Tanka Challenge

In the midst of the Poetic Asides April PAD Challenge, Robert Lee Brewer also issued a tanka challenge.  He has just announced the winner, out of hundreds submitted. It is by Jane Schlensky, you can read it here, and it will be published in a future issue of the Writer's Digest magazine. He also listed the rest of the 'top ten', and what do you know — one of mine came second! 

Here are all those I submitted. The first is the one chosen. I hedged my bets and made some of them 5/7/5/7/7 even though I think that the least important 'rule' for tanka in English. I'm particularly delighted that the one chosen has shorter lines.

tonight

she is lonely

writing

new love poems

to an old love

********

when I am dancing

and you are looking at me

with your eyes shining

for a moment I forget

that we are old people now

*******

once upon a time

when the fairytale ended

and they did not live

happily ever after,

they found another sweetness

*******

a still night

the hum of his bike

goes for miles

she hears him leaving

the rest of her life

*******

she dozes

a gentle touch

on her arm

awakens her

she sees no-one


PS  My place-getting tanka was later published in the Writer's Digest of September 2012.

Shadow Selves

She is Ms Nasty,
I am Ms Nice.
I am all virtue,
she is all vice.

She’s in black leather,
I’m frills and lace,
yet some people tell us
we ought to embrace.

Do opposites attract?
No, not in this case.
And yet it’s so strange —
we wear the same face.

Although we feel
so separate,
we’re told it’s best
to integrate.

Will I allow
myself to swear?
Can she discard
that surly air?

We’ll have to do it
bit by bit.
In tentative swaps,
we find the clothes fit!

April PAD Challenge #9: Shady / Shadowy.

Also submitted for Poets United Poetry Pantry #96