Driftwood#41: Poetry Prompt

For this issue, I’ll be writing an ae freislighe poem and giving you information on how to write this complex form. Ae freislighe poems are an Irish form, and the name translates to “lying down poem.” The rules for this form are:

1. Quatrain stanzas (4-line stanzas)

2. 7 syllables per line
3. The last words of the first and third lines of each stanza are triple rhymes, meaning the last three syllables rhyme together (xxa). (The Xs are syllables and the As and Bs denote a particular rhyming sound.)
4. The second and fourth lines of each stanza rhyme together as double rhymes. So the last two syllables rhyme (xb).

5. The poem uses a device called dunadh. This is when the final syllable, word(s), or line of the entire poem (not each stanza) must contain the same syllable, word(s), or line as the beginning of the poem.
When this form is diagrammed, it looks like this: (Note that all stanzas need to use the same rhymes.)

1. x x x x (xxa) 
2. x x x x x (xb)
3. x x x x (xxa)
4. x x x x x (xb)

“To All the Things I Didn’t Do”
By: Alkimie Andrews

I have imagination
I am just not attempting
I have no inclination
So nothing is too tempting

I lack the motivation
That is needed to create
I have the innovation
I just can’t substantiate

Not too much deviation
in the quite conventional
I need initiation
I need the intentional

There is some indication
Of my major undoing
I have no dedication
And that is my wrongdoing

The predetermination
I have no destination
A huge abomination
With no imagination