CINQUAINS

august night at p.g.h.

m.d.’s,

carers, interns,

zookeepers and vultures

in a labyrinth of melding

colors.

zombies,

whirling about;

my world, peripheral,

like zebra stripes off a huge wall:

lifeless.

framed sky

abysmal black

blank stares, Janus-faced fate,

in calloused hands with flawless gowns

amen.

thin line:

vanishing twitch…

green strip on black, soundless!

a pink-less rose, withered and stiff

aground.

*  * *

I first encountered cinquains during my college days, and this time around is a sort of rediscovery or a revisit of this relatively quaint format in poetry. For those who are not familiar with this form, a cinquain is a class of poetic forms that employ a five-line pattern, similar to the Japanese tanka. The style I used here is from the modern version invented by American poet Adelaide Crapsey, using 22 syllables distributed among the five lines in a 2-4-6-8-2 pattern.  

I used to write snippets of verses. The activity, albeit brief and spontaneous, can be an excellent source of freedom and a tamed arena for releasing tensions. When I am inspired I scribbled maybe just a line or two that might relate personally to my experience or emotions at that moment. My lines don’t necessarily employ the conventional use of meter, and no rhythm scheme or pattern but bespeak rather of things that I am extremely interested in or passionate about. But this is my first attempt of writing cinquains. 

The above samples are products of random thoughts on verses originally “written” in my cellphones and saved as SMS during the two-week confinement of my wife before her death and the succeeding days when I was in the hospital to accomplish some important documents. The fragments included here are stray thoughts in separate occasions; I just let my thoughts flow and did a couple of drafts after that. And I discovered that some of them are very near to the cinquain format. I only have to revise of them a little, and picked a set of four to complete a single thought.  

So there, and you just to look closely how some unrelated words relate to each other for an imagery. They are so brief for so much commentary!