Pantoum Challenge

I wonder if you are a person who likes a challenge?

Do you like to test yourself and extend the range of what you can do or achieve?

Or are you content with what you can do and keep on familiar paths?

In poetry, there are many different forms and types to be explored. We have already had the villanelle form in a previous blog and this week is an even more obscure and difficult form of poetry called a pantoum.

A pantoum is a poem which has repeated lines from stanza to stanza in a set structure and the final stanza uses two lines from the first stanza, but in a different order!

All this repetition must make sense and hopefully not sound too forced or ‘wooden’.

It is a real challenge; why not step out of the comfort zone and give it a try?

Here is my attempt; you can decide if it hangs together without being too forced or wooden.

 

Silence

Two forces rule the way we use breath;

one is silence and one is speech;

their jurisdiction is birth to death;

there is nothing beyond their reach. 

One is silence and one is speech.

When the young ones come to stay,

there is nothing beyond their reach,

with throbbing noise, all and every day. 

When the young ones come to stay,

their necessary sound is like a backing track,

with throbbing noise, all and every day.

But silence, there’s a disconcerting lack. 

Their necessary sound is like a backing track.

The house is quiet when the children are gone.

But silence, there’s a disconcerting lack,

as unrelentingly, the clock ticks on. 

The house is quiet when the children are gone,

it’s not silent, for cities never are,

as unrelentingly, the clock ticks on

between what lies ahead and went before. 

It’s not silent, for cities never are.

Imagine a silence, it can embolden

between what lies ahead and went before,

drawing out truth, for silence is golden. 

Imagine a silence, it can embolden

the opening of a creaking church door,

drawing out truth, for silence is golden.

Is there a voice to be heard through awe? 

The opening of a creaking church door;

their jurisdiction is birth to death.

Is there a voice to be heard through awe?

Two forces rule the way we use breath. 

Why not take up the challenge? Thanks for reading.

 

David Wilkinson