Poetry Forms - the Letter A, part 1

[written_leaves]

Poetic forms are rather like little word puzzles to me, and Lewis Turco's Book of Forms is the ultimate handbook for anyone who likes to play with them. I've taken to working my way through all the forms alphabetically (well, skipping the really looong ones like "comic opera" that is), and will share a few of them here. I chose the themes of cats and gardens when I set out, and for the most part I've continued on those lines.

Acrostic: Green Tiger

Green eyes, green leaves
Arranged just so -
Rearranged just so -
Dancing tall, dancing grasses,
Elegant posing,
Nubbled tongue, pink toe.

Taste swaying green buds,
Inch beneath the shade,
Grown sleepy in the sun,
Ever prowling, ever napping,
Runs away.

-
Adonic line:
Curvature query
Whiskery weary.

-
Ae Freislighe: Catspaw

In velvet catspaw is sheathed,
Bright daggers to scratch, to bleed,
Quick beneath its fall is wreathed,
Buttertoes so soft to knead.

Line them up beneath her nose,
No sharper than can delve it,
Lest she never sheathe her toes,
Bright daggers wrapped in velvet.

-
Alba (a song for dawn)

Sweet dawn!
The sun is but a halo,
Brightening on the world's rim:
Lavender and coral,
The clouds lift up,
Silver so bright
After the night,
It makes all nightsongs dim.

-
Alcaic: Tuna

O feline huntress stalking the
tuna-can,
O rubbing dancer, twining the
opener
I, bending downward, receive
caress,
Purringly, eagerly, weakness
confess.

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