11-28-2025, 11:01 PM
"Ghost Stories"
in the dark whispering by the lamp shivering
at the door wavering in the glow hollowing
by the bed listening as they breathe peacefully
in the hall shadowy by the wall lingering
in their eyes blindingly i see night staringly
from their hearts shimmering i feel fear fluttering
at the dawn tremblingly from their world hidingly
"The Bridge"
hesitant on the brink perilous from the start
balancing in the gust narrowing where you stand
timidly on the boards echoing as they creak
venturing past the fear flickering through your stride
tentatively in wind faltering as you lean
echoing from the void calling you from the deep
steadily to the end anchoring as you land
These are not really poems, they are experiments with meter. I have been trying to learn to read and write metrically, so I thought I would try the most ridic meter I could think of: tetrameter, made up solely of anapests and dactyls, arranged to clump the stressed and unstressed beats together as much as possible. The first one is anapest/dactyl/anapest/dactyl, uuS|Suu|uuS|Suu, while the second is the opposite, dactyl first (Suu|uuS|Suu|uuS).
I was a little surprised by how much easier the first one was to write, dactyls make very poor starts to lines but follow pretty naturally after an anapest, and it is easy to add an "in the" or some such before a noun to make a line start anapestically. The first one also flows a lot better, I think it has a breathless feeling, the lines flow into one another without pause (the lack of punctuation obviously contributes to this, but the effect remains even with proper punctuation). They both feel almost like dimeter, with a natural "break" in the middle of the line, altho this effect is much stronger in the second pattern: That double stress in the middle feels like a spondee and almost begs to be a line break.
Anyway, I now know what everyone else already knew: These meters are not used for a reason. Trying to write grammatically while fitting this pattern is close to impossible, hence all the terrible grammar, weak imagery, and half-baked metaphor in these "poems". I might try the anapest-first version again, if I can think of a more elegant way to get the dactyls in without abusing adverbs. I do quite like the way it all melts into a continuous stream of words, with regular pulses to keep the momentum. Almost hypnotic.
in the dark whispering by the lamp shivering
at the door wavering in the glow hollowing
by the bed listening as they breathe peacefully
in the hall shadowy by the wall lingering
in their eyes blindingly i see night staringly
from their hearts shimmering i feel fear fluttering
at the dawn tremblingly from their world hidingly
"The Bridge"
hesitant on the brink perilous from the start
balancing in the gust narrowing where you stand
timidly on the boards echoing as they creak
venturing past the fear flickering through your stride
tentatively in wind faltering as you lean
echoing from the void calling you from the deep
steadily to the end anchoring as you land
These are not really poems, they are experiments with meter. I have been trying to learn to read and write metrically, so I thought I would try the most ridic meter I could think of: tetrameter, made up solely of anapests and dactyls, arranged to clump the stressed and unstressed beats together as much as possible. The first one is anapest/dactyl/anapest/dactyl, uuS|Suu|uuS|Suu, while the second is the opposite, dactyl first (Suu|uuS|Suu|uuS).
I was a little surprised by how much easier the first one was to write, dactyls make very poor starts to lines but follow pretty naturally after an anapest, and it is easy to add an "in the" or some such before a noun to make a line start anapestically. The first one also flows a lot better, I think it has a breathless feeling, the lines flow into one another without pause (the lack of punctuation obviously contributes to this, but the effect remains even with proper punctuation). They both feel almost like dimeter, with a natural "break" in the middle of the line, altho this effect is much stronger in the second pattern: That double stress in the middle feels like a spondee and almost begs to be a line break.
Anyway, I now know what everyone else already knew: These meters are not used for a reason. Trying to write grammatically while fitting this pattern is close to impossible, hence all the terrible grammar, weak imagery, and half-baked metaphor in these "poems". I might try the anapest-first version again, if I can think of a more elegant way to get the dactyls in without abusing adverbs. I do quite like the way it all melts into a continuous stream of words, with regular pulses to keep the momentum. Almost hypnotic.