Poetics | Michael Pendragon

I like my poetry to rhyme
With meter tight as martial drums
With feet and measure marking time
A rhythmic melody that thrums
In harmony with some eternal scheme

A sonnet strummed by phantom lute
A minuet of mood and tone
An elegy no years can mute
A hymn for Heaven’s ears alone
A whisper’d prayer — a grand symphonic theme

Where iambs vie with anapests
And syntax bends to match the beat
Where albas swell like heaving breasts
Words blend like sighs when lover’s meet
Motifs repeat like pages of a dream

A language fashioned for the gods
That stirs the heart and shakes the soul
Where trochees bow like goldenrods
And panegyric odes extol
Each falling star — each flick’ring candle’s beam

Where dactyls fall like cataracts
Rondelets roll toward each refrain
Couplets embrace while form redacts
Epithets hurl like scattered rain
Heavens unfurl, demonic visions scream

Caesura’s hang like baited breath
Teardrops fall soft as threnodies
Ballads bemoan or blandish death
Pentamic petals catch the breeze
Metaphors merge like ripples in a stream

Sing me but soundly crafted verse!
Capture my heart with quatrains strong
Fetch me a bardic universe
Where ev’ry sentence is a song
And ev’ry roguish poet reigns supreme.

Michael Pendragon is an American writer, poet, editor, and publisher currently residing in upstate New York. He is best known for having published a pair of literary magazines: “Penny Dreadful” and “Songs of Innocence & Experience” (1996-2005). His published works include: “Much of Madness” – a novel; “Into the Night” – collected poetic works (1980-2010). His writings have appeared in “The Romantics Quarterly,” “The Dream Zone,” “The Raintown Review,” “Metverse Muse,” “The Roswell Review,” “Boston Poetry Magazine,” and over 200 others.