Octa-octa

Colleen’s challenge this week is to take a favourite form and tweak it into something new. I have long loved Edgar Allan Poe’s use of Trochaic octameter with its eight trochaic metrical feet.  In my piece I have replaced the trochaic feet with simple syllables. I have kept some “DUM da DUM da DUM da” stresses, but have let the beat be driven by the words and the eight syllable form. I have also made this an eight line form.

when at times we do not trouble
we complacent tend to stumble
into apathetic bubbles
the world around us we ignore
unaware of what lies in store
till too late like midnight raven
the world we face – leaving haven
to find the old world – “nevermore”

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Padre

Adoption

Pixabay

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The resemblance was quite uncanny

She looked just like Orphan Annie

But he was no Warbucks

Rich enough to hire a nanny

So, he and wife were helped by Granny

To adopt and raise the red headed girl, Sandy

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Padre

Weekend Writing Prompt #205 – Uncanny in 39 words

Helen

Public Domain

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The
Beauty
Of her face
Filled men’ hearts with
Passion and desire
An epic war was fought
For her love and her favour
Paris wooed Helen from her throne
Menelaus jilted sought revenge
A thousand ships set sail, bringing Troy’s end

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Padre

dVerse

Tell

Pixabay

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Wendy went to her dorm room to find her roommate listening to classical music.

“Hey. Is that the Lone Ranger song you are listening to?” she asked.

“First of all it’s instrumental so it’s not a song. And it’s called the William Tell Overture for your information,” Cynthia replied.

“Wow, what’s got your knickers in such a twist? It’s not like I was trying to shoot an apple off your head or something.”

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Padre

FOWC with Fandango — Tell

Quixotic

Pixabay

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Don Alonso was a most quixotic man

A dreamer chivalrous was he

Tilting at windmills was just a start

Loyally followed by Sancho on his donkey

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Padre

Weekend Writing Prompt #186 – Quixotic: in 26 words

Midnight Read

Pixabay

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Once upon a midnight dreary,

I read some Poe till my eyes grew bleary

While I like the rhyme and its style archaic

But to call it horror was a mis-taik

Now Stephen King can shiver my spine

A reading him alone – is best in daytime

So to choose between Edgar Allan and the King of Horror

Well sorry Poe, “Nevermore!”

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Padre

Begone!

CCC #91

“Begone from me, Spirit!” Scrooge implored.

Yet, the apparition remained unmoved before him.

“Tell me, Spirit,” he trembled, “are the things I have read tonight already published, or might some editorial hand yet intervene?”

It was then that the Ghost of Crispina Future lifted a low carb snack to her lips, and Scrooge knew his literary fate was sealed.

 

Padre

 

CCC 91

Pizzazz

image: Eurochannel

Cyrano had panache –

Pizzazz, repartee, and flair

A swordsman skilled beyond compare

A skill matched by a piercing wit – rare

 

Cyrano had a nose – immense

If Rostand is to be believed

And below a balcony one night

He and Christian – Roxanne deceived

 

Padre

 

FOWC with Fandango — Pizzazz

 

 

No Adventures Thus Required

 

Photo by Aachal on Unsplash

Sensible folk – stay at home

For dangers lay in the world abroad

Adventuring types oft – to their own homes bring

Unwanted visitors and maladies odd

We biggers should these truths have learned

From the wise halflings of the Shire

Maybe if we had so done

None of the current measures

Would we now require

 

Padre

 

 

 

 

The Coming Of Spring

Pinterest.

Nurse Hazel stepped away from the viewing window in the Entville nursery wing.

“Sister Willow, don’t you think there have been an unusually large number of deliveries recently?” she asked of the charge sister.

“I was thinking that too,” the sister responded.  “And they all look strikingly similar.”

“What do you think it means, Sister.”

“I think it means that Charlie Chestnut’s has been particularly busy this year.”

 

Padre

Fandango’s Flash Fiction Challenge #65