A page without adornment, clean and bare:
no artful lines disguise or mar its face;
no calculating thoughts are written there.
The page retains a certain pristine grace,
a virgin, never touched and innocent;
no artful lines disguise or mar its face.
Unmarked or not, no page is sentient;
unlike yourself, who first appears to be
a virgin, never touched and innocent.
And yet, the more I look, the more I see
that I am empty, ignorant of life;
unlike yourself, who first appears to be.
I’ve taken what I could with cunning strife,
but loveless, having nothing, now I know
that I am empty, ignorant of life.
Your peaceful countenance appears to show
a page without adornment, clean and bare.
But loveless, having nothing, now I know:
no calculating thoughts are written there.
Author notes
A Terzanelle in iambic pentameter. There are 5 tercets and a quatrain of leap-frogging rhymes and lines. The scheme is A1-B-A2 b-C-B c-D-C d-E-D e-D-E e-A1-E-A2.
A contest entry
- Show Me Some Form (Contest) by Paloszoo.
1000 points, ended January 23, 18 entries
Gold trophy winner
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
Comments
1 - 5 of 5
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A beautiful write. I really enjoyed the read and congrats on your gold trophy.
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Wow, this just blew me away. BRAVO!! Thanks for entering my contest. I'm honored to have you show your work here!
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Paloszoo has asked me to co-judge with an eye to form so this comment is centred on form, my opinion of the rest won't count in the judging
A difficult form with repetition rhyme and meter, perfectly executed, the poem is excellent too, great stuff!!!
Really good work.
Jeff
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its called a Tezanelle?
i did a few tezanelles here but i didnt know what they were called.
this is beyond awesome. the message the rhymes the count the cleverness and i love 4 lines in the last part. theres a sadness
I’ve taken what I could with cunning strife,
but loveless, having nothing, now I know
that I am empty, ignorant of life.
you have God so no matter what, you got a full soul
and you deserve love and stuff too
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A Terzanellle has features of the Terza Rima and Villanelle forms. There are similarities with the Pantoun as well. Using a line more than once in successive yet succinct thoughts is quite a challenge. I have seen some who do it very well, and some of us just do the best we can and hope to get better.
Oh, the poem is not autobiographical. I may not be as innocent as a child, but I try to keep my experience of the world from lowering my expectations of life and people.
A cynic in the modern sense is a person who views the world as full of people either jaded by experience or courageously hopeful through lack of it. Such a person confuses innocence with ignorance and wisdom as complete if one is a skillful manipulator of people and actions. One who lives in accordance with that world view imagines that others are happy, hopeful, trusting and trustworthy only because they do not know any better. In this poem such a cynic discovers the innocent one is actually the wiser one.
Jesus encouraged his disciples to be as wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Ayn Rand referred to "romantic realism". One may see the world as it is and still have hope and strive for what it could be.
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