Poem: New Year’s 2011

New Year’s 2011

It’s time to stick twelve knives in the old guy,
drain blood from bad lusts, burn husks of habit,
drape hopeful names over the new-crowned self:
Me the Active, the Temperate, the Brave–
honors I will drop, deed by same old deed.

About the form

The form of this poem is one I invented, and call the lipquin — for lipogrammatic quintain. The rules:

1. Five lines
2. Each line has the same number of syllables
3. Line 1 cannot contain the letter “a”
4. Line 2 cannot contain the letter “e”
5. Line 3 cannot contain the letter “i”
6. Line 4 cannot contain the letter “o”
7. Line 5 cannot contain the letter “u”

 

Why I don’t write 5-7-5 haiku

Why I don’t write 5-7-5 haiku

Sometimes, to get the
right number of syllables,
one must pad sometimes.

At other times one
must omit expected words
for it come out right.

Of course, I write 5-7-5 poems, but they’re usually not haiku. The 5-7-5 poem (or stanza) has become a vehicle for epigrams in English, and it’s well suited for that.