This is a rondeau.
It’s been the hardest so far of this “similarly named poems” portion of our show.
That may be because I used it to let off steam about a conversation I had yesterday. It was actually rather enjoyable, but…damn.

You tell me that I’m not a feminist.
You’re certain that you ‘re right, and you insist
I don’t know my own mind: I probably
Just joined some clique at university
So anything I say can be dismissed.

“Things students learn are useless” is your gist,
And “Headstrong women just like feeling dissed”
Without even a shred of irony
You tell me that?

I feel my hands slowly becoming fists.
I don’t believe that we can co-exist.
By saying that you know better than me
Whether or not I have equality,
You’ve lost this fight, so why do you persist?
You tell me that!

This is a roundel. See what I mean with the names? I quite like the short, repeated refrain. Gives me a sense of bitter disbelief. Which is about right.

You didn’t vote at all, this year
A way to register disgust
With this whole system: steer well clear!
You didn’t vote.

The coalition broke your trust
Their policies strike abject fear
Into your heart, so act you must:
You didn’t vote.

Well, please excuse me if I jeer
I’m pretty sure you yelled and fussed
For social change. Did I mishear?
You didn’t vote.

I’m half way through. I may as well get the free verse over with.
Free verse is the most difficult form of all, in that it’s piss easy to just ramble and bore the reader or listener to death. Good free verse that doesn’t sound like a half-drunk aunty relating the weird and faintly inappropriate dream she had last night is a rare thing.
You won’t find it on this blog.

What you will find is a long, rambling retelling of Johanna Spryri’s Heidi, and her metamorphosis (via Charles Trittern who wrote the toe-curlingly moral sequels,) from dark, curly haired enfant savage to blonde, braided model citizen.

I never learned my prayers
Kneeling beside my granny every night
She mumbled curses
I mouthed the words she spoke
Until she died. Aunt Diete took me in
Unwillingly, the neighbours told each other,
Who’d have the curse-child? The orphan?
Soon enough,
She wanted rid of me, marched me up
The mountain, double-dressed and sweltering.
I pulled my clothes off, danced
Like a she-goat on the crags
Hair curling wildly.
Impish, nymphish, heathen.

In the years that followed
I flourished on the alm,
A goatfoot boy taught me
The secrets of the mountain
My dear, fierce, hawkeyed grandfather
Taught me independence
And I thrived
On goatsmilk, air and nightly burning mountains
Until they dragged me
Screaming
Out of the sunset’s fire
And into town.

There starved of air
I guttered like a flame
Contained in stony streets.
But even as they broke me
I wrought spells upon them
Brought many plagues down upon them
Until at last, haunted and full of guilt
They exorcised my spirit to the mountains.

They sent me back with God and alphabets
Tainting the lovely chaos of my soul.
My fierce and wild grandfather was induced
By me, his little christian sleeper-cell
To beg forgiveness, leave the firey mountains.
The goatboy tied down, taught to read
And threatened into tameness
As I became demure and well behaved.
A wonderful example to us all.
My head of lawless curls grew straight and blonde
They braided me into a model woman.
They gave me husband, children and a home
Down in the village.

But the mountain’s fire
Still burns in me and one day I will dance
Up the mountain
Hair flying
The clothes they make me wear
Scattered on the alm for the goats to chew.
And then I will dance with the goatfoot boy,
Naked once again.

Another Japanese form: a Naga-Uta.
This was inspired by my sister Jude’s 100 Days Of Gratitude blog. I am
Grateful to the Japanese for their wealth of simple and evocative poetry forms.

These things have pleased me:
Sunshine, unexpectedly
Streaming through the glass.
A cat, concealed in blankets
Suddenly leaping
Into ambush attack mode.
Pain au chocolat.
A coffee-chain barista
Encouraging me
To eat all the free samples
Of fresh biscotti.
Rosemary, thick with flowers.
A single starling
Racing along the pavement,
For the joy of it.
Two little girls, 3 and 5,
Telling me “This is
What a fenimist looks like”
Blue eyed Siamese
Crying to be let back in
After a rough night.
Three quite unexpected birds
From a bus window:
Dipper, moorhen, tawny owl.
An old man standing
Outside a cake shop window,
Licking his lips.
I have seen all of these things.
All of these things have pleased me.

Here’s the thing. Englynion are a form of Welsh poem. There are eight distinct types. If I did them all that’d be over a week of poetry forms in the bag.
But they are notoriously difficult to make work in English. In Welsh, apparently, they are poetic as hell, but in English they just… fall flat.
And it’s true. After a few false starts I just decided to go for a really unpoetic subject so at least I couldn’t make it worse. I don’t think I can subject myself or anyone else to seven more of these.
Here’s one, though, based on a horrible anecdote about a well known budget supermarket…

The girl working at the till
Is making me feel quite ill
The way she behaves is filling me
With disgust. Just give me the bill!

I silently beg. But I fail,
As she scans my cheese and kale,
To hold back a despairing wail of dread
As she picks at her teeth with her nail.

She looks up as if to say
“What?”. I ask “Are you… OK?”
She sighs, and tells me “All day something’s
Been stuck. It won’t go away.”

This seems like an overshare.
She tells me “It’s right back in there”
She picks her teeth. I can’t stop staring as
She reaches and pulls out a hair.

I’m horrified, at a loss:
This girl doesn’t give a toss!
In between scanning goods and gossiping,
She’s used her hair as floss.

She continues, unconcerned.
This mental image is burned
Into my brain as I am turned off food.
How can she not have learned

About personal hygiene?
I do not want to seem mean
But I really am not keen to come back.
Unclean! Unclean! Unclean!

The Bop is a poetry form created by poet Afaa Michael Weaver. It’s a bit like a sonnet in that it presents a problem, expands on the problem and offers a resolution. After each stanza there’s a two line refrain.

This poem was directly inspired by this video. Westminster Council should hang their heads in shame.

SCROUNGER

This house is her enemy. It hates her.
Its narrow corridors conspire against her until
Bones shatter against concrete. Her chair
Is useless here, folded in the corner.
She shuffles in slow motion agony
Brought low by this place she has to call home.

Because these so called disableds
Just want an easy life.

If she were a dog, there’d be arrests.
She curls up in her corner on a blanket
Drinks water from the bath tap when she’s thirsty.
The carer puts food down and then leaves her.
Light switches and doorbells are too high, now.
But no matter how she whines,
How many times she sits up and begs,
The government will leave her kenneled there.

Because these so called disableds
Just want an easy life.

Due to the problems we inherited
From the last government, austerity
Is essential to make Britain a safe
Haven in this great financial crisis.
Over reliance on benefits must be curtailed.
We must get tough and kick the cane away

Because these so called disableds
Just want an easy life.

Quick one today, a Trimeric. Apologies to actual witches. This one just sort of flopped out fully formed. I mean the black pointy hat, cackling, broomstick riding type of witch. Not our local pagan priestess.

I wish I knew
Where the cat goes
When he disappears
For hours on end

Where the cat goes
He stays for days.
There is shelter from the rain.
There are cobwebs.

When he disappears
I think he visits an old witch
In a spidery cottage
And she has charmed him.

For hours on end
I wander the streets
And look for my cat.
But the witch has got him.