Flagging

A friend on facebook posts

a picture of a ‘flag of peace’, sharing it

from a site called ‘Imagine

Peace’. The caption
says, ‘Fly the flag

of peace’ — and I want it to be

a signpost, pointing

in a single direction, not a

flag waving in the breeze according to

whatever wind is

prevailing at the time, in

whatever place the flag is

planted. But I am wrong of course: you have
to be wrong if you object

to a flag of peace; we should all

be grasping it, waving it, fair

in the faces of

any old war-monger out there. Only I

wanted clear direction, and

there isn’t one really, except

I suppose, not to

fly flags

of war.

31 Poems in 31 Days (Poewar / Writer's Resource Centre). Prompt: Use lines of varying length, either end-stopped or enjambed. As I usually end-stop, I decided to try enjambment.

Observing Line and Metre (Non-Diverse)

After a discourse on line and metre, Gay at dVerse Form For All — Prosody invites us to take a few lines of our own free verse and rewrite them in iambic feet of any line length — noting that unrhymed iambic pentameter is called blank verse. (I admit, she said we could include a few anapests.) Well, I tried. I thought it might fix some languishing draft that wasn't working yet, but it did not improve any of them! Instead, a new piece:

Iambic feet and pentametric lines

will make my verses blank; is that not so?

Well, blank means only that they are unrhymed

(and following that metre, as I’ve said)

but many poems gallop to this beat

and solemn topics rollick jollily

in inappropriate cheerfulness of pace.

There’s more to poetry than may be found

in repetitions of de-DA-de-DA,

in lines of even length, in perfect count

of syllables in alternating stress.

I like a sonnet, but a haiku too

is poetry I think — indeed, insist!

And as for this, my friends, it’s doggerel
(also a piece of fun to start my day).


PS When it comes to metre, this is my favourite reminder:

Remember this verse:

Iambic feet are firm and flat                                                             - / - /

and come down heavily like that

Trochees dancing very lightly                                                        / - / -

Sparkle, froth and bubble brightly.

Dactylic daintiness lilting so prettily                                               / - - / - -

Moves about fluttering rather than wittily

While for speed and for haste such a rhythm is best                    - - / - - /

As we find in the race of the quick Anapest.

(Source unknown)