and the uppercase representing masculine rhymes [stressed on the (only or) ultimate syllable].”

I’m glad I read that. It’s not often I read a form poem’s instructions that include feminine rhyme. What a fun extra challenge.

New Forms of Light Pollution

Those dancing human silhouettes
like neon palm trees of the night,
a staring contest’s denouement,
reflecting to the other side.
Their flailing limbs of no regrets
cast shadows on the fire beneath
while signaling to all the stars
celestial touch is not too far.
Does the neon palm shout longing
like invasive species will cling?
Tightly they choke ’til there’s nothing
to hold. Is bright light belonging’s
cry, echoing across the lake,
the song that goads, and dancers make?