Tag Archives: syllabic poetry

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The Sea Witch’s Bargain

Something short today! Yay!

This poem is in response to Colleen Chesebro’s #Tanka Tuesday challenge. It needed to include synonyms for Eager & Hope provided by Sally Cronin. It’s a syllabic poem called a Double Ennead consisting of 3 stanzas with syllables 6/5/11/6/5.

My goal was to capture the theme of my current WIP: The Ferryman and the Sea Witch.

The Sea Witch’s Bargain

Beware a dark bargain
A craft of desire
Conspired with the merrow’s silver-tailed witch
Her golden-tongued harpoon
Bristles with veiled barbs

She feasts on treasure-dreams
Conjured from sea beds
Her oaths, leviathans steeped in deception
Plunged in mountainous waves
She drowns the reckless

Or forsake her plunder
Mortal in the brine
A quiet heart surrenders to airlessness
Clasping pearls of courage
Deep in love redeemed

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Snow Child #Tanka Tuesday

Illustration by John Bauer via Pixabay

I had the great honor of choosing the image for Colleen’s syllabic poetry challenge this week. So, of course, I had to play.

This is a crown cinquain. Each of the five stanzas has five lines of 2/4/6/8/2 syllables.

Snow Child

Winter

frees her fair hair

hushed in her reflection

by the sparrow’s river she kneels

entranced

…

she wills

doves to gather

on the night’s bare branches

as autumn yields its golden crown

to cold

…

she weaves

her white tresses

into lace coverlets

unfurls across the towhee’s nest

her gift

…

magic

silvers the boughs

stirred by the horned owl’s wing

in flight between the evergreen

she waits

…

snow child

whispers a hymn

rapt by her own beauty

tranquil in the holy dawn of

winter