Quatern

Paul Brookes chose the quatern for last week’s chosen form. The quatern is a French, possibly Medieval, form, four quatrains of 8 syllables with the first line acting as refrain, sliding down one line in each stanza. For modern purposes, there is no set rhyme scheme, but most examples seem to use one, and most use iambic tetrameter to give their 8 syllables a rhythm. It seems counter-intuitive to drop rhyme and rhythm, keeping only the number of lines and the number of syllables per line, but just as an experiment, I wrote a second version of my original quatern, keeping lines of 8 syllables but with no rhyme and no meter. My ear tells me that when all the lines are the same syllabic length, not to let the words fit a rhythm sounds like discord in a classical style of music.

A last rose

This is the dying of the light,
the sluggish slipstream’s muddy blight,
this sliding from the river’s flow,
a fish-mouthed sucking afterglow,

but city sky’s glare-strung, despite
this is the dying of the light,
in ooze that rises frothed with scum,
the boozing, garish, deadbeat drum.

Jerusalem, boots trample on
the faces crying, Babylon!
this is the dying of the light,
beyond lies only endless night.

A rose is dreaming on a stem,
in sun’s last rays a thorny gem,
as petals, crucibled, ignite—
this is the dying of the light.

A last rose

This is the dying of the light,
this sliding from the water’s flow,
slipstream drowning whatever shines,
fish-mouthed, sucking the sun’s goodness.

City sky’s still strung with glare, though
this is the dying of the light,
sinking into yellow-frothed ooze,
the discordant rattle of trams.

They scream, Jerusalem! Their boots
stamp faces crying, Babylon—
this is the dying of the light,
nothing waits for us but the end.

A rose dreams on a thorny stem,
in the sun’s last rays, its petals
cupped, catch the shrinking brilliance.
This is the dying of the light.